A concept an old supervisor shared with me many years ago was the mindfulness concept of The Thought Train which is a great tool to help with a chaotic anxious mind especially at night.
The Thought Train is a metaphorical tool for observing our thoughts.
Your thoughts are like trains
The “train of thought” is quite a vivid metaphor to describe the movement of our thoughts. Some thoughts carry very little weight such as, “What shall I have for supper tonight?” they do not evoke any emotional reaction, however other thoughts carry huge weight and can cause anxiety or depression “I can’t sleep and that means I will tired for my interview tomorrow, which means I won’t get the job and my children will go hungry”!
Our minds are active constantly forever chugging along and to count every thought we had every day would be impossible.
Imagine your mind is a train station
If our thoughts are trains then our mind is the train station. Every thought we have whether difficult or breezy have to pass through our mind. Our mind much like a station has the potential to take us anywhere we want but it’s also a chaotic, noisy busy, and overcrowded place. It is easy to become overwhelmed, anxious and distracted.
Don’t jump on the first train
When we’re particularly anxious our mind can easily become overloaded and it is tempting to jump on whichever thought turns up first. In metaphorical terms we panic and jump on the first train to arrive in our mental train station with very little thought about if that train is headed in the direction we want to go.
How many times have you wound up ruining a Sunday by filling it with thoughts about work on Monday? You may have jumped on the wrong thought train and ended up spiraling down a tunnel filled with anxious or depressive thoughts? Ultimately our thought provoke emotions so if we keep getting on the wrong train we will keep ending up with undesirable emotions.
Would you jump on the first train that arrived at a real station?
Would you jump on the first train that came into a station regardless of the direction it was taking you in or would you turn up prepared knowing the route you needed to take?
How about you start to choose which thought train you would like to engage with?
You can choose to ignore the trains of thought that are not useful to you and seek out the train that will take you to your desired destination be that peace, sleep or simply presence.
With a little practice you can learn to sit on the platform at the train station and watch the thought trains come and go and you can choose to let them pass. Why not give it a go?
If you would like some more help with this please do get in touch. I am a qualified Integrative Counsellor and a Certified Counselling Trauma Practitioner based in Tunbridge Wells and online with experience of working with depression, anxiety, self-esteem issues, BPD, bereavement.
Michelle Brown .dip.couns. CCTP MBACP