Freedom From Overthinking

Seeing the Trap of Time

The simple way to become free from overthinking, is to see how we've fallen into the trap of time.

We've come to believe that what we call the past and future are real entities existing on a timeline. However, they have no reality outside of the present moment. They're simply thoughts about what has happened and what might happen.

Eckhart Tolle said, "Nothing has happened in the past; it happened in the Now. Nothing will ever happen in the future; it will happen in the Now." Consider the wisdom of these words and remember them.

Understanding the difference between clock time and psychological time empowers you to honour life's journey without missing the present moment.

Psychological time is when you get caught up in the past and future, which interferes with your ability to be here now, where life is actually happening. When you play conversations you've had over and over again in your head, or stress about what will happen with your work situation or relationships, you become trapped in psychological time.

Clock time, on the other hand, allows you to function effectively in the world by making appointments, learning from the past, setting goals and planning for the future, all without getting caught up in these things.

Notice when you tend to dwell on things that have happened, or worry about what may happen. Recognise this as psychological time and return to honouring the present moment.

Setting Yourself Free From Overthinking

Great freedom can come through being aware of psychological time. When you realise that you're thinking yourself out of the present moment most of the time, it changes everything.

Our natural state is to be present, to be here now. Actually, there is no other place to be in reality - only psychologically.

What's actually happening is that you're thinking your way out of the present moment. We do it so much that we completely forget about the present moment, and end up living in this realm of psychological time - full of regrets, full of worries, replaying conversations and things that happened over and over again.

Isn't it time we found a better way to live, a better way to use our thought energy, a better way to spend our days?

Understanding psychological time helps you understand yourself and why you create so much unnecessary stress - by reliving things that have already happened or worrying about things that haven’t happened yet, and probably never will.

But with almost everyone living in that way, it's easy to fall into the trap of thinking that it's nomal.

Coming Back to Awareness

Have you noticed that when you become excessively focused on your goal, you lose yourself in the promise of a better future? When you catch yourself doing that, become aware that you're creating more psychological time.

As you notice your tendency to create psychological time throughout the day, you'll spontaneously stop doing it so much.

When you catch yourself dwelling on the past and future, remind yourself: "I'm creating psychological time again," and come back to the awareness of how real life is unfolding right now.

The healthy way to approach goals is to be aware of where you want to go, while honouring and giving your full attention to the step that you're taking in this moment.

It's important to see that this has nothing to do with trying to be positive, trying to change your thoughts, or trying to stop yourself from thinking. All these efforts are forced and usually result in failure and frustration.

All you need to do is notice when you're thinking yourself out of the present moment and come back to now.

Fortunately, we have the capacity to realise when we're creating psychological time. Every time you feel agitated or tense in any way, it's usually a sign that you've been lost in psychological time. As soon as you realise this, you wake up from the trance of being lost and become present immediately because, as we said, this is our natural state.

You always come back to presence. You come back to this moment. You wake up out of the dream of your mind, out of the daydream - whatever you were thinking about, wherever your thoughts carried you away to - you wake up out of that and, instantly, you're present. You're here now, with life.

After all, where else can you be? There's nowhere else that you can really be.

We're so heavily under the influence of our thinking mind, without realising its conditioning, its programming and the way that it works, that we think presence is something we need to try and achieve, that mindfulness is some kind of technique for enjoying life more, or a way to deal with stress. But it's so much more than that.

It's about being who you really are. Discovering your true nature. That you're not that voice in your head.

Your true nature is revealed in presence. You're never more truly yourself than when you're present and not lost in psychological time.

Are you a human being who's lost in memories of the past and lost in imaginings of the future? Is that who you want to be the rest of your life? I don't think so. We want to be happy, don't we? We want to enjoy life. We want to make the most of it.

Here's the action plan:

1. Realise you're creating psychological time

2. Notice you're thinking your way out of this moment

Realising these two things solves the problem spontaneously.

Psychological time robs us of so much enjoyment and life. We're here to live life, not to worry about it, or to be stuck in a past that only exists in our memory.

Every day is new and filled with possibilities and opportunities! Every moment, life is inviting you to be present. Sometimes I think our entire life journey is about simply learning to stay prersent.

If this video resonated with you, you can explore all my offerings on my homepage, or find more videos like this on my YouTube channel.