‘Ninety-nine per cent of your thoughts are a complete waste of time. They do nothing but freak you out It’s as though there’s somebody in there with you … a ‘roommate’ … [that] never shuts up… Real growth is about getting out of this predicament… first, you have to realize that you’ve been locked in there with a maniac...’ – Michael A Singer
Author Michael Singer managed to animate what we all experience when our minds run rampant, referencing the never-ending stories we constantly tell ourselves as our resident mad-roommate. Psychologists call it ‘monkey-mind’ because at such times, our thoughts are about as useful as a room full of drunken monkeys reeling about.
| - The heaviest burdens we carry are the thoughts in our head - |
They say we run through some sixty thousand thoughts a day. The question is, ‘Do we need to?’ How may of those thoughts are worthwhile? How many of them are damaging and useless?
When we don’t pay attention while we’re brushing our teeth, or mowing the lawn, what’s happening in our heads? It’s not quiet, is it? Aha, perhaps you’ve suddenly recognized your ‘mad roommate’! Singer coined the expression because if we saw someone walking on the street talking constantly, would we believe everything said? Similarly, we don’t have to believe all the thoughts going round like a hamster-wheel in our head!
Science of the Mind
For a more calculated, scientific angle, author Daniel Goleman elucidates how the brain can be changes from the ‘default mode network’, which describes how the brain maintains its activity level even when nothing is going on:
‘Although the brain makes up only 2 percent of the body mass, it consumes about 20 percent of the body’s metabolic energy as measured by its oxygen usage and that rate of oxygen consumption remains quite constant no matter what we are doing – including nothing at all. The brain, it seems, stays just as busy when we are relaxed as when we are under some mental strain … While the brain engages in an active task, whether math or meditating, the default areas calm down as those essential for the task gear up and ramp up again when that mental task finishes … In short, the mind wanders mainly to something about ourselves, all the minutiae of our life story. Our default mode continually restricts us to a movie where each of us stars, replaying particular favourites or upsetting scenes over and over again.’
It's in that default mode network, when we’re not directing our thoughts, that Singer’s ‘mad roommate’ character takes over. All we need to do is remember that we don’t have to believe all our negative, self-defaming, thoughts.
Stillness Speaks
On the opposite end of stillness, is stress and anxiety. Stillness of the mind and spirit facilitates the inner peace we all aspire to. The good news is that we can achieve stillness no matter what’s going on in our lives or the world around us and that’s the transcendence of it all.
Without us consciously stilling labyrinthine thoughts, our mad roommate rhetoric runs non-stop, like the ticker tape at the bottom of News channels.
- ‘It’s not the things that happen to us that are upsetting, but the view we take of those doings.’ – Epictetus
- ‘Don’t believe every worried thought you have. Worried thoughts are notoriously inaccurate.’ – Renee Jain
Stillness only ‘speaks’ when we allow nothing to impact our inner peace. When give our attention to positive thoughts, experiences and successes, they can become louder than the stress-inducing negative, fear-mongering thinking that happens when we don’t.
How to Still Your inner Voice
In a word? Mindfulness. While some of our daily tasks and routines are performed on ‘automatic pilot’ as it were, it has been shown that when we allow ourselves to be present and do them mindfully, the less space we give for overthinking.
We don’t have to identify with the suggestions coming in from our mad roommate. the trains of thought that mess with our equilibrium are usually those either be rooted in the past – the mistakes we made, or in the future – the worst-case scenarios we drum up.
We only exist in the present, the Now, as some call it. Sure we’re here because of the way we came, so past factors have an influence, but the more we let them pass by rather than hold onto them and rehash them over and over in your heads, the less stressed we will be. And sure, we need to plan ahead for stuff, but creating fear dramas does not prepare us to handle things better.
The best platform to spring into action from is wherever we are at the time action is needed. So still that inner voice, by not believing it, and by zero response when it muscles in on your day or your conversations.
In summary: don't believe all your mad roommate says, make positive thoughts weigh in with greater authority than negative ones. Watch your stress levels drop significantly and see how much better you handle crises when they do actually arise.
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Disclaimer: This article is for informational purposes only and does not constitute professional medical or psychological advice. Please consult with a qualified healthcare professional for personalized guidance.
