Mind Mapping to Untangle Your Thoughts

How Mind Mapping Changed My Life

I consider myself a worrier in recovery! I spent most of my life using worry to manage my emotions. I had a thinking mistake that if I worried about something from every possible angle, I could prevent that thing from happening. How exhausting! I would spend hours and even days worrying about a future event, and all of the “what ifs” would get tangled in an endless knot. When I was a child, my dad would say, “Oh no, Steph is worried because she has nothing to worry about.” It sounds kind of funny, but my logic was if I wasn’t worried, something awful was likely to happen. (There’s a name for this thinking mistake…awfulizing!)

Worrying is a thief that robs us of joy! The Bible reminds us that God did not give us a spirit of fear. Yet, we are encouraged to take every thought captive. But how? How can we stop the run-away train of thoughts from spiraling out of control?

It starts with thinking about what we’re thinking! Noticing our thoughts is the first step. Have you ever really listened to how you talk to yourself? Often worrying is circular; we have a thought, and we attach new thoughts to that thought until it creates a giant knot. Have you ever tried to untangle a bunch of balloons all knotted together? When you pull one string, it tightens another. The strings get twisted and tangled and seem impossible to separate. The same thing happens with our thoughts.

I needed to find a way to untangle the knot. Reading Get Out of Your Head by Jennie Allen provided a solution. Here’s where mind mapping changed my life. This is how it works. You’ll need a pen and paper. The first step is thinking about what emotion you’re feeling at this moment…afraid, anxious, mad, sad? Identify the main feeling. Draw a circle in the middle of your paper and write that emotion in the center of the ring. Next, think of every thought creating that feeling and write it down around the middle circle. Draw smaller circles around each of those thoughts and then draw a line to connect those thoughts back to the emotion. Do this until you have exhausted every possible idea tied to that feeling.

Now it’s time to look at your mind map and bring those thoughts to God. Go to the Bible and find verses that speak to those thoughts. Look for patterns in your thinking. What do you notice? Are there solutions that come to mind now that you see your thoughts on paper? 

I have been using this strategy for several years. I have notebooks full of my mind maps. I use this strategy in sessions to help clients sort through their thoughts. Mapping our thoughts is a simple way to untangle the knot. If we want to change our thinking, we need to notice what we’re thinking. When we map our thoughts, we can see clearly where thinking mistakes keep us stuck. If worry is your habit, I hope you’ll try this strategy!

Happy Mind Mapping!