Don't Give It Feet: 3 Ways to Look at Thought Management

Our family is learning thought management from the oldest to the youngest. When inappropriate, illogical, strange, or depressing thoughts come into our minds, we have a few techniques. To handle "junk thoughts"(that every person has) we learn to quickly categorize them as either funny or unimportant.

This works: A bizarre thought comes, and instead of dwelling on it, we quickly categorize it as funny or unimportant and move on. It's a filing system for the brain. It's like you dump the thoughts (which we affectionately label "brain hiccups") into the funny or unimportant garbage can.

Another way to handle a distressing thought is this: Don't give it feet. That's my husband's expression to help me refuse to authorize or enable thoughts I don't want to have. I imagine the thought with little feet that get to walk all over my brain and therefore my life. Instead, I don't give the thought feet.

It's a funny little expression! So, in summary, I'm learning to move a thought I don't want into a category of first, funny or second, unimportant. Thirdly, I don't give it feet.

We're learning that we aren't our thoughts. Thoughts come that we cannot control, so we learn to shuffle them away and move on into our glorious day.