How to Stop Overthinking After a Betrayal

When we get hurt and let down by others, the pain we feel lingers on long after the emotional event took place. These traumatic moments in our lives take up a disproportionate amount of our mental space. If we have too many of these moments in our lives, their mental real estate can consume us. It can take all our effort not to let those experiences define us and shape us.

In today's podcast, I talk about how we can get out of that mental narrative. We can learn to leave bad moments in the past, we can let the future unfold  effortlessly as it always does, and we can create a new story that centers on the kindness and love in our lives instead of the hurt and pain.

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Transcript

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Welcome to path to peace with Todd Perelmuter. I'm your host, Todd Perelmuter our world is a projection of our collective consciousness, the more peace we bring into our lives, the more peace we bring into this world. So let the transformation begin. The human brain is a bit like a dark cave. And everything we experience, everything we see and hear is like the outside world entering that cave. And when something very traumatic or eventful happens in our lives, we can kind of picture that like someone throwing a bouncy ball into our cave. And it's going to bounce and ricochet off the walls, long after the experience happened. This is the minds way of making sense of what happens. And when something is really confusing or upsetting, then it tends to draw our attention into it, and we fixate. And we essentially are playing Hot potato with that bouncy ball, and we're keeping it in the air every time we think about something. And the more we keep that ball bouncing around the inside of our minds, the less we are present, the less we are living in reality. And we are suffering an endless mental story that is repeating and repeating because we lack clarity. And understanding. This is really the heart of when we fixate on something, when we feel like we're betrayed. What we're really doing is grasping for understanding. And when we don't have it when we can't grasp, when we don't understand how a person could treat someone this way. Or we don't understand how someone can toss someone out of their lives so easily. Or we don't understand how someone can be so cruel to another person. And so that is the recipe for this obsessing, fixating, Misery generating downward spiral, we find ourselves getting sucked down. In the present moment, everything can be wonderful, there might be a sunset, there might be just a peaceful moment of quiet downtime. And instead of relaxing, and enjoying the moment, we are reliving the worst thing that recently happened to us over and over again. And from an outside perspective, we would say this person is torturing themselves they are, it seems choosing to relive this horrible moment. And even though when it's happening to us, we don't feel like there's a choice. We feel like this, these thoughts are happening to me. And we don't have a choice in the matter. And all we can do is follow those trains of thought wherever they take us usually to someplace terrible. And we believe that story of suffering, in our mind so strongly, that we can not let go until naturally something else takes our attention. Or we sleep and we wake up and we kind of forgot that we were in that and so we seek out ways to force us out of our mind. And for many people that's drugs and alcohol for other people, it's work or any kind of other escapist activity. And this is the cause of so much compulsive behavior in our society because we don't know why. We resist a moment of stillness why we can't stand to be with ourselves in our thoughts for two seconds. We just know I love to always be on my phone or I need to always be entertained, or I need to always be working or have this substance. For most of us, we find that When there is some stillness when there is a moment of reflection, hopefully, it doesn't require you to forget your phone at home or for your phone battery to die, or you're in the forest, and there's no Wi Fi signal. But whatever that moment is, whenever you can find a moment of stillness, it's normal for those negative thoughts to come up. And it's normal to want to escape. And that is why I was even given that question of how can we stop overthinking after a betrayal. But it is not the silence and stillness that cause those thoughts, those negative emotions to come up. It's the constant doing of things that prevents those feelings from being felt, being observed, witnessed, healed, and processed through. And so when we escape our feelings, when we don't heal them in a healthy way, those negative thoughts will always be under the surface. And we will always be a slave to addiction, escapism, or

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depress depression. If we want to break free from unconscious negative thinking, we have to do two things. Number one, we have to become hyper aware of our thoughts of our mindset of the energy, if it's positive or negative, if it's making us joyful, or if it's making us miserable. And it sounds silly to think that we're not always aware of our thoughts. But if you you know, tried to think of what you were thinking about five minutes ago, you probably have no idea. And if you wanted to think about what your next thought will be, you probably have no idea because these things pop into our minds out of nowhere. And they are an expression of our subconscious and unconscious minds that have come to our conscious awareness. When we are unconscious of our thoughts, we let them dictate our behavior, the impulses and desires that come into our mind, most of the time we act on without thinking. And this is an example of that thinking without awareness. When we are aware of our thoughts, we have a higher wisdom that can decide whether to listen to those thoughts, to obey those thoughts and believe those thoughts, or to just witness those thoughts. Without taking a stand for or against anything that comes up within ourselves. We don't have to be for or against ourselves, we can just be ourselves. But when we are constantly doing things, with no awareness of our internal state, we are not mindful of the entire situation. And we've lost ourselves in the situation. This is how we lose ourselves in a train of thought. And we forget that instead of being present and peaceful, we get sucked into these thoughts, storms that disturb our inner peace. And any awareness of ourselves disappears. And often awareness of our surroundings disappears. Because that voice in our head is kind of like if there were a person always talking in your ear, it would be very difficult to hear anything else or to pay attention to anything else, until we reach a level of mindfulness and a level of awareness where we can direct our focus with total control. And this is really that skill of mindfulness. And this is the skill. That is the second step of getting out of that mental trap. The first is awareness of our thoughts. And the second step is developing that skill of directing our focus and attention. Thoughts are very strange things in the sense that they happen unconsciously and unintentionally. And when I say unintentionally, I mean they go against what we know is in our greatest, highest good, you know, we'll it'll say eat this junk food, it'll say, Don't worry about sleep tonight, go have fun, you know. But simultaneously, our brains are able to think intentionally and consciously. Now, we are not good at this, no one has really taught us how to do this. And we don't practice. And so we don't even trust those conscious, intentional thoughts, as much as those negative, self critical, unconscious unintentional thoughts. Even though our conscious thoughts, those affirmations, when we say, look in the mirror and say you're doing great, we have a harder time believing those because we have so much more time associated and identified with that inner critic. So it is essential that we spend time practicing, thinking intentionally. So not just trying to clear our mind and meditation, which isn't really the goal of meditation anyway, it's to actually just observe something with great focus and concentration, like your breath, your thoughts, a mantra. But we need to even take that one step further. So we're not just emptying our mental cave, we want to fill it with great stuff, the stuff we love, the beautiful nature flowers, this metaphor is getting away from me, but we want our minds to be planted with beautiful flowers. We want to nourish those positive seeds, with love and affection. So that those seeds of happiness, those seeds of love, and gratitude, can grow, and we can weed those plants of fear, anger, greed, and hatred. And this is how we create a peaceful, beautiful home inside of us. So that wherever we go, wherever we are, we feel at home, it's not a place. It's not a building. It's every step you take. And the more mindful we are, the more aware of the beauty and miraculous nature of this universe. The more we soak it all in, it's like creating a skylight for our cave. Because the more we look out and truly see without labels, without stories, and we see reality as it really is, then we are taking in all that light in it is all coming to us because we don't have these clouded, dirty glasses on. And that really is what being lost in thought all the time. is like, it's like wearing dirty glasses. And the more that we witness that inner monologue, and the more we notice how it comments on everything, like, oh, I don't like this, I hate this, this sucks, or, you know, even this is great, that's great. I love everything, you know, whatever that story is, it all gets in the way of what's happening in front of us. But we have to recognize those thoughts, those little critical opinions. And we have to notice that emotion that gets attached to it when we lose ourself. And the more we notice these thoughts, how they attach to emotions, how they have an energy infused with them, we begin to see how these thoughts disturb our minds create tension in the body, that can manifest as physical ailments, and we can shift those negative thoughts to positive ones. And the more we do that, the more we notice what triggers those negative thoughts, and then we can anticipate what will trigger those negative thoughts. You know, we cannot anticipate that some people will treat us badly And we can tell ourselves in our mind before that happens, that the kind of person who would betray someone else has probably been betrayed. We can know, intuitively, and deep down that when people treat others with cruelty, their mind says that this is a cruel world. This is appropriate behavior. And so the correct response is an anger, obsession, or fixation. The wise response is compassion, empathy, and sympathy. This doesn't mean you have to express these things to the other person, we can see on the news, a story of someone, and we can feel empathy, so we don't have to show it. But feeling empathy, feeling love and compassion is a much greater feeling than a

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self focused, sad story about what happened to us. Because as soon as we think of the other person, our mood improves drastically, because we disappear from our focus and attention. And so there is a peace and stillness in this very profound, neutral state where there's just so much stillness, because 100% of our energy and attention is of compassion, towards others. selflessness is the most selfish state we can be in because it is enlightenment. We stop existing, and there is only the oneness of the universe. separateness fades away. And all there is, is this flowing, changing energy. Now, some people think that this means we suppress our feelings, and we repress them, we stuffed them down, and we try to ignore them and look the other way. But that is the opposite of mindfulness. Mindfulness means awareness. And what that means is we look at what we're afraid to look at. And usually that is painful memories, traumatic experiences, and the things we fear most. And so this is very important that we feel everything, look at everything, work with everything, and bring all of our negativity and sadness into the light of consciousness. Because it is that loving light of consciousness, which heals all wounds. So yes, we want to feel we want to experience those feelings. But we also have a choice. And that choice says, We can obsess over something forever, or we can let it go. Now, letting a go, doesn't mean holding on and pretending it's not there. Letting go means we 100% Let go. We 100% Forgive, because if we're only 99% forgiving, we're not forgiving, and that anger and resentment we hold will one day be triggered, but it will always be under the surface. And so that is what we mean we look with love until we can let go and forgive simultaneously. We want to practice, nurture and develop that ability to focus on the positive and we may have decades of negative thinking as a habit that we have built up and it may not be super easy at first, but that inertia of negative unconscious unintentional thinking can be reversed. And what we do is we as much as we can, whenever we are present and mindful of our thoughts, which we are already starting to practice and develop, being mindful and being fully present when we're eating, brushing our teeth, and going about our day. The second thing is to think positive. And we do that by not deluding ourselves. We don't tell ourselves lies. But we take control of that thinking mechanism in the brain, and we direct our attention towards positivity. So what that means is, when we're in the car, when we want to yell at a driver who cut us off, we instead catch ourselves. Notice those thoughts of, you know, how could that guy be so stupid, and instead, look for something positive, even if it's catching your thoughts, because that is always a positive. And so mid thought, after the thought, whenever you catch yourself, we can laugh at how we lost ourselves to emotion and thoughts, how we lost a moment of presence, and how beautiful it is to catch ourselves and come back. I'll leave you with one final thought. It's important to remember that when this confusion and frustration happens when someone treats us in a way that shocks us when someone we've been very close to hurts us. And we get into that state where we are spending days and weeks asking ourselves how could someone be so hurtful. It is important to remember at all times, that people are different. People are going through things. And the world is not a place right now, where everyone is being loving, kind and generous to each other. This is for numerous reasons. And they include fear and scarcity. They include greed, and competition, and many things that are outside an individual's control. All we can do is be the kind of people we want others to be. When others show you their true colors. There is no other response except gratitude for them, letting you know what kind of a life experience they're going through at the moment. You can then create distance and a safe distance from these people. You can share a kind or loving word, if you feel that you may be able to make a difference. But by you staying loving and generous and kind and true to yourself. You will find the people that weren't right for you, for which we are grateful. And we can move on and find those peoples who have healed their generational trauma who have nurtured their loving kindness. And slowly but surely, if we all work together towards helping when we can. not hurting when we can't help. Eventually we will live in that world where everybody has their loving nature. flourish. All it takes is for us becoming mindful of what we're doing and compassionate in the way we do it. You've been listening to path to peace with Todd Perelmuter. Being here and putting in the simple urgent and noble work is one of the greatest gifts you can give yourself and others. If you found this podcast even a little helpful, please make sure to leave a review so it can reach others who may be in need. And remember, the path to peace starts with a single step.