Junk Drawer Thoughts; When my mind resembles a mess!

I saw a funny this morning that made me chuckle. It compared what can happen in my brain to someone emptying a junk drawer onto a trampoline. I envisioned flying rubber bands, paper clips, pen caps, bread crumbs, phone chargers (add your favourite junk drawer item), and welcome to my brain!

In reality, it’s not that funny when our minds are full of so many thoughts that it disrupts our ability to think straight.

What are some ways that a brain can run wild with junk-drawer thoughts?

Rubber band thoughts — my mind cannot settle on a path forward —here I come, there I go. Sometimes I think God calls me one way, and then someone will give advice completely contrary. Did I hear God right? Am I wrong? Am I misinterpreting the Bible? Should I? Is it just my pride?

Paper clip thoughts — my mind attaches random thoughts into one successive bundle of negativity — (also called spiraling thoughts). Sometimes my actions or words make me wonder what people think of me. If I conclude with plenty of overthinking that it isn’t good, I suddenly have a myriad of negative adjectives about myself bouncing out of control in my prefrontal cortex.

Bread crumb thoughts — when my mind takes bits of information to create whole scenarios that have little factual evidence, I end up with unwarranted emotions and opinions about situations that aren’t even real. Stop it!

Phone charger thoughts — a charger is useless on its own. We all have old cords that linger long after the devices they were used with are gone. All they do is take up valuable space in an already jammed-up drawer. I need to eliminate thoughts that don’t serve me well and take up valuable mental space.

So what should I do with all these junk-drawer thoughts that clog up clear-headed thinking?

Here are some deep cleaning tips/reminders for the next time my brain feels particularly scrambled:

Write it out. Journaling helps make sense of the jumble. As my thoughts leak onto the page, it becomes easier to differentiate fact from fiction, truth from a lie (yes, my brain is capable of lying to itself).
Check it out. Where am I getting my information from? Do I find my truth tethered to the Truth? God speaks words about me in His Word, and these need to be my cornerstone of thought. I cannot expect to thrive in my thought life if I think last week’s skimmed Bible reading can sustain me. Or maybe I have information overload from unreliable sources, such as listening to all the clamouring voices that demand to be heard, scrolling too much social media, or any other mind-numbing activity I choose with which to kill time (and why would I want to kill time anyway when it’s not a renewable resource? — I digress).
Wipe it out. Some thoughts just need to be trashed. They are of no use; they are not true, lovely, praiseworthy, or pure, and they do nothing but cause me mental distress. “But I can’t help what I think”, you may say. I say yes, you can! As the saying goes, you can’t stop a bird from flying over your head, but you can prevent it from making a nest there! When a junk-drawer thought comes to my head, I must recognize it and tell it to go instead of letting it linger where it rolls around gathering steam.

I need to clear my mind of the junk so I can focus on the good and beautiful things God wants me to set my mind on each day. A couple of books that I would recommend if this is an area of struggle for you are: “Get Out of Your Head” by Jennie Allen, “Every Thought Captive” by Kyle Idleman, and “The Unplugged Hours” by Hannah Brencher.

God knows how our intricate minds work. He designed them after all. He knew we would struggle with our thoughts; therefore, when he instructs us to be careful what we think, He wasn’t joking.