When Your Thoughts Feel Stuck

Hi.

Have you ever noticed how minds can get really sticky sometimes?

With loops of thinking that go around and around and around.

And the more we try to escape them,

The more sticky they seem to become.

And it can feel quite exhausting trying to figure out how to get out of the loop.

And we all know that what we resist persists.

And this is such a good example of that.

And a really good metaphor for this is this simple toy.

It's a kid's toy.

It's called a Chinese finger trap.

And when we put our fingers in,

You might have seen one of these before,

It's this little woven tube.

And the more we pull our fingers apart,

The tighter it grips.

And this is how it can feel with our thinking.

The more we try to escape the thoughts that we don't want to think,

The tighter their grip is on us.

And instead,

If we counter-intuitively move in towards our thinking,

Our thinking lets go of us,

Just like with this Chinese finger trap.

So I invite you to consider that instead of resisting your thinking,

Instead of trying to fix your thinking,

Instead of trying to escape from your thinking,

What might it be like instead to lean into your thinking?

To breathe and become present and be with your thoughts without trying to fix them,

Without making them wrong,

Without resisting them at all.

There's something about this leaning in that feels so odd to most of us,

That actually helps to free up so much more than we can possibly imagine.

So my invitation for you,

If you are interested to try,

Is to consider leaning into your thoughts,

To not pull away,

To not try to fix,

And instead notice what's going on in your mind,

Gently,

Kindly,

With compassion,

And notice what shifts when you do.