You can’t keep birds from flying over your head – or from singing and attracting your attention. But you can keep them from building a nest in your hair. – Zen Proverb

Thoughts are like birds – randomly making noise and flying into and out of your head – demanding attention. Some fly away, others circle, and then there are others that take up residence and put down roots. Like the guests that won’t leave.  There is only so much room in your head – so it’s important which birds are allowed to live there.

Lawyers have what we call SPS – Smart Person Syndrome.  One of the symptoms is believing that every thought that comes into our heads requires processing and resolution. After all, it came into our heads, so there must be a valid reason. It’s ours – so it must be valuable. And we’re on a mission to figure it out and make it all make sense. When we do that, we allow the thought to nest.

The problem is that not every thought that comes into your head requires your attention or processing – it just isn’t possible. And we can’t control our thoughts. Neuroscientists tell us that we are aware of only a tiny fraction of the thinking going on in our heads. And sometimes those random thoughts or images just pop through into our consciousness.  Often for no reason at all.

Meanwhile, our natural negativity bias makes it more likely that negative thoughts will stay with us and nest. We worry about mistakes we may or may not have made, things we might have forgotten, the safety of loved ones, and lots of random head-trash.  You know, head trash around whether you are enough, how you compare to other people, what others think of you, and what if you get found out. Oh wait, maybe that’s just me. Or maybe not.

So how do you de-nest the thoughts that need to go, and make space for better ones? I’ve found that my mindfulness practice has really helped.  And remember, mindfulness is simply a quality or state of being conscious or aware of something. And that awareness really works.  

Here’s what I do:

• Slow down. Recognize the thought as the bird that it is. Acknowledge it.
• Decide if it is worthy of attention. Try to make the ‘default’ answer “no”.
• Remember that if it is important it will come back, often multiple times, which will give me the opportunity to change my answer if needed.
• If the thought requires attention or processing – capture it and see how it fits in with all of the other mental gymnastics I need to do every day. 
• Resist the temptation to immediately and completely process and assign meaning to every thought.
• When the unwanted nests happen – and they do – confidently clean them out and let them go

Your head is pretty valuable real estate. Protect it from the birds that try to nest.

What birds will you evict today?

-Doug