Our family is learning thought management from the oldest to the youngest. When inappropriate, illogical, strange, or depressing thoughts come into our minds, we have a few techniques. To handle “junk thoughts”(that every person has) we learn to quickly categorize them as either funny or unimportant.
This works: A bizarre thought comes, and instead of dwelling on it, we quickly categorize it as funny or unimportant and move on. It’s a filing system for the brain. It’s like you dump the thoughts (which we affectionately label “brain hiccups”) into the funny or unimportant garbage can.
Another way to handle a distressing thought is this: Don’t give it feet. That’s my husband’s expression to help me refuse to authorize or enable thoughts I don’t want to have. I imagine the thought with little feet that get to walk all over my brain and therefore my life. Instead, I don’t give the thought feet.
It’s a funny little expression! So, in summary, I’m learning to move a thought I don’t want into a category of first, funny or second, unimportant. Thirdly, I don’t give it feet.
We’re learning that we aren’t our thoughts. Thoughts come that we cannot control, so we learn to shuffle them away and move on into our glorious day.