Thinking STraight

Thinking straight
Ok, let’s recap where we’ve got to so far on our road-map to real mental health:

1) There’s nothing fundamentally wrong with you. All of your problems are being caused by the backseat driver.

2) The backseat driver is working night and day to fill your heads with needless and frivolous confusions, doubts, worries, criticisms, worst-case scenarios that never happen and a general view of the world as bad, dangerous and nasty.

3) The backseat driver’s greatest achievement is convincing us that he is really us. He talks in our voice, he addresses us as himself, he uses our own phrases and foibles against us.

4) The true essence of a person is not defined by what job they do, where they live, how much money they make, who they love or who loves them, what they succeeded at, what they failed at, or what they look like.

5) A person’s true essence is made up of every thought, word and deed they actually put out into the world, both good and bad. We can only really know what our true essence actually was at the very end of the journey.

Now we have those ground rules set down, it’s time to take a look at what we can do to try to turf that backseat driver out of the car, or at least, to get him muffled enough of the time that we can actually start enjoying our lives a whole lot more. The first thing is to just start noticing he’s there.

Notice what chatter he’s filling with you head with when you pick up the phone to make a call:

“Uhoh, my mind’s gone blank. I’ve got nothing to say. I’m going to sound really stupid. They’re going to think I’m retarded. I can’t the words out properly.”

When you’re browsing in a store:

“That sweater is so pretty. But it’s costs a fortune. It probably won’t look so nice on my anyway. I’m just going to end up looking like some fat version of Taylor Swift if I try to fit into that. I wish my arm-flab didn’t jiggle so much. Man, my legs are so hairy, and I look like a guy. I need to take better care of myself. I can’t do it. I haven’t got the time to work out, I haven’t got the money to really buy the clothes that would suit me. Man, it’s really hot in here, I’m finding it hard to breathe…”

Little wonder you’re finding it hard to breathe in the store! You popped in to try on a sweater and now the backseat driver is having a field day finding more and more reasons why you should hate
yourself and how you look!

He also starts up when you’re trying to decide what new car, or new sofa you want to buy:

“The brown leather looks nice…but it’s scuff really easily…and start to look shabby after a year or two…but it’s got a 10 year guarantee and it’s from Italy so maybe that’s ok…but look at the price they are charging for that! I could buy two sofas for that…and if I make the wrong decision I’m going to have to live with it for years…and I’ll get so blamed if I pick a duff couch…and spend our hard-earned money on something that’s going to look bad so fast…but this company has a great reputation, and it’s got a 10 year guarantee…”

Round and round it goes for days, week, months and for some unfortunate individuals, even years.

Years of indecision, worry and guilt that they might ‘pick wrong’ and suffer the consequences for eternity.

See what that backseat driver is doing here? He’s turning everything into a ridiculously big deal. He’s blowing everything out of proportion and painting a picture of ‘reality’ that is anything but real.

The only way to really attain true inner peace is to stop paying attention to the backseat driver.

Try this: next time he starts up, asks yourself what you’d think if a real person came over to you and started telling you all this stuff. Do they sound balanced? Sane? Rational? Like someone you’d really want to pay attention to and take seriously?

This takes a bit of practice, and the main barrier to starting to put that much-needed distance between you and the backseat driver is to understand that he is not you. Where he came from and what he’s doing in your headspace we’ll get to a bit later on, but for now this is the main work to do:

Stop taking that backseat guy so seriously.