When Lisa first came to me, she described her mind as “a noisy room I can’t escape from.”
She was bright, caring, and capable – but overwhelmed by anxious thoughts that seemed to appear from every direction.
She often said things like: “My mind never stops.”
“It feels like my thoughts control me.”
“One small worry turns into ten big ones.”
Lisa wasn’t lacking strength. She was exhausted from fighting her own inner world.
The turning point
Early in our sessions, I shared a simple metaphor: Passengers on the bus. Lisa immediately paused. She said quietly, “That’s exactly how it feels: I’m driving, and everyone in the back is shouting at me.” This was the moment things started to shift.
Exploring the mind with metaphors
Over the next few weeks, Lisa learned to work with her thoughts rather than against them.
- The beach ball: She realised she had spent years trying to push anxious thoughts underwater. No wonder she felt exhausted – they kept popping back up.
- The riverbank: Together, we practised noticing thoughts drift past like items floating downstream. She began to see they were transient – not facts, not commands.
- The from-above-view: When she felt trapped inside a stress spiral, she learned to “zoom out,” gaining distance, seeing the bigger picture rather than the fear in front of her.
- Feeding the good wolf: Lisa recognised she had unintentionally been feeding her internal “mind monsters” – reacting, resisting, arguing with them. Slowly, gently, she practised giving more attention to her values instead: courage, kindness, stability.
Small changes, big shifts
Nothing changed overnight. But over time, the room in her mind grew quieter. Lisa learned she didn’t have to:
- believe every thought
- respond to every worry
- wrestle every fear
- fix every feeling
She discovered she could observe instead of react. She stopped trying to “win” against her mind and started choosing what mattered most – peace, connection, purpose.
Where she is now
Lisa still has thoughts – everyone does. But they no longer drive the bus. She does. She says the biggest transformation was understanding this:
“My thoughts used to feel like the truth.
Now they feel like stories. And I get to choose which ones I follow.”