Creating Mental Space in a Crowded Mind
Anybody else finding their memory not as good as usual?
Struggling to finish seemingly simply tasks? Feeling overwhelmed by things that would normally be relatively easy to cross off the to-do list?
I am not my usual self. It is probably the relative isolation. I am a very social person. My happy place has always been with a microphone, a stage, a crowd, a class, a dance party, pretty much anything with a big group of people. And I haven’t had that for half a year now. So I am feeling a little lost.
But it is more than that.
Thinking about things takes a long time and a lot of energy. I’m not even talking about big things. Just little things. Did you set the alarm? Did you switch that load of laundry? Did you lock the garage door? That kind of thing. These kinds of thoughts run quietly in a just-barely conscious part of our minds. We don’t think of them regularly. They just kind of float around back there, taking up space but not interfering too much with the enjoyment of our daily lives.
But what happens when those background thoughts start occupying more space? What happens when it is not just locking the garage door, but wondering if you are taking the right steps to protect your family from a pandemic? When the news shows you videos of people being shot and killed by the police on a regular basis? When your financial future is thrown into doubt? When climate crisis looms?
We simply do not have space to worry about these things all day every day. They need to be placed in your background thoughts. Right beside remembering the buy more oat milk.
That low-level background noise of thought starts getting louder and louder. Taking up ever more precious space in our minds. It is like being in a crowded pub. One table starts talking more loudly, so the one next to needs to increase their volume, so the music gets turned up. Next thing you know everyone is shouting and you can barely hear anything at all.
It is the reason I avoid crowded pubs. I was ahead of the pandemic that way.
Our creativity and enjoyment of the simple things in life are curtailed in environments like that. Nobody notices the feel of fresh air on the inside of their nose in a crowded pub. Nobody enjoys the rhythmic pulsing of their heart or the way the leaves shimmer in the sunlight when they are being bombarded with loud music and shouting. And, very often, that shouting is happening inside our own heads.
We can’t even just get up and leave the pub. The shouting follows us around. All day.
We are holding a tremendous volume of information and weighing hugely important decisions that will impact the future of ourselves, our families, and our communities. The weight of all that information can be debilitating. Depressing. Anxiety-inducing. Brain-fogging. Overwhelming.
For what looks like no reason at all, sometimes it is hard to do even the simplest task. But that is because you are already doing something that 100 years ago nobody would have dreamed possible. You are watching the world change in real time. You get the play-by-play and in-game analysis. No wonder you are tired. No wonder things fall through the cracks.
Let’s talk about solutions.
First off, these are not individual issues. These are social issues and require social solutions. You cannot, as an individual, create the kinds of changes required for us to live in a better world. You cannot cure the pandemic alone. You cannot end racism. You cannot solve poverty. So you need to do two things:
- Give yourself some slack. Yes, you should recycle. But putting a plastic bottle in the garbage is not killing the earth. The corporations (social organizations, not individuals) that profit off those bottles hold way more responsibility than you.
- Organize. We need help but also need to provide help. We are a social species who have been cast into a world of small social bubbles and nuclear families. Our mental and physical health requires that we engage with a larger community of people. We can do it virtually — but we need to do it.
In the short term, create more space in your mind by regularly stopping what you are doing and noticing what is happening now. You can call that meditation if you like. But you don’t need to meditate. You can also just stop and listen to the wind. Watch the clouds. Feel your jaw. Notice your thoughts. This will contribute toward not letting that background noise take up all your mental space.
Think of it like cleaning your house. Clutter accumulates without any effort at all. We need to consciously de-clutter or it continues to accumulate until we have a chaotic, messy house where we can’t find anything when we need it.
Mental clutter also accumulates without any effort. We need to consciously de-clutter our minds in order to create mental space such that we can think, create, love, and allow ourselves to be. Just to be. Being requires space.
In the long term, we need to create social and political changes that make this kind of de-cluttering more accessible to more people. It is a privilege to be able to stop and reflect. When our nervous system is in a sympathetic overload and fight/flight/freeze has taken hold, meditation is no longer possible. We cannot ask people fearing for their lives to stop and smell the roses. That is the modern equivalent of let them eat cake.
We live in a world that does not support peacefulness, stability, and serenity. Capitalism is, by its nature, volatile. The market pitches and shifts between booms and busts while accumulation intensifies and inequality deepens. This is not an accident. It is not broken. This is exactly what this system is designed to do.
You do not need to start waving red flags and romanticizing the Soviet Union and Cuba. That is the past. The future is something completely different. The socialism of the future will not look like the socialism of the past. It will look like us, but a different version of us.
It will look like a version of us without the stress of losing our jobs and our homes written in the wrinkles and creases of our eyes. It will look like a version of us who genuinely care about each other and are relentlessly committed to ensuring that everyone has everything they need.
Back to the short-term though. It is ok to be stressed out. It is ok to cry. It is ok to tell the people you love how scared you are. You do not need to be a rock. You are not an island. Talking about all the worst-case scenarios you have been busy building in your mind will help you to let go of them so they stop occupying so much of your precious mental real estate.
Create space. Consciously and with deliberate intent. Create space in your life for periods of quiet reflection and simple enjoyment. Drink your coffee with appreciation. Hold your partner with affection. Inhale with gratitude. Exhale with surrender. These moments will not create themselves.
