What's really going on?

Have you ever found yourself so upset, irritated or annoyed by something or someone it is like they have moved into your head and you can’t stop thinking about what happened? Maybe you keep imagining “what you’d really say to them” or you are consumed with reciting a litany of how what they have done has hurt you.

This is a form of obsessional or circular thinking. It keeps hurt, pain, angry and grief alive within you and prevents you from letting go and moving on.

The thing is, when we get stuck on these thoughts, they are rarely the source of our anger and pain.

They are surface things that allow us to express our emotion without having to look at the actual source. In a way, they are replacements. It may be easier to get angrier at someone you don’t know or who you work with than to get angry at your husband or family member. You may be deeply angry at someone close to you but don’t express it because it would damage the relationship. Along comes someone who does something that would otherwise be a relatively small thing and we latch onto it and can unleash the fullness of our anger and pain – anger and pain that has nothing to do with what that person has done.

The first thing to ask yourself if you find your thoughts obsessing on the way “you’ve been done wrong” by a person is – what benefit do I get from this?

Then allow yourself some time to think about the question of – what am I really upset about?

Our first thoughts are usually wrong, but they are the easiest and safest thoughts to have, but they do not let us learn to forgive, to forget and to move on.