Brain Laundry

I was recently diagnosed with severe insomnia. Whenever I try to calm my body, my brain decides it’s the perfect time to fill my mind with thoughts that don’t stop when it’s time for me to sleep.

I just started a program to help with insomnia, but during the day, I have been doing what I call: brain laundry. The brain is filled with thoughts, some light thoughts and some dark. The dark thoughts are those self-sabotaging, negative thoughts that pop in whenever there is an opening on the thought train. Light thoughts are positive thoughts that make us feel good about ourselves. Sometimes, there are more dark thoughts than lights, and vice versa. Discerning between dark and light thoughts is critical to successful brain laundry sorting.

Every day, my brain fills with thoughts. It’s just a jumbled-up pile of thoughts that I sift through and organize when I have a free moment. I am hypervigilant and anxious, so it can be difficult to just let things be. I need everything in its place.

Some people wash their clothes altogether, light and dark. But this way of doing laundry doesn’t always pan out. Dark clothes can cause light clothes’ discoloration, changing the light clothes’ integrity. The same can be said about our thoughts. If dark thoughts are not sorted from light thoughts, the dark thoughts could possibly shadow the light thoughts, impacting your mood and self-esteem. The light thoughts are what gets me through the day. The more light thoughts I have, the less my dark thoughts can control my life.

I want to live a life full of light thoughts, so I must do my brain laundry. Have you done your brain laundry today?