A Battle Royale – Thinky-Thoughts vs Brain Weasels
Thinky-thoughts and brain weasels defined
Thinky-thoughts originate in the subconscious, usually attached to memory. Another form of thinky-thoughts is not based in subconscious memory, but on your beliefs, values, and habits.
Brain weasels, squirrels in the brain, and the like are chittering voices that will tell you how much you suck, what you’re not good at, and all sorts of similar things that aren’t true. They usually are the spawn of your comfort-desiring ego and often reflect the voices of sometimes well-intentioned friends and loved ones.
Thinky-thoughts, unlike brain weasels, hold kernels of truth. But that’s not the whole picture.
Passive conscious awareness
Everyone is of three minds. One that’s unconscious, one that’s subconscious, and one that’s conscious.
The unconscious mind is purely automated functions of your body.
The subconscious mind is almost entirely run by rote and routine.
The conscious mind is your conscious awareness of yourself.
The conscious mind can be both passive and active. The passive is when you are aware of yourself and your surroundings – but not doing anything to actively engage.
The active is when you practice mindfulness. It’s asking questions about what you’re thinking, what and how you’re feeling, what you intend, and what you are or aren’t doing.
Passive conscious awareness is where thinky-thoughts live. Because while they originate in the subconscious via memory, belief, value, and/or habit – they can only be engaged by the conscious mind.
Unlike active conscious awareness – which connects your mental, emotional, and spiritual with your physical – passive conscious awareness is wholly in your head and heart.
Thinky-thoughts are the road not taken and other uncertainties
Thinky-thoughts might originate in the subconscious with memory, belief, value, and habit. But they’re not necessarily focused on the past. They can also be placed in the present and the future.
They tend to go deep – hence why I call them thinky-thoughts.
What thinky-thoughts aren’t is the here and now. They’re what was, they are alternative notions of what is, and notions and ideas of what may be. But they’re not the present, the here and now, or your true reality.
The rodent thoughts of brain weasels most often chitter, squeak, and cause second-guessing, self-esteem issues, and a sense of unworthiness. They’re obnoxious, annoying, and unkind. And they are not yours – they are lying liars that lie. They’re the growth of seeds planted via outside influences of good, ill, and/or neutral intent.
Employing mindfulness
Active conscious awareness. That is genuine mindfulness.
Mindfulness is active conscious awareness both of your inner mindset/headspace/psyche self and the world around you. Rather than passive and wholly internalized, mindfulness uses your 6 senses to naturally engage and bridge the internal with the external.
All you need to do to employ mindfulness is ask questions that can only be answered in the present, here and now.
When you actively engage your conscious awareness, you can address the thinky-thoughts and brain rodents. Then you can remove them, destroy them, shunt them away, answer them, or do whatever it takes to be present in the now and not mulling these things over. Stop those thinky-thoughts and stomp out those damned brain rodents consciously and willfully.
This week’s Applied Guidance for Mindfulness Tool:
Identifying thinky-thoughts vs brain weasels is easy to do via mindfulness.
Dealing with each takes the same process, though brain weasels are arguably easier to destroy since they are not your creation.
If you have any chittering, annoying notions floating about your mind, sharing doubt and uncertainty that you’re rather sure isn’t yours, those are brain weasels. If you have notions based in subconscious beliefs, values, and habits, or tied to memories – those are thinky-thoughts.
To deal with either, you just need to set-aside 5 minutes.
Spend 2 minutes deep breathing to centered.
Look at the brain-weasel or thinky-thought. Ask yourself:
How does this make me think?
How does this make me feel?
What does this make me feel?
Is it mine, or an outside influence?
Asking and answering these, here and now, tells you what you’re working with. And from there, more active conscious awareness – mindfulness – will let you make change to address, remove, or otherwise deal with these.
Repeat as necessary.
Blogs: titaniumdon.com and mjblehart.medium.com
Original cover art artist Fe Mahoney: https://www.etsy.com/shop/TaliasInspirations