Confessions of a Thoughtaholic: Part II

You think because you don’t understand.
When understanding arises, thinking disappears.
Osho

When we last left the humble narrator he had just experienced the jarring disruption of a life lived on autopilot. Thinking, which was once filled with such great promise, had become a rabid dog about to bite the hand that had fed it for so many years.

Anxiety, for those who have never felt its cold hand beyond the casual “My God what am I going to do about my job, child, 401k?” is a unique experience. It’s like waking up from a dream in which you are being chased by an evil force and your legs won’t move, to find that you are being chased by an evil force and your legs won’t move.

When it comes to the mind, anxiety is essentially worrying about your worries. This vicious cycle revs up the stress response so that one’s body begins to course with adrenaline and cortisol as the body prepares to fight an imagined foe. The mind, having created this menacing phantom, then begins to figure out ways to destroy it. If it were not for the sleeplessness nights, inability to eat, annoying obsessions and near-panic reactions to mundane life events, this mind-charade would be laughable. Sadly, in the throes of any addiction, a sense of humor is one of the first things to go.

Fortunately, I had access to wonderfully caring people who did there best to point out to me that I needed to kick this thinking habit. This, they assured me, would restore me to the moderately compulsive person they knew and loved. With their help I was able to ride out the thought storm and, as the deluge slowed to a trickle, discover the profound truth of the Tao Te Ching; “Stop thinking and end your problems.”

Looking back on the rocky road of recovery, I can now say that the journey did me a world of good. As the famous quote says, “What is hard to endure is sweet to remember.” The sweetness of confronting thought addiction is that one never again takes thoughts so seriously. Once you discover how easily the passing parade of mental noise can turn into a cacophony, (not unlike the shrieks heard on the weeding out stages of American Idol) it is easier to sit back and chuckle. With Simon-like confidence one can even rate one’s own performance:
“Not only are those the silliest thoughts you have ever come up with, they are without any hint of coherence. To say that they are the ramblings of a mad man is to insult raving lunatics everywhere.”

Since no recovery story worth its salt is without a Step Program and a slogan, I humbly offer the following: (I apologize to the 12-Step Program, in my experience most people can’t focus on more than three things at a time and addicts seldom make it past Step 1.)

The 3 Steps
Step 1: Forget your ego
Step 2: Forget Step 1
Step 3: Go back to Step 1

The Slogan

Thinking; it only seems like a good idea.