Would it be a good or bad thing for you if you were in your head all day every day?

No not all the time. Because the reason you are self-reflecting is to amend your actions so the purpose of the whole exercise is kinda lost there. I think if you write your goals down and then make a plan to get to them and then keep a daily progress journal it should be enough. Writing helps more than mere thinking.

There are places in my head that EVEN I avoid, and if I had to spend all day every day in there (here) I might lose all concept of what is acceptable and what is not. So yeah, it would be a bad thing.

Does this mean I get to pretend that I’m J.D. from Scrubs?!?! I’d be all for some crazy day dreams topped off with some deep reflection.

@SheWasAll_ We will…someday…we will

For me being in my head too much is a bad thing. I find I live much better when I focus on the positive aspects of life around me.

I sometimes find I can only get things done when I don’t think about it and just move forward at full steam.

Probably bad, it is not good for me to let my imagination have the chance to work over time.

God no, I get so down on myself when I try that. The worst thing for me is to go too long without my mind being occupied.

It’s only a good thing if you’re your own problem, and you need to change something about yourself to affect the quality of your life. Understanding what’s wrong with your attitude or perceptions is not a bad thing. Holding a pity party in your head is.

No, it’s not good. There needs to be balance. Reflect on how you can do better, yes, but then put those thoughts into action. Gee, I could lose some weight, I thought. But I didn’t lose any until I took the actions of exercising and buying healthy food instead of another slice of pizza.

Thinking all the time doesn’t let you realize the agency you have to actually make changes. Changing actual behaviors and acting do that.

To me, it would seem selfish. I want to think of others as much as possible, so I don’t want to focus only on myself.

We ahve to distinguish here between self-awareness and self-absorption. One can, and should, be tuned into one’s own emotions as they arise and fall, see one’s own habit patterns, how one’s own mind functions. That’s healthy self-reflection because it helps us see how those inner processes are affecting our behavior and reality perception. Being aware of these inner influences makes it possible to act independently of them when necessary.

Self-absorption is quite different. The self-absorbed are so enmeshed in their emotions, opinions, compulsions, aversions and desires that they cannot act independently of them. Those inner processes are all they see, so they’re unaware of how they’re controlled by those processes. They can’t get enough objective distance from them to see them for what they are.

When i dont have to be near other people, like all through the summer, i spend the whole time or as much as i can in my head, not on purpose, just because i sink into it easily and its more peaceful.

But i guess that although i like it it probably is bad, because after a bit every time there are people it feels like i’ve lost something and its really empty, which is obviously just my fault… and also its even harder than before to socialise, i think maybe because after too much deep thought and solitude (=P, maybe!) its hard to stop being cynical and too angry with everything, and at the world for bring so stupid and intrusive =P (what a nice person i am! =P sorry) =)

OK, I love your question. Thank you for initiating this thread.

I have less of a self-reflecting personal approach here, as to me, your question has evoked a session, yes, inside my head, where I have chosen to evaluate an aspect of my repertoire – my proclivity for navigating into the fertile land of process.

So, if I may indulged a bit further, I find, for good and for bad, in a healthy debate or an outrageous conflict, that I embrace the concept of “being in your head”, to actually mean, for me, not being limited to only being all about me, necessarily, as the journey, inside, is always a welcome alternative for those times when I choose to be on hiatus from the story of life which is perpetually streaming recklessly away on the outside of my head. And all players are invited. Inside. And, the amount of time I devote to these excursions in my head is irrelevant, to me, as I tend to, at most times, carry on both the inside and outside as a welcome respite from the monotony of one singular sojourn. The art in it – here it is – is the discipline which is beautifully inherent in the practice, attempting to shift seamlessly, between both, editing as I go upon the multitude of split screens flickering before me.

Crazy, huh?

And the diversity of experiences, the richness, in other words, quite often, is that I spend time inside my head, as myself, engaged in a variety of exchanges with others, and at times, reversing it all to find myself assuming the lives of others in order to achieve multiple outcomes on the road to a wider point of view. A richer more vibrant experience. Alive. For me. And, perhaps, for someone else… Eventually. In some form or other. Process.

I am not alone in here. When I exhaust everyone else, I always will have myself.

Histrionics. Role Play. I mean, in my head, exclusively, I thrill at the opportunity to invest in theatre, spending enormous amounts of time immersed within it’s generous devices, enjoying the rights and privileges so abundantly available for this level of commitment. And, with the overflowing reservoir of images, words and music developed within, I dig into my deep overflowing well and use it all. Inside and out. It’s mine.

I am a writer. Inside and out. Process.

Listen, please, I know that after reading the above, you are probably screaming: “there goes 4 minutes of my life that I will never get back!”, I feel you there, but, come on, really, I mean please, all I ask is, for me – for all of us in here, really – please, do not alert the hospital, they know where I am, they understand, I think, well, yeah, I’m sure, trust me – and me too, OK? – just know that we did promise them we would return as soon as we finish all of our conversations.

I remember eating an undercooked pretzel at a movie. I was in the head all day. The effects lasted 6 weeks. No fun.

Too much self reflection gives me panic attacks. I like the distraction of other people and things better. :D

I think that head is a beautiful thing.

What a wonderful question.

What thoughtful and interesting answers. Thanks guys :)

I must admit that now not one but two different therapists say that I need to get out of being in my head all the time and get out into the real world. Obviously, they think it isn’t a good thing.

long lurve @FB . ;)

I think @Harp‘s distinction between self-awareness and self-absorption is right on (GA). I think that people often mistake attempts to understand oneself with an unhealthy interest in oneself. Even then, a lot of people believe you can understand too much, because all that understanding stops you from acting or enjoying your life.

I don’t think it is possible to understand too much about yourself. However, understanding yourself is not just an intellectual activity. Or, at least, it’s not an intellectual activity that is performed only with words.

People are more than their conscious thoughts. To understand ourselves, we need to get in touch with other, less conscious parts of ourselves. To do that, you have to get out of your head and into your body. Body consciousness and acting in a bodily way is quite different from mind consciousness. Perhaps the most important difference is that it does not happen in words.

Words are the province of specialized parts of our brains. However we have other ways of knowing things. Awareness of these things take place in parts of the brain that are not linguistic. When we say we are “getting out of our heads,” I believe we are moving into other parts of our minds—parts that are less accessible consciously, because they don’t have words.

It is very difficult for these parts of our minds to communicate with the linguistic parts of our minds. The non-linguistic parts of our minds deal with kinetic awareness, or sonic awareness. These are the places that are thinking in a different way about the problems we face. When we experience knowledge as a gift, or as a moment of inspiration, as if it came from outside us, I believe we are experiencing these other parts of our minds somehow managing to communicate solutions to problems we have been working on.

Artists, musicians, even writers and athletes must use these parts of their minds. They get into a kind of flow, where the conscious mind seems to stop (getting out of their heads), and this other process takes over—a process that doesn’t seem to be like thinking at all. It’s more like magic, because we can not apply a normal kind of awareness or analysis to it.

We have so much conscious thinking going on that it usually drowns out the other kind of thinking we engage in. Physical activities seem to be a good path for stopping the head world from being so noisy you can’t even notice the body world. Sports, music, creating art, meditation, yoga, etc, etc are all good for quieting the conscious mind to the point where you can sense or pay attention to the non-linguistic parts of your mind.

Often these out-of-mind experiences are considered, ironically, out-of-body experiences. The difficulty is in remembering what happens when you are out of your head and into your body. We remember using symbols, such as words. This is how we are normally conscious of thinking. When we experience things in our non-linguistic minds, there are not words.

Lots of people trying to describe these experiences will give up. “It’s impossible,” they say. “You have to experience it for yourself.” Others don’t even remember what happened when this part of their mind was ascendant. I do a dance workshop with live music, and our goal is to get people out of their heads and into their bodies. It is very effective with most people. One thing that happens often is that they have no memory of the music after it’s over. The music is driving them, and yet they incorporate it on such a non-linguistic level that they have no memory of it. Similarly, they may not even remember what they did during the dance.

It takes a lot of self training to become aware of what it going on when your non-linguistic mind is in front. You have to find a way to raise your linguistic consciousness to a level that it can watch and remember without raising it so high that it takes you out of the non-linguistic consciousness.

I also have a theory that it is possible to enter into non-linguistic consciousness via linguistic activities. Another way that people sometimes refer to non-linguistic consciousness is by calling it “being in the zone.” What happens is that you attain a level of focus on one thing. That focus is so powerful that it opens up a channel to the non-linguistic mind.

I believe that writers can do this. It appears contradictory, because writing is such a linguistic, and therefor conscious activity. Yet, I think it is possible to attain that alternate consciousness even while doing something that is based on linguistic consciousness. In such a state, you are both in your head and out of your head at the same time. Weird, eh?