thought patterns

The Circle of Awareness

The Circle of Awareness

Can you think of a time when you felt frustrated when things didn't go according to plan? When you believed that things should be different than they were? This type of thinking is a telltale sign of our very human penchant for obsessive thinking and over-control. Unfortunately, the more we try to manage our lives and control things beyond our control, the more we negatively impact our resiliency and ability to handle whatever arises.

An over-controller assumes that in most situations, there is a problem and that things should be different. When you feel fear about a situation or an outcome (like getting into college or doing well on the SAT) you’re likely experiencing some obsessive thinking and feel a sense of more certainty about your opinions on reality— either wildly inflating or deflating possible outcomes scenarios. I should do well, I prepared so much. I should get a 14XX score this time, at least 30 points better. I should be able to get into X college, they got in last year. This "should" mentality is a barrier to accepting reality, as it argues with what is happening or what could happen. You are, in essence, trying to create your own reality!

Hamlet & Reframing Our Thoughts

Hamlet & Reframing Our Thoughts

As students, you’re likely all too familiar with the age-old question posed by humanities teachers: "Interpret the author's intent” or “interpret the meaning of this passage.” Interestingly, the key to analytical interpretation in English class can offer a key into why turning our attention inward might help us reframe our thoughts and how we respond to various situations.

As Hamlet famously said, "There is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so." In English class, you might need to contextualize a character’s action within the framework of the time period, storyline or relationship with other characters or overarching themes. In essence, you’re trying to make sense of things. Similarly, our thoughts can largely shape our reality, and how we frame a situation in our own minds will determine the intensity and duration of our emotional response to it.

The Wandering Mind

The Wandering Mind

Have you ever found yourself in a situation where you're physically present, but your mind is somewhere else? If you're a human, then the answer is, most definitely, yes! Maybe you walked into another room and forgot why you went there or attended a class but have no recollection of what was discussed. As James Joyce wrote in Dubliners, "Mr. Duffy lived a short distance from his body." While funny to imagine, especially living in the information age, we can often think about our minds needing to carry around this body, which then gets a utilitarian treatment (shrink me, sculpt me, etc., a topic for another time!).

Being disconnected from our present experience can make it difficult to do many things, like manage difficult situations, build resilience, and critically think about our own perspective. A recent study done at Harvard suggests on average, we spend 47% of our time lost in thought. “A human mind is a wandering mind, and a wandering mind is an unhappy mind,” Killingsworth and Gilbert write. “The ability to think about what is not happening is a cognitive achievement that comes at an emotional cost.”

It's not to say you should be present in the moment 100% of the time.

If, Then Stories

If, Then Stories

One of my least favorite Spanish grammar lessons in high school with Señora Nula was conjugating the conditional— “Si salimos ahora, llegaremos a tiempo." At least in Romance languages, cause and effect are built into how we talk and, therefore, how we think. Of course we have this structure because it can be true— if I close my finger in the car door, it will hurt! Yet these thought patterns also often bleed over into how we conceive of the world and our place in it-- "If I do c, d will happen" or "if x happens, then I will feel y"; or "if I feel a, then b is going to happen." What prognostications! If we explore our thought patterns more deeply, we might find that subconsciously, it feels like we have been in situations where there was a causal link when maybe it was just a correlation. We are wired to learn from past experiences how to respond to the future. However, this can serve us very poorly.