Why your mind has a mind of its own

Are you sometimes plagued by troubling thoughts? Carolina Mueller, a registered psychologist who specialises in ACT and CBT, explains what’s going on, and why it’s totally normal.

Does your mind sometimes tell you you’re useless? That you’re uncool or unattractive? Maybe you’ve heard it telling you that you’re a bad friend, an average partner or a disappointing child? Sometimes, our minds can have a mind of their own. They are capable of cooking up countless criticisms of ourselves, leaving us feeling anxious, exhausted and overwhelmed. 

Loud, negative mind chatter can have a corrosive effect on our confidence and self-esteem. So what is going on here and how can we turn the volume down on these troubling thoughts? Believe it or not, what’s happening is that our mind is trying to problem-solve. 

Why this type of thinking is hardwired into humans

To better explain this, let’s wind the clock back about 2,5 million years to the Stone Age. In this time, early humans were hunters and gatherers whose key priorities were to source food, find shelter and fend off predators. Failure to stay on top of these necessities could be fatal or result in being cast out from the tribe we belong to. 

Now fast forward to today’s world. Despite our best efforts, we humans largely remain those same tribal beings. Our survival instincts have transcended time and remain hardwired in us. As a result, our mind is on watch 24 / 7 - constantly scanning for danger and generating solutions to problems that could jeopardise our place in the tribe.

Our minds can become our own worst critic 

Our contemporary life may allow us to live in solitude without the existential dangers that existed millennia ago. But our need to reap the social-emotional benefits of belonging to a community, or a tribe, remain. Experiencing a sense of belonging is intrinsic to our wellbeing. We feel good when we belong to something broader, whether that be a friendship group, workplace, sporting club or family network.

So when we feel we might have behaved inappropriately in some way, our minds can quickly become our worst critic. “Why did I do that? What if people think that was weird? What if they no longer like me?” This is our mind’s alarm going off that our position in our community or tribe could be at risk. 

Overthinking, ruminating and replaying past situations is the mind’s way of analysing “the problem”, so it can pre-empt an effective solution. By replaying what we may have done wrong in a past situation, our mind is trying to ensure we don’t repeat this behaviour in the future. By beating us up, our mind is trying to make us a better person. In other words, it’s like an overprotective friend giving unhelpful advice.

Alternatively, we may notice that our mind is worrying about future events, coming up with endless “what if” statements, each of which predict the worst. Notice, our mind is problem-solving again. This time it is trying to anticipate possible outcomes, so we are overly prepared for “the worst outcome”. It is trying to keep us safe. 

What happens when this problem-solving goes into overdrive? 

Our minds are always providing us with useful and important information about how to solve problems, but in times when we feel worried or stressed, our mind can become like a problem-solving machine in “overdrive”. 

When in overdrive, we may find ourselves stuck in our heads, beaten up by difficult thoughts and feelings and unable to engage with the world around us. We may spend hours debating whether these thoughts are true or not, meanwhile missing out on the here and now. Being hooked to the problem-solving machine can prevent us from focusing on what really matters to us, and this can come at a big cost.

How do we work through this?

So what’s the solution to the problem-solving machine? The bad news is we can’t switch it off, because it has a deeply rooted, existential purpose. But the good news is we can learn to distance ourselves from it. We can learn to notice the internal chatter, acknowledge it and reduce the power it has over us. 

The first step is to notice when we are too dialled in to the problem-solving machine and to practise self-compassion as a primary response. 

I invite you to pay attention to your mind’s chatter, to notice when it starts to problem solve, and to remind yourself that your mind is just doing its primary evolutionary function which is to keep you safe. 

The next time you notice your mind telling you that you are uncool or unattractive, can you thank your mind for trying to protect you? Maybe you can reframe your relationship to your mind, remembering that it is not trying to harm you, it is simply trying to help you. Understanding that our minds have evolved to overthink and predict the worst can help to reduce the volume of that voice in your head. 

Life is full of inevitable challenges. It’s how we train our minds to respond to them that matters. If you want to learn more about your mind and how you can better distance yourself from unhelpful chatter, you can reach out to Carolina at any time on her website to book an initial consultation.