My experiment — and my work — has been to come back into my senses and into my body, and to spend less time trapped in my head. Less over-thinking, less over-analysing. Thought loops are the worst kind of washing machines to get stuck in. I find them exhausting and draining, and the very opposite of being creative or generative.

Why this?
Should I do that?
Maybe this?
Now? Later?
Again and again.

In his book Don’t Believe Everything You Think, Joseph Nguyen talks about the difference between thoughts and thinking.

Thoughts are spontaneous mental events. They arise on their own. Thoughts themselves are not the problem. Everyone has repetitive, or irrational thoughts, and their presence doesn’t mean anything is wrong.

Thinking, by contrast, is what happens when the mind engages with a thought. It’s the act of believing it, analysing it, arguing with it, elaborating on it, or trying to get rid of it.

Thinking is participation.

This is where thought loops are born — the washing machine I described. One thought triggers another, and another, until the mind feels busy, heavy, and contracted.

Put another way:
We don’t get caught by the thought.
We get caught by the conversation we start with it.

That distinction — simple, almost obvious — is why the practice feels so subtle, and why, once seen, it can be genuinely freeing.

What’s helped me most is a very direct practice: recognising when a mental loop is happening. Not trying to fix it or fight it — just noticing it. Bearing witness without believing the thoughts or identifying with them. And then getting present. Getting off the mental train and back into the body.

Where am I?
What does this moment feel like — not thinking about it, but actually being in it?

Here I am.
Meeting the world from my whole self.
From the inside out.
All my senses — one after the other, and all at the same time.

It’s subtle, but it’s been something of a game changer for me. More than anything, the constant thinking-thinking-thinking feels tiring and debilitating. The being-being-being, by contrast, feels quietly empowering.

#alexandertechnique #groundedandcalm #awareness #consciouskindness #confidence