When negative thoughts and emotions linger in your mind for too long, it can be detrimental to your well-being. So it’s crucial to be equipped with some tools to help with cleaning up your mental mess.
A study by the University of Reading found that “the longer your brain holds on to a negative event, or stimuli, the unhappier you report being.”
And knowing why your mind makes a mess is the first step to learning how to clean it up.
Why your mind makes a mess
“Are you okay?” seems like such a simple question. It’s either a “yes” or a “no.” But more often than not, it’s neither a “yes,” nor a “no.” It’s a cocktail of thoughts and emotions shaken up into a concoction of what neuroscientist Dr. Caroline Leaf calls “mental mess.”
In her sit down with Vishen on The Mindvalley Show, she explains that “mental mess” is when your mind is filled with toxic thoughts, depression, and anxiety aggravated by our current climate.
The pandemic, wars, and poverty are only a handful of things causing Americans stress. Then, there are social media trends, entertainment promoting violence, “canceling” culture, and a whole lot more that support our anxiety, depression, and stress rather than disabling them.
We’re all susceptible to “mental mess.“
However, when you allow yourself to regularly chug down those thoughts without cutting them off, it can form a habit. And according to neuroscientist Dr. Joe Dispenza, when your thoughts become a habit, they create “automatic programs in the brain and body.”
In an interview with Vishen, Dr. Dispenza explains that “95% of who we are is a state of unconscious or subconscious programs where we’ve done something so many times that the body now can actually do it automatically without the conscious mind.”
So when you’re occupied with other things or sleeping, your mind is constantly on the go.
That’s awesome when you pour happy thoughts into your mind.
Positive thoughts and emotions increase your serotonin, which helps stabilize your feelings of well-being and happiness. This “happiness hormone” also impacts your entire body by enabling brain cells and nervous system cells to communicate with each other. That’s why, when you’re happy, you feel it in your whole body.
However, when you drown your mind in toxic thoughts, that’s when depression, anxiety, and stress enter the picture.
Dr. Leaf suggests that instead of viewing them as illnesses, we should see them as warning signals.
There’s a huge body of research—of which mine is part of that—saying ‘no, don’t see those as mental illnesses. See those as warning signals.’ Embrace them. When you embrace the message, you’re actually going to find the messenger.
— Dr. Caroline Leaf, trainer of Mindvalley’s Calm Mind Quest
And when you do so, cleaning up your mental mess will be easier, you’ll find yourself more resilient to your stress, and self-acceptance is a power you’ll embrace.
Cleaning up your mental mess
Your thoughts are powerful. Believe it. And it’s possible to clean up your “mental mess” and rewire your brain to think positively.
“What I see, for my neuroscientific research in my work clinic all these years, is that we can make that mess,” says Dr. Leaf.
“As soon as we make that mess, if we embrace it, if we stand back and say, ‘Oh gosh, I did this. I did that. It’s okay. That’s not who I am. I’m showing up in this messy way because something’s triggered me. There’s a reason for this.’ You can go into that mode where you can literally observe your own mess.”
And once you’re able to observe and accept your mess, you can work out the root cause and why it triggered you.
Here are five steps you can take to start cleaning up your “mental mess”:
Step 1: Gather
When you’re conscious of things happening to you, be it emotional or physical, only then can you change it. That’s why it’s important to pay close attention to emotional and physical red flags. This includes emotions like anger, resentment, hopelessness, heart palpitations, headaches, and so on.
Step 2: Reflect
Ask, answer, and discuss the red flags you felt. Reflect on them.
Reflection helps bring things into perspective as well as helps you learn, grow, appreciate, and understand. It also shifts your focus from how you reacted to the thought that triggered the reaction, then to the perspective, and then to the root cause.
Step 3: Write
Vomit your brains out on paper, as Dr. Leaf would say. Writing not only helps organize your thoughts but also allows you to visualize them. So write down what you have gathered and reflected on.
Step 4: Recheck
Consider this step as an editing process. Go over what you’ve written in Step #3. You’ll be able to evaluate your toxic thoughts and reactions to them and consider the new healthy thoughts you want to pick up instead.
Step 5: Reach
This is where you practice what you’ve learned from the previous four steps. It’s meant to be something quick and simple to do. For example, it could be a statement saying, “I’m worried because this thing happened and now my heart’s fluttering. But it’s okay to feel like this. It’s normal.”
Dr. Leaf suggests practicing this every day for 21 days. You can find more about it and other practices in her book, Cleaning Up Your Mental Mess.
Awaken your mind
Humans can go three weeks without food, three days without water, three minutes without air… But did you know we can’t even go three seconds without thinking?
Our mind is constantly in “go” mode, even when we’re sleeping.
With all the current events happening, it makes sense that we’re susceptible to drowning in our “mental mess.”
Fortunately, science shows us that our minds are far superior than we give it credit for. We are able to clean up the mess (all OCDers rejoice!).
“Our psycho neurobiology is designed to make a mess in an experimental way and then manage the mess (…) in order to grow,” says Dr. Leaf.
And growth is what Mindvalley is known for. As a Mindvalley Member, you have access to the greatest personal growth teachers around the world, including Dr. Leaf’s.
In her Calm Mind: A Scientific Guide for Managing Anxiety and Depression Quest at Mindvalley, you’ll gain a greater sense of control over your emotions and reactions. And with this newly learned emotional freedom, you can begin to heal and show up as your best self.
