Pouring jet fuel on an already burning building…

 “You don’t have to control your thoughts, you just have to stop letting them control you.”
                                                                   (Dan Millman)

Last week, I picked up the book “Chatter” by Ethan Kross after a particular stressful few days of dealing with life’s speed bumps. That nagging, negative voice in my head was uncontrollable despite doing all the things I normally do to set my emotional equilibrium to a balanced space. I had to dig deeper to get a better understanding of this “chatter” in my head.

According to Ethan Kross, an awarding-winning professor in the University of Michigan’s Psychology Department and Ross School of Business, our inner voice has a purpose- helps in childhood development, aids in evaluating ourselves in moving towards a goal, reasons logically and multi-tasks, to name a few. However, when the voice starts playing a recording of negative, destructive verbal thoughts we wind up with chatter. 

And chatter is a MONSTER.

It is not there to help you do anything positive. In fact, if the dial of chatter is turned all the way up, it morphs into destroying your physical and mental health, and can adversely affect your social life.

I know this because it happened to me.

Remembering a time in my life that I count as one of the most stressful moments, I leaned into the chatter. I couldn’t seem to pull myself out of the negative thoughts and the spiraling escalated at a even faster rate.

So, what did I do to stop it? I poured jet fuel onto an already burning building.

I couldn’t see past the negative thoughts and emotions and I said something to a friend that was hurtful which severely damaged the relationship. It’s not easy to rebuild after that kind of fire, but little by little the relationship began to regrow.

There are tools I gleaned from this book that one can employ when the chatter takes over. Tools that upend the spiraling and allow one to return to a more relaxed, functional, and healthy place.

And as I was pondering this concept, I thought of other times in my life where I may have added an accelerator to the burning fire.  Maybe lifting too much weight or doing too many pull-ups in a workout because I was already having a frustrating day and, hey, why not? Burn it all down. And next thing I know I have an injury that sends me to physical therapy for eight weeks.

Have there been times in your life where you added an accelerator and the result was not a good one? If so, how about learning how to pour water on the fire instead?