Left unchecked, the mind is kind of a crazy place. We all have voices in our head. Not in the crazy sense. But more in the personal-narrative sense. The stories we tell ourselves.
And those voices talk about everything.
And it makes crap up.
But we're so wrapped up in it, we end up believing those voices most of the time.
Let's eat that entire sleeve of Oreos. We had a rough day. We deserve it.
I'm going to make that wise crack remark to my spouse. Surely this won't cause relationship hell for the next 48 hours.
We're probably going to suck at this new thing, so let's not bother trying it. In fact, let's just not bother trying anything new. Much safer that way.
Buddha called this the Monkey Mind. And we need to tame it. Or it will cause us ruin that they write about in novels.
Or that they don't write about in novels, because we don't end up doing anything worth writing about...
There are two strategies you can use to tame the monkey mind.
You can meditate. Just do it. If you're skeptical, read Meditation for Fidgety Skeptics (real book).
You can also write. Just write everything that's in your head. This is often called a brain dump or a thought dump. It's just about guaranteed you'll feel better at the end.
Keep doing one or both of these practices daily, and you'll get better at not letting the monkey mind take over.
And then you can move on to the more exciting things.