World of Make-Believe

My thoughts had created an entire world inside my head that was just an illusion.  It wasn’t REAL.  I had let my thoughts envelop my life and I was living within them.  My thoughts had become an engrossing movie that I never stopped watching; a compelling drama that had whisked me away from the here and now.  How many times had my obsessing about the size of my thighs or some new wrinkle been so consuming that I had missed my highway exit?  How often had I driven to the store and had no memory of the actual drive? 

Thoughts create a movie in your head that sucks you in.  Just like in a movie, you can lose track of time and everything tangible is forgotten.  In an entertaining movie you forget that you are sitting in a movie theatre or what time it is.  Identically, when consumed by your own thoughts, you arrive at the store with no memory of the drive or you read the same page of a book over and over with no memory of what you read.  In a movie, you react to the story on the screen; you scream when someone jumps out of a closet or you feel sad when a character dies.  You do the same thing when you are engrossed in your own thoughts.  You think about your spouse forgetting to record Jimmy Fallon last week and you immediately feel irritated; you think about your mother criticizing the length of your bangs 5 years ago and you immediately feel irked.  The events on a movie screen aren’t happening; neither are most of the events your thoughts create.

I obsessed for months worried about whether it would rain on my wedding day; not only was that not happening nor did happen but I had absolutely no control over whether it would rain or not.  I ruminated over a client paying me late and created a bleak picture of me not being able to pay my phone bill; the client was delayed in paying me but the late payment had no impact on my ability to pay my phone bill (or any other bill).   I would become totally preoccupied with things I had said in a business meeting that I perceived as stupid; the meeting was well over and seemed to impact no one…. but me.

Instead of living an actual life, I was living in a world created by my thoughts.  Where gaining 10 pounds meant I was a failure.  Where my boss being short with me meant he didn’t think I was doing a good job and was going to fire me.  Where when a friend doesn’t call me back it means she is mad at me.  My thoughts created a world that wasn’t real; and consumed by them, I was missing out on…my life.