Of late there’s been a marked reduction in the ‘ol mental chatter. I don’t know from where the chatter originates. Sometimes I notice there is chatter; sometimes I notice there is not. When there is chatter, I find it’s usually impossible to stop it in the moment, or even with hours of concerted effort.

If you’re ever able to step back from your own mental chatter, and listen to it with some critical distance, perhaps after a long meditation, or in one of those tired but insightful moments near the end of the day, you might find it indeed exhibits many of the characteristics of an extremely boring and self-absorbed person. It’s not that you yourself are this way — surely you don’t say everything that comes to mind. But the mind does.

~ David Cain from, https://www.raptitude.com/2022/11/how-to-stop-thinking-too-much/

The only thing that works for me, to keep the chatter at bay, is to bite off far less than I think I can chew. Then spit half of it out the moment I realize I didn’t actually want it in the first place. My chatter is [I think?] always about something (or some things) specific. The only way to stop the chatter is to realize the thing is not worth doing, or to just do it. With finite time and energy there’s a limit to the “just do it” solution. In recent months I’ve been spending huge amounts of time talking myself into realizing many things are not worth doing. This too is a Sisyphean task, but I think it’s been working— at least if I judge by my perception of recent chatter.

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