One thing I've learned about brush is you have to plant something in its place once you cut it out. The earth wants to be covered, and will grow abundantly as long as enough water is available. So don't just cut out the honeysuckle, think of understory shrubs, like hazel nuts, juneberry, red osier dogwood, high-bush cranberry, or nannyberry. The shrub-nesting birds will appreciate these and they provide nutritious food to wildlife. Just so, in your own life, think of positive activities you can add.
The other thing I've learned is working with honeysuckle biology. That plant has enormous root stores to use for regrowth. Each time you mow it to the ground you are encouraging it to develop a larger/wider growth base. If instead you cut it back about chest height the plant will put its energy into resprouting along the stem. That new growth is easy to snap off on a monthly stroll thru your woods. Depending on how old your plant is, you may have to do this a second year, but eventually you will have drained it's energy and when the stems are truly dead you can cut them (or let them persist for a while as supports for vines).
How can you apply this to dealing with your mental overgrowth? Maybe your approach of self-examination is already doing this.
My other comment is that the examples you give of invasive thoughts focused mostly on how we see ourselves. But they can also be how we view others: "they" are slackers, "they" are sinners, "they" are uppity. We will not live in a harmonious place until we see all of us on equal footing.
This was a good thought-provoking topic, I think because you rooted it in your own experience.
One thing I've learned about brush is you have to plant something in its place once you cut it out. The earth wants to be covered, and will grow abundantly as long as enough water is available. So don't just cut out the honeysuckle, think of understory shrubs, like hazel nuts, juneberry, red osier dogwood, high-bush cranberry, or nannyberry. The shrub-nesting birds will appreciate these and they provide nutritious food to wildlife. Just so, in your own life, think of positive activities you can add.
The other thing I've learned is working with honeysuckle biology. That plant has enormous root stores to use for regrowth. Each time you mow it to the ground you are encouraging it to develop a larger/wider growth base. If instead you cut it back about chest height the plant will put its energy into resprouting along the stem. That new growth is easy to snap off on a monthly stroll thru your woods. Depending on how old your plant is, you may have to do this a second year, but eventually you will have drained it's energy and when the stems are truly dead you can cut them (or let them persist for a while as supports for vines).
How can you apply this to dealing with your mental overgrowth? Maybe your approach of self-examination is already doing this.
My other comment is that the examples you give of invasive thoughts focused mostly on how we see ourselves. But they can also be how we view others: "they" are slackers, "they" are sinners, "they" are uppity. We will not live in a harmonious place until we see all of us on equal footing.
This was a good thought-provoking topic, I think because you rooted it in your own experience.
Thank you. Very nicely put.