David Hanscom, author of the acclaimed book “Back in Control”, has written a must-read book, “Calm Your Body, Heal Your Mind”. The book focuses on Repetitive, Unwanted Thoughts (RUTs) that are “a universal phenomenon arising from the interplay between the conscious and unconscious brains”. RUTs can “drive our thinking and behaviour into a deep rut”. RUTs can take the form of (1) “lying awake at night with worrying thoughts that circle endlessly (ex., What if I lose my job?)”, (2) “experiencing more intense, intrusive thoughts (ex., What if I’m going crazy?)”, (3) “your mind replaying past mistakes on an endless loop (Why did I say that?)”.
Being aware of your RUTs is key to overcoming them. “When you are in a state of survival, you are no longer fully present in the moment. We also develop a lifetime of patterns that keep us in this state. Awareness cuts through them…awareness, compassion, and love are words that describe the same state of being. You are fully present in the moment without judgment. As your healing journey unfolds, there’s only one word you need to heal: awareness. Metacognition, or thinking about thinking, is most effective in this state because your sapiocortex (The highest region of the prefrontal cortex responsible for abstract thinking and wisdom, most vulnerable to stress-induced shutdown) is functioning optimally. In this space, you are completely alive and human. Unfortunately, the gift of complex language that enables metacognition also traps us as we develop our ego. Sadly, the ego becomes a rigid identity that we fiercely defend. This ongoing struggle reduces the function of higher thinking centers and hampers metacognition. Eventually, we become prisoners of our powerful ego, which is made up of endless RUTs”.
It is “awareness that dissolves cognitive fusion, creating space for you to reset your nervous system…The first step in developing deeper awareness is noticing when we are operating on autopilot…Awareness is the moment you wake up mid-sentence and realize you’re engaging in gossip or catch yourself mid-judgment, recognizing you’re labelling someone based on limited information”. Hanscom writes about four types of awareness:
1. Sensory Awareness – “It’s not just mindfulness but a specific focus on external physical details and sensory inputs rather than internal experiences…Focusing on the details of what you are doing right now crowds out RUTs”.
2. Emotional Awareness – “Emotional awareness involves deeply understanding how and what you feel. Being emotionally vulnerable is essential for successful relationships in all areas of your life…Learning to be vulnerable means allowing yourself to experience pain, processing it, and then moving forward. Many people give up trying, and others never begin – missing opportunities to find and sustain meaningful relationships”.
3. Judgmental Storytelling – “A fleeting thought of ‘I’m not good enough’ can turn into the main theme of your life story. A moment of disappointment might become “People can’t be trusted” – a core belief system. Someone else criticizing you can become challenging because “the ‘you’ that you’ve spent years building is under attack. But you don’t need to fix these hardwired circuits. You simply need to recognize them. By nurturing awareness of distortions without fighting or judging them, something magical happens. You create space between yourself and your thoughts and realize that the voice in your head isn’t you – it’s simply noise”.
4. Ingrained Patterns – “When something triggers anxiety or frustration, you’re not responding to what’s happening in the moment – you’re reacting to a memory of something similar that felt threatening before”. The key is to “disengage from a self-focused narrative” and stop getting caught in “past- and future- oriented thinking”. Be in the moment.
“Calm Your Body, Heal Your Mind” offers an enlightening roadmap on how to deal with your pain, anxiety, anger, and RUTs.