The 'battle' I'm referring to is the one in my head. It's been a day. [I had to go look that up because it feels like it's been two days since I shut off all talk radio in my head.]
Here's what I've noticed so far:
* I've had two really good days.
* But I'm extremely aware of the empty space in my thoughts. I've actually had a headache and I think it's from consciously trying NOT to think too much. Is that possible?
* I slept better.
* I feel more engaged with the world, calmer and slightly less stressed.
This could be the placebo effect - but since I plan to keep at this, let's see what long-term effects look like.
It's hard to control your own thoughts. Dozens of times a day I find myself saying, "Stop the conversation," to myself because I naturally want to fall into a discussion with myself about something and I have to take a beat and remind myself that I do not have to rehash a conversation in my head that I just had with a real person. I do not have to revisit an argument I've been having in my head with someone for five years. I do not have to tell myself something I already know.
I'm wrestling with the fear of having a truly blank mind. I don't want to be a mouth-breathing air head who does not have a thought in my brain ...so it worries me. How functional will I be if I'm not always THINKING a million miles a minute? The thing is, I think there's a difference between constructive thinking (i.e. "Where did I put the card with the doctor's phone number on it? I have to remember to deduct that check from my checking account. etc.) and destructive thinking (i.e. "I can't believe she did that again. Oh my god why doesn't she just get the fact that when she does that she...blah blah blah." or "And then he said...blah blah and I should have said blah blah back but instead I said blah blah blah.")
The bottom line so far seems to be that I can still be highly functional and perhaps even MORE highly functional without the endless diatribe that used to run through my consciousness. I feel like I was expending a lot of energy talking to the committee in my head that had to judge everything every minute of every day and rehash rehash rehash and now I not only have that energy to put toward other things, I also have more time to use in a better way as well. How often would I find myself pausing in a task at hand to have a conversation with myself about stuff that was not important? A lot. I could spend sometimes half an hour just stopped while I went over the same old arguments. Granted sometimes the monologue accompanied a task like making the bed or washing dishes, but often times I was just stopped, in the middle of writing something, in the middle of doing something - because I was busy explaining my own viewpoint to myself.
I worry that my viewpoints won't ever get expressed now - and how will that effect me? Will I become stagnant because I haven't talked out a problem in my head or will I end up yelling at people because I neglected to have the 'rehearsal argument' in my head 20 times before I saw them in person?
Does all this sound slightly insane?
I'm wondering if my taking a step toward calming my mind is making me realize what a nutcase I really am.
Oh, well. I plan to keep at it and see what happens.
I have a feeling I'll be blogging a lot more because all those stopped up words have to go somewhere...
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