Thoughts

29 Sep 2018

“It is difficult to see your thoughts when you are in your thoughts.” -Yong Kang Chan

You enter a room full of people; all of them talking with one another. As your palms begin to sweat, your head swirls with each scenario as they could happen, after you walk into this room. Don’t say something stupid, you remind yourself, but the thoughts in your mind become more crowded than the room you’re entering, and before you know it, your brain has already sent the signal to your feet and you’re now on your way out of the crowded room and back into the comfort of your own home. Your mind: 1 You: 0.

Often times we give in to the things our mind says. Its loud, distorted voice is sometimes the only thing we hear when we get nervous. Just leave, they’ll think you're childish if you say that; stay quiet. You get used to people asking “Hey, are you feeling okay? You seem quiet.” You smile and nod and that always seems to be enough, but no one knows what’s really going on in your head. You’re not really in the same room with these people. Your mind is somewhere distant, being tortured by possibility after possibility. It screams out for relief, anything positive, but you shove it aside and continue to overthink your situation. Negative thoughts are easier to listen to; easier to solve. In the current situation you’re in, it is probably much easier to sit in bed than it is to face the event you’re fatally overthinking. Listening to the voices in our head seems to leave us with the crippling feeling of rejection or loneliness. Drowning in the minds tangled suggestions, you find it easier to sink to the bottom of it all, and give into the thoughts in your head.

The easy way out is not always the way to go. Your mind will often make a fool of you before you even say a word out loud, because it already knows you gave in once before, so why not again? Please understand that you are not defined by what your head says you are. You’re able to change your entire day by simply choosing to swim above the sea of negative emotions. Sometimes swimming is hard, but sometimes people need floaties. Confide in your family, in your friends, let them be your flotation device. Life only gets harder, and sometimes your thoughts are so loud, they become the only thing you’re able to hear. Find the people who are louder than the roar of the waves; for you are not defined by what the voices say in your head.

- Megs