Dan,

I’m sorry for your suffering, and understand how confusion can settle into the mind, and it becomes tough to navigate the maze. Sometimes when we look for things philosophically, we become absorbed in the mind, overlook our senses, and end up lost. Said differently, the maze grabs our attention, and we’re pulled along a roller coaster of thoughts as we try to plot an escape or resolution. A few things came to heart as I read your words.

Consider that the solution to the maze isn’t found in the maze. Said differently, you keep looking for a “thought solution” to guide your way, and all that attention invested in thinking and thinking decreases the amount of concentration devoted to your body. This makes life much harder, because we get in the habit of ignoring our senses… which is where all the information actually is!

For instance, consider two scenarios. In one, you are open, rested and quiet minded. As choices come up along the path, the information that helps us make the choice that is our song or dharma comes in through the senses. Much like seeds in an open field have a better chance to grow, perceptions in a spacious mind have a better chance to inspire wisdom. Said differently, having a clear mind helps us see the situations around us more clearly.

So unfortunately, you’re in a bit of a maze, because you’re trying to think your way to wisdom, which actually prevents the wisdom from blossoming. The good news is, the solution to the maze is you drop the maze. You don’t have to look for an exit, you just move back to the breath, and the cycles cease. For instance, say you see a pretty woman whose style seems appealing. Your mind starts debating: does she seem approachable, are we compatible, do I look OK, in my league, etc etc. That energy is the same energy that was pushing you to talk to her, give it a shot, and see what grows. Instead, the energy of desire splashes back into your mind, spins around, and has an aftertaste such as regret or frustration.

Dropping the maze, or “giving up being entertained by our mind” as my teacher phrased it is about cleaning up the clutter we have in our brain. Yes, the thoughts feel important. Yes, they have gravity. But, without harshness for bucking nature of our mind, we just see the ripples and move our attention back to the breath. To the feeling of air in our nasal area and abdomen.

That being said, if your mind zips along like your post, perhaps before trying to stay with the breath, it would be faster and simpler for you to start with metta meditation. Because of your mental habits, you probably run out of energy pretty quickly. This produces a hunger or agitation, usually rooted in fear, and is most of the pressure behind your searching in the first place. Consider that as we sit with metta, a peaceful, concentrated state of mind devolps quickly and that pressure or thirst diminishes. Consider searching YouTube for “Bhante Gunaratana guided metta meditation” if interested.

Finally, it also helps our restlessness to engage in self nurturing activities. Taking a bath, listening to soft music, walking in nature, playing an instrument… whatever helps your body feel peace. Set down the past, set down the future, and engage, relax, let go, and settle. This helps our peace grow stronger, because we make time and space for it.

Namaste, brother, may your mind find peace.

With warmth,
Matt

I know this reply may not hold any answers or maybe even any help at all. But reading your party really let me know that there is some one out there who is going through the same thought process I do daily too. I haven’t found an answer or a way yet but just like you im getting pretty tired of the feeling of everything I do feeling so ingenuine because I thought of all the motives that coulda made me think the thought. But I hope it helps you a little just to know that there is someone else out there!

I don’t like all these terms like “GAD” that keep popping up, since when is being human and worrying about things, sometimes excessively, indicative of a condition? I get the feeling slapping labels on things that have for a while been considered normal just makes the people that have those labels slapped on them worse.

So let’s assume you don’t have GAD or whatever the latest psychological fad is and go with intelligent, analytical and clearly quite philosophical. I too tend to ponder on the nature of things quite often, or on the thoughts that give rise to thoughts etc…

There’s nothing wrong with doing so; deep thinking, analysing situations, entertaining other points of view and so on. It’s great! It’s insightful! These things gave rise to books, to philosophies, I bet you anything Buddha would have been diagnosed with a whole bunch of mental issues these days. Sitting under a tree and worrying / overanalysing life for days with no food? People in white coats would have taken him away long before he got to reach enlightenment.

So things you might be able to do is:

1) Be occupied with something more productive
2) Be mindful and know when your thoughts are going around in circles (staring at the sky for an hour probably qualifies), sit back and work on just breathing and meditation instead (just not analytical meditation, careful you don’t spend the next week under the sky)
3) Work at being more calm, just by being more self aware (which you already have to be to analyse deeply) and training your mind to calm down, google monkey mind

The one thing that helps me now (ironically I got this originally from overthinking things as usual) is that more often you have to do something and then afterwards you have the time to reflect, most things never go according to plan, no matter how good of a planner you are. Even little things never turn out quite as you expect.

I don’t mean to downplay the issues of people with actual conditions; it’s just getting harder to tell who has one and who is just a victim of the modern trend of labeling first, diagnosing later.

What you’re describing sounds like a perfect case of anxiously worrying. 😉

I have an irrational anxiety of talking on the phone, it’s completely irrational and I couldn’t control it up until I talked on the phone more often. You might call it “phone anxiety” off the bat, I would call it not being used to talking on the phone.

Being anxious can become more of a habit than a disorder, you simply get used to it, much like you can get used to feeling bad about yourself, or keep thinking about the past and it doesn’t help when it’s labeled as an unnatural condition rather than a bad habit.

Over-thinking can feel like one is on a mental tread mill. I know my busy brain can exhaust me. I do somethings that help me. One is “stream of consciousness” writing. I noticed you said you felt better writing it out. When I am in the midst of my manic brain tread mill extravaganza – I write. I sit down with my computer and either set a time limit or a page limit and then I write whatever pops into my head. I just write out my stream of consciousness – even if it makes no sense, even if it is off topic.

As my manic thinking gets put on paper (metaphorical paper) I feel better. I am not sure why but I do. I have made stream of consciousness writing part of my personal emotional health practice and do it most days for either 15 minutes or one page (typed).

The other I do is to write out a root cause analysis that I created combining the quality improvement tool “5 whys” with David Burns work on cognitive behavioral therapy. Basically I pick anything that is bothering me or I am obsessing over and ask “Why is this bothering me?” I write the answer and then ask the same question about what I just wrote. I do it five times and this gives me plenty of material to see how I am thinking. I then identify my thinking errors – like personalizing, black or white thinking, generalizing, http://psychcentral.com/lib/15-common-cognitive-distortions/0002153 – this site lists them -and then I write out a more healthy way to interpret what I am thinking.

All of this helps me to develop better thinking habits and calm down. For me, I have to do this on a regular basis or I start to revert back to my manic thinking.

Good luck. tj