Metacognition: Thinking about our thoughts
Day 12 / 365
When you are stressed or tensed about something, people love to say things like
“Just don’t think about that stuff! divert your mind”
“Don’t think negative thoughts, try and focus on something positive”
What they don't understand is that sometimes we are not in control of our thoughts. You would overthink, usually bad thoughts. Bad thoughts lead to bad feelings. Our brains would then try to make sense of everything. We would start believing that what we feel is actually what's real as well, and that would lead to more bad thoughts. The vicious cycle goes on.
It's hard to then just stop your thoughts and think of something different. However, there is something that you can do.
We are also capable of thinking about our own thoughts. Being aware of your own thoughts is known as Metacognition. Why is it relevant? As it turns out, if you can become aware of your thoughts, you can create a distance between yourself and them, and that reduces their power.
In a lot of meditation techniques, we are taught to observe our thoughts just like you would look at the traffic on the road sitting on your balcony. When you are having these thoughts, label them, acknowledge to yourself that you are aware of them, and let go.
You could use sentences like this to get even more distant from these thoughts
“This is me overreacting to something”
“This is me feeling sad”
The power of any thought is in how much we buy into it. If we take a step back, we would see what that thought really is, and the effect it would have had on your mood would be greatly reduced.