‘Like a computer with fifty tabs open, everything slows down. Now count the tabs you have open in your mind. Past, Present and Future. Which ones can you close today?’
Too Many Tabs Open
Open enough of them and the whole system slows down. Your mind is no different. You already know what happens to a computer with too many tabs open. It gets slow. It stutters. The fan starts working overtime. A machine that flew along an hour ago is suddenly struggling to do the simplest thing, not because it's broken, because it's trying to keep too much running at once. Your mind works exactly the same way. And most of us are walking around with far more crap in our minds than we realise.
Every worry is a tab left running
Think about what's actually open in your head right now. The conversation you didn't finish. The email you keep meaning to send. The thing someone said three weeks ago that still stings. The decision you've been putting off. The worry about money, or a kid, or a friend you've lost touch with. The small guilt you never quite resolved.
None of those are in front of you. You're not actively thinking about most of them. Every single one is a tab left running in the background, quietly drawing power, taking up space, slowing everything else down. That's the part we miss. An open loop doesn't need your attention to cost you. It drains you precisely because you've left it running and looked away.
Open enough of them and you get the lag. The fog. The short fuse over nothing. The tiredness that sleep doesn't fix. The feeling of being busy all day and somehow getting nowhere. That's not a flaw in you. That's a system trying to run forty things at once.
Why the tabs keep reopening
Here's the bit that traps people. You close a tab when you decide not to worry about it, you tell yourself to let it go and in no time the tab is open again. That's because the tab isn't the real problem. It's being fed by something underneath. In my book I call that underneath ‘The Tip’: the dumping ground in the mind where we throw everything we haven't properly dealt with. As long as the real thing is sitting unresolved on the pile, the tab keeps reopening on its own.
Which is why “just stop thinking about it” never works. You can force a tab shut, but if you haven't actually dealt with what's behind it, the system just reopens it the moment your guard drops.
How you actually close one
You can't close a tab you can't see. So it starts with learning to notice — to catch yourself mid-spin and see everything you've got running, instead of just feeling the lag and wondering what's wrong with you. In the book I call this becoming the observer: stepping back half a pace and watching your own mind work, rather than being dragged along wherever it wants to take you.
Which tab could you close today?
Not all of them. Just one. The one that's been running longest, or the one you'd feel lightest without. Pick it, deal with it honestly, and notice how much more the rest of the system has to give. And if the ones weighing on you feel too heavy to close on your own, that's exactly the kind of thing worth working through with someone.
In my book “ Where The F*ck Do Our Minds Go.” I talk about the thoughts in our heads and where they go. The metaphor for the book is “ Do our minds go to ‘The Tip” or ‘The Garden?’ Our thoughts go down pathways we created from a young age. An example is a vinyl record where the grooves are established. Have you ever heard: “ he or she sounds like a broken record.” Someone who keeps doing the same patterns over and over again, their thinking doesn't change. There’s more explored in my book which I know will help anyone see their patterns that have been hiding from them for years.
Have a great week
Michael
Need a hand? Book a session with me — I've been where you are.
If your mind feels overloaded, my book helps — Where the F*ck Do Our Minds, Amazon AU https://getbook.at/WhereDoOurMindsGo?? michaelmalacos.com
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