A Psychological Trick to Escape Your Mind When It Becomes a Prison
Set yourself free from the claustrophobia within.
Our minds play a major role in our lives and their state affects the quality of our lives greatly. They are there when we are having the best day of our lives, but also when we are going through the toughest of times.
That’s why it can be extremely difficult to live with a mind that has become a prison, and so it is important to know how to escape from it.
This escape does not necessarily mean to run away, but to set yourself free from the state of claustrophobia within you.
In my life, I had times where my mind overpowered me and I felt a constant sense of feeling stuck. But it was also when I learned to tame my mind to the point where I’m controlling it, rather it controlling me.
If you also want to learn how to set yourself free, there are 3 steps to follow.
These are:
· 1-Take away the keys from others · 2-Recognize what the bars are made of · 3-Break free
“Our life is what our thoughts make it.” ― Marcus Aurelius
1-Take away the keys from others
It is nice to define ourselves as people who never care about what other people think of them, but in truth, it takes a constant effort to balance between the desire to feel accepted and not people-pleasing.
Approval of our loved ones gives us confidence in feeling that we are on the right track, but it can also lead us to wake up one day and realize that we have lived the life of the person we do not even recognize.
Freedom of Thought puts this into words perfectly: “You are a prisoner to someone's idea of you.”.
That’s why it is important not to let others build a prison in our minds that they have the keys to.
To do that, we can start by understanding the difference between respecting the opinions of others and overvaluing their approval. The first one can be beneficial in the sense of improving ourselves by analyzing the feedback they give, but the latter is only to lead yourself into an unnecessary hierarchy.
By doing this differentiation, we can save ourselves from feeling stuck within the opinions of others, and set our minds free of their pressure.
“Most of your problems come back down to a fear of judgment, or exclusion.”
— Brianna Wiest
2-Recognize what the bars are made of
In her book “101 Essays That Will Change the Way You Think”, the author Brianna Wiest talks about the importance of identifying the problem, and she explains this as:
“It’s important because completely understanding the problem is the same thing as knowing the solution. If you don’t know what to do, you don’t know what’s wrong.”
This is exactly the same for our mental prisons too, and figuring out what the bars are made of can help us to break free from them.
This can be achieved by asking ourselves the simple question of “What am I scared of?”. By doing so we can discover the root cause of us feeling stuck within our mind, and start working on it.
This works because fear freezes our thoughts, and prevents necessary change from occurring in our minds. So whether it is the toxic thought loops, fear of failure, fear of disapproval, or fear of loss, we can identify them, and see them for what they really are.
By doing so, it can be possible for us to deal with the actual root causes, rather than a general stagnating feeling.
“Your mind is your prison when you focus on your fear.”
— Tim Fargo
3-Break free
After completing all these steps, now all that is left to do is to take a step out of this prison of our own imagination.
To do that, we can start by taking the pressure off ourselves.
This is because setting ourselves free sounds like a great mission, but in actuality, all we have to do is to recognize a new way of thinking. By realizing this, we can take the pressure off ourselves, and let the change begin.
Of course, it takes courage to jump over the walls when you have felt like they were caving in for so long, but once you are on the other side, you’ll see how little they were, and it will all be worth it.
“You can’t separate peace from freedom because no one can be at peace unless he has his freedom.”
— Malcolm X
Final thoughts
Our minds are all we really have, and their state affects the quality of the life we experience. When one’s mind turns into a prison, it can cause them to struggle deeply, and so it’s important to know how to escape from it.
Today we’ve discussed how to set yourself free from this situation and to do that there were 3 steps to follow.
These were:
1-Take away the keys from others
2-Recognize what the bars are made of
3-Break free
By applying these, we can set ourselves free from the pressure our minds have on us and increase the quality of our lives.
Thank you for reading.
-E.K.