Do you suffer from Analysis Paralysis?
- Over-thinking, over-analyzing, and engaging obsessive thoughts in a vicious cycle that keeps you from taking action?
- Do you experience logical override -- your Thinking Mind unravels and undermines your Intuitive Mind?
- Do you weigh your options to a point that seems to take you further away from making a decision and following through?
- Do you choose a course of action only to find that its opposite calls you back to think again, think some more, think too much?
It's like a CD or a record skipping -- a mental stutter -- or maybe it feels like you're spinning...
OCD -- obsessive-compulsive disorder -- is an extreme, constant, chronic, crippling manifestation of this behavior pattern that should be explored as a clinical therapeutic issue. If you are experiencing this to the degree that it interferes with your ability to function or complete simple, common, everyday tasks then please seek diagnosis and treatment with a clinical professional.
But everyone experiences a milder form of analysis paralysis from time to time and there are spiritual, meditative techniques to address it.
An Abundance of Air Those with charts that are dominated by multiple Air signs seem to suffer from analysis paralysis more than any other.
Air and Information Technology The Air element is now more prevalent in the Collective Human Mind than at any time in our history. The spiritual element of Air manifests as information, intellect, data, and communication. The virtual dimension is a bridge between inspiration consciousness and the physical. Our inter- (hyper-) connectivity is the most powerful technological component of the modern world.
Your Analyzer The Analyzer is a spiritual energy center (like a chakra) located at the front of the forehead (in front of and slightly below the Third Eye). Imagine that when you frown you hold a grape or a marble between your eyebrows. That's the Analyzer.
When you are suffering from over-thinking and over-analyzing (always a component of anxiety and worry) you are leading with the Analyzer.
Leading with the Analyzer The Analyzer is like the "hood ornament" of the Mind -- out in front as you drive the body through everyday experience. Your body posture is often the most obvious physical clue that you are leading with the Analyzer:
- you hunch forward when you drive in stressful traffic conditions
- you study with your nose in a book
- you lean in toward your computer monitor when you concentrate
This logical processor can be beneficial in many circumstances and certain activities, but like everything, there should be a balance -- with the Emotional Mind, the Intuitive Mind, the Physical Senses...
Grounding the Analyzer
You are familiar with my guided meditations and the universal concept of grounding yourself with a silver cord that extends into the earth from the base of your spine, your first chakra...
But did you know that you don't have to ground everything through the root chakra?
You can ground any energy center in the body directly -- the shortest external path out of your energy and into the earth.
Rather than grounding the energy down through the chakras -- where it may get "stuck" along the way in other energy centers or leave residual energy in other parts of the body -- simply ground the Analyzer directly from its physical position.
Meditation | Visualization Exercise I credit intuitive teacher Angie Arkin with teaching me this technique.
- Picture yourself with a horn like a Unicorn, extending out in a spiraling line from between your eyebrows. Point this cord at the ground out in front of you. See it extending out several feet and drilling into the ground toward the center of the earth at a slight declining slope.
- Assess the size of your Analyzer -- how big or swollen is it? Is it the size of a pea, a raisin, a grape, or larger like an egg or a plum?
- As you breathe deeply and fully, inhaling and exhaling with a steady rhythm, visualize the energy draining out and down this direct cord away from you and into the earth.
- See the Analyzer shrinking... Set the intention that it return to a more manageable size... How small can you make it?
*Try this direct external grounding technique with the other chakras -- you can establish a cord from any point in the body.
Bet you never thought you'd see a unicorn around here, huh? Me neither. Image credit Gabe Gross via Creative Commons on Flickr