Hijacked by Thought

You’re not overthinking, you’re under-aware.

We are always thinking. Even when we believe we are not, thought is present, often drifting, darting, replaying, projecting, and judging. But how often do we choose what to think? And when was the last time we sat with a thought, rather than being swept away by it?

Modern minds are saturated. The moment we wake, a flood of stimulus enters: headlines, notifications, opinions, images, sounds. We rarely notice it, but our internal dialogue is already reacting before we’ve even decided to think. This is not thinking as it once was, contemplative, focused, and slow. This is unmoderated thinking, which is reflexive, scattered, and shaped by an overstimulated environment.

In ages past, thinking was a conscious act. Silence wasn’t feared; it was a canvas. People didn’t walk through life with a thousand voices in their heads. Attention wasn’t fractured across a dozen tabs and timelines. Thought was rare enough to be felt, deep enough to be known.

Today, thought has become ambient noise. Not in the intellectual sense, where we sit to reason, reflect, and create; but in the background of a mind that can’t stop processing, anticipating, reacting. It’s not that we don’t think enough. It’s that we think without moderation, without direction, and often without awareness.

This article explores the anatomy of thought. What is thinking? How do thoughts arise in the mind? What role does the subconscious play in how we process the world? And perhaps most crucially; what happens when emotions, triggered by stimulus, arise before a single thought has taken shape?

We’ll journey into the nature of mental noise, subconscious scripts, emotional hijacks, and the strange new normal where our mind never rests, even when we’re doing “nothing.” Because until we understand how our thoughts work, we may never realize how often we’re not actually the ones doing the thinking.

Historical Contrast: When Thinking Was Rare and Sacred

Before the age of endless information, before notifications danced across our screens and algorithms curated every moment of our attention, there was space. Space to simply be. Space between stimulus and response. Space that modern life has all largely erased.

In earlier eras, thought was not ceaseless. It was intentional. People weren’t inundated with constant mental input. If you weren’t reading, speaking, or observing something directly in front of you, the mind often rested in silence or imagination. Boredom wasn’t a threat, it was a gateway. A stillness from which ideas slowly surfaced, rather than a void to be frantically filled.

In such a setting, thinking was a conscious activity. It was something one did, not something that happened to them. Philosophers, mystics, and ordinary people alike made time to ponder, reflect, or wrestle with a question not because they were overstimulated, but because they weren’t. The mind had room to move, to stretch, to wander with purpose rather than panic.

In William Walker Atkinson’s The Art of Logical Thinking, he draws attention to this very notion, that most people are capable of reasoning, but few ever learn to do it well. He speaks of logical thinking as an art; a skill to be practiced, refined, chosen. Not everyone in the past was a great thinker, but there was at least the possibility of becoming one. The external world did not press so relentlessly against the inner one.

Contrast that with today, where every spare second is invaded by a device, a scroll, a soundbite. A moment alone in line at the store becomes a dopamine loop. We fill the empty spaces not with reflection, but with consumption. We don’t sit with our own thoughts because they’ve become unfamiliar, and for many — even unbearable.

In essence, thinking has shifted from something sacred to something automatic. From a candlelit room to a flashing billboard. From depth to static noise.

And perhaps this is why we suffer from decision fatigue, from anxiety, from ADHD, from the inability to be here, now. Because when thought is no longer rare, it is no longer valuable. And when the mind is always speaking, we forget what it means to listen.

But What Is Thinking, Really?

We talk about thinking as if we know what it is. But ask someone to define it, and the answers become vague: “It's processing,” “analyzing,” “worrying,” or “figuring things out.” Yet beneath the everyday use of the word lies a rich and nuanced process, one that is neither as constant nor as conscious as we assume.

At its simplest, thinking is the process by which the mind forms ideas, draws connections, makes judgments, and generates meaning. It is both a tool and a terrain, something we use, and something we inhabit.

In The Art of Logical Thinking, William Walker Atkinson defines thinking as the act of employing reason, transforming the raw materials of perception into structured, abstract ideas. He distinguishes between sense-knowledge (what we perceive directly) and thought-knowledge (what we arrive at through reason). In other words, thinking is not just what we see, but what we do with what we see.

To think is to abstract (isolate a quality from the whole), to compare (see similarity and difference), to generalize (create a concept that applies beyond a single case), and to judge (determine relationships between ideas). These are the active ingredients of true cognition, far different from the passive mental chatter that fills most minds today.

But here’s the paradox: while thinking is one of our highest faculties, much of what feels like thought is actually something else. We confuse thinking with:

• Mental noise: the repetition of worries, imagined conversations, and unfiltered stimulus.

• Memory playback: not reasoning, but rehearsing the past.

• Emotional reaction: feelings bubbling up and dragging thoughts along with them.

• Subconscious pattern-matching: instant associations and assumptions made without awareness.

So what, then, is real thinking?

Real thinking is directed. It has structure. It serves a purpose beyond survival or self-soothing. It might look like:

• Asking a question and sitting with it.

• Weighing multiple perspectives before drawing a conclusion.

• Seeing the hidden assumptions beneath a belief.

• Imagining new outcomes based on known variables.

• Creating a mental model from raw observation.

And crucially, it often requires effort. Unlike the passive stream of thoughts that passes through our awareness, genuine thought demands attention, intention, and space.

But in a society that rewards speed and multitasking, how often do we give ourselves the room to actually think?

We believe we are always thinking. But much of the time, we are being moved by thoughts, rather than moving through them with awareness.

How Do Thoughts Form in the Brain?

Before we can understand how thoughts shape us, or how we might shape them, we should know where they come from.

At its most fundamental level, thought is an emergent property of brain activity. But that doesn’t mean it's random. Thoughts begin with stimulus, a piece of data received through the senses: a sound, a facial expression, a temperature shift, a notification ping. This sensory input is then picked up by specialized neural pathways and rapidly processed by the brain’s interpretive centers.

Here’s how the sequence typically unfolds:

1. Stimulus is received (e.g., someone raises their voice).

2. The brain assigns meaning based on past experience, for example: “raised voice = anger.”

3. Emotion may arise instantly, often before any conscious thought, heart rate increases and tension builds.

4. The prefrontal cortex (thinking brain) may then kick in to reflect on the situation, thoughts like “Why are they angry?” or “Are they angry at me?”

5. A thought is born, shaped by that interpretation and filtered through memory, emotion, and prior beliefs.

The key takeaway? Thoughts are not purely spontaneous. They’re constructed, moment by moment, through a blend of incoming data and deeply embedded interpretive frameworks, most of which live in the subconscious.

This means that what we think and how we think, is profoundly influenced by what we’ve already experienced.

For instance, if two people hear the same tone of voice, one might interpret it as playful sarcasm, the other as passive aggression. The difference isn't in the sound, it's in the internal filter. That filter is not being created in real time. It's already been shaped by a lifetime of impressions, associations, and emotional memories.

And so, the question arises:
Are we thinking?
Or are we merely remembering how to react?

This is where the subconscious enters, not as a secret force, but as the silent architect of our mental reflexes. The subconscious does not ask. It assumes. It does not reason. It reacts.

And it plays a far larger role in shaping our thoughts than we might care to admit.

The Role of the Subconscious: Scripts, Triggers, and Auto-Responses

By the time a thought becomes conscious, much of the work has already been done, behind the curtain of awareness. The subconscious mind is the unseen engine of the psyche, shaping perception, assigning meaning, and generating emotional responses before the conscious mind has a chance to intervene.

Neuroscience helps us understand this more clearly. The brain processes an estimated 11 million bits of information per second, but the conscious mind can only handle around 40 to 50 bits. The rest? Handled by the subconscious, rapidly, efficiently, and automatically.

This is not a flaw. It’s an evolutionary feature. Without this system, we would be overwhelmed by raw data. Imagine having to consciously think about how to tie your shoes, form every sentence, or interpret every face you see. Instead, the subconscious runs programs, learned scripts from past experience, so the conscious mind can focus on novel or complex tasks.

Here’s how it plays out:

• You’re driving a familiar route. Your conscious attention fades, and you find yourself lost in thought, yet the car is moving, turns are made, signals are used. That’s the subconscious executing a learned script.

• Someone gives you a sharp look, and you instantly feel anxiety. You haven’t had time to think about it, but your subconscious has already scanned the expression, referenced past social experiences, and fired off a stress response.

• You hear a tone of voice, and irritation bubbles up. Before you’ve formed a single conscious thought, the limbic system (emotional brain) has already responded. The amygdala, in particular, is known to react to perceived threats in milliseconds, often bypassing rational evaluation entirely.

This is the hidden architecture of thought:

And because most of these programs are written early, through repetition, emotional imprinting, or social conditioning, they often go unchallenged for years, or even lifetimes.

We walk through the world thinking we are making choices, but often we are running scripts.

Scripts about who we are.
Scripts about what others mean.
Scripts about what’s safe, what’s shameful, what’s expected.

And these scripts don’t just shape thought, they shape our feeling.
In many cases, the emotion arises before the thought is even formed.
You feel nervous, then justify it.
You feel angry, then create a narrative.
You feel small, then think you’re unworthy.

Which leads us to an uncomfortable truth:

But once we understand this, we regain power.
By observing the scripts. By catching the emotion before the story.
By asking: Where did this thought come from? Did I create it, or did I inherit it?

Only then can we begin to reclaim thought as an act of will, rather than a reflex.

Who Is Doing the Thinking?

Let’s pause.

We began with a simple but unsettling observation: our thoughts are rarely moderated. They run, often without direction, not as intellectual exploration, but as mental background noise, shaped more by stimulus than intention.

We then looked backward, to a time when thinking was rare, even sacred. A time when silence wasn’t a void to be filled, but a space where thought could unfold. We contrasted that with today’s overstimulated, hyper-connected world, where attention is fragmented and presence is rare.

Then we asked: What is thinking, really? And we uncovered that true thinking isn’t just mental activity, it’s structured, reflective, and purposeful. It requires effort. It requires space. Most of what we call "thinking" today is automatic, reflexive reactions, emotional echoes, or noise generated by overstimulated minds.

We pulled back the curtain further to examine how thoughts actually form: beginning with a stimulus, passing through subconscious interpretation, shaped by past experience and memory, and only then surfacing as a “thought.” Often, by the time a thought arises, the body has already reacted and the mind has already decided, without your conscious awareness.

This leads us to a pivotal question:

Are we actually thinking, or just rationalizing feelings and reactions we didn’t choose?

Understanding this changes everything. It invites us to slow down. To observe not just what we think, but why we think it.

And now, we arrive at the next layer, where emotion and thought intersect.

Because sometimes, we feel before we think.
And those feelings can hijack logic before it ever gets the chance to speak.

Emotional Interference: Stimulus Before Thought, Emotion Before Logic

We like to think of ourselves as rational beings.
We believe we make decisions based on thought, guided by reason.
But the truth is often the reverse: we feel first, and then we think to explain.

Neuroscience has made this clear. When we encounter a stimulus, say, a raised voice, a sharp glance, or even a silence we weren’t expecting, the amygdala, the brain’s emotional alarm system, responds within milliseconds. Faster than thought. Faster than language. Before logic even has a seat at the table, emotion has already voted.

This process is known as an amygdala hijack, when a perceived threat (real or not) triggers an intense emotional response that overrides the slower, more rational processing of the prefrontal cortex, the part of the brain responsible for judgment, planning, and conscious reasoning.

The result?

• We get defensive before we understand.

• We feel hurt before we know why.

• We become anxious before we’ve even identified the problem.

And then… only then, comes the thought.
A story. A justification. A narrative that attempts to explain what we’re already feeling.

“She must be mad at me.”
“I’m probably not good enough for this.”
“This always happens to me.”
“I knew I shouldn't have trusted them.”

But these thoughts aren’t conclusions, they’re emotional residuals.

We think we're thinking, but we’re actually rationalizing.
We aren’t starting with logic; we’re starting with a felt experience that’s already framed the logic for us.

This matters.
Because when thought is born from emotion, especially unchecked, subconscious emotion, it can distort perception, skew memory, and create beliefs that feel true but are fundamentally reactive.

• A single rejection becomes a belief: “I’m unlovable.”

• One moment of embarrassment becomes a script: “I must always be in control.”

• A look from a stranger becomes a story: “People don’t like me.”

These thoughts don’t emerge from analysis, they’re emotional conclusions disguised as logic.

And this dynamic is reinforced by modern life. The speed of communication, the easy and consistent access to others’ opinions, and the pressure to react quickly. These all favor emotion over reflection — and to major corporations, emotional reactions are more profitable. We’re encouraged to feel something instantly like outrage, offense, excitement, anxiety, and then think about it later, if at all.

But what if we flipped that script?

What if we learned to notice the emotion before building the thought?

What if we paused long enough to ask:

1. “What am I feeling right now?”

2. “Did I choose this thought, or is it just following the emotion?”

3. “Is this interpretation true, or just familiar?”

This is where emotional awareness becomes the gateway to real thought.
Not thought as reaction. But thought as reflection.
Not logic as a servant of emotion. But emotion as a signal for awareness.

Because when we separate feeling from thinking, we begin to reclaim our capacity to reason, not just react

The Consequences of Constant, Unmoderated Thinking

We often say “I can’t stop thinking” like it’s a quirky personality trait. But beneath the humor lies a modern epidemic, one that’s quietly shaping our inner lives, stealing our attention, and fracturing our sense of presence.

When thinking becomes constant, automatic, and unmoderated, it stops being a tool, and starts becoming a burden.

Here’s how it shows up:

Anxiety and Mental Fatigue

The mind, unable to rest, loops endlessly. It replays conversations, imagines outcomes, anticipates problems that don’t exist yet; all under the illusion of “preparation.” But this isn’t productive thinking. It’s overprocessing. And it leads to decision fatigue, burnout, and a baseline state of inner tension that we normalize as “just being busy.”

A Fractured Attention Span

When the mind is used to jumping from one thought to another, one app to another, one dopamine hit to the next, the ability to focus dissolves. The present moment becomes intolerable. Silence feels like a void to be filled, not a space to be experienced. Even in moments of rest, the internal noise continues: “What’s next?” “What am I forgetting?” “Shouldn’t I be doing something?”

Loss of Presence

Unmoderated thought pulls us out of where we are.
We’re in a conversation, but thinking about how we’re being perceived.
We’re walking outside, but thinking about an email we haven’t replied to.
We’re driving a familiar route, but arrive with no memory of how we got there.

It’s not that we’re nowhere, we’re just never fully here.

Subconscious Programming Runs the Show

As we explored, much of our thoughts are not conscious, but habitual. We loop through the same worries, assumptions, and beliefs day after day, this is not because they’re true, but because they’re familiar. The mind becomes a system running scripts we never paused to question. And these scripts subtly shape:

• How we see others.

• What we believe is possible for ourselves.

• Whether we trust or defend.

• Whether we expand or contract in life.

Simply put, they determine the quality and experiences of our life. But are they serving us?

Emotional Misalignment

When thoughts are constantly rushing, emotions get misread or suppressed. We mistake anxiety for intuition. We label overstimulation as urgency. We respond to a moment from the emotional residue of a past one. And without conscious space to untangle them, emotions and thoughts spiral into each other, amplifying our confusion rather than clarity.

And perhaps most concerning of all:

We’ve become so used to this state of internal noise that we call it normal.

But it’s not normal to be unable to sit in stillness.
It’s not normal to be thinking constantly and yet never feeling clear.
It’s not normal to live in the mind and feel disconnected from the body, from the moment, from real presence.

What we’re experiencing isn’t just overthinking, it’s under-awareness.

And until we slow down enough to observe our thoughts, where they come from, why they arise, and how they shape our perception: we will remain trapped in them.

But there is another way.

We can relearn how to moderate our minds.
Not by suppressing thought, but by restoring balance.
By creating moments of mental silence, deliberate attention, and reflective awareness.

And that begins with remembering:

The Case for Mental Moderation and Intentional Awareness

We cannot eliminate thinking, but nor should we. Thought is one of the most powerful tools we possess. It allows us to reflect, to create, to problem-solve, to imagine new futures. But like any powerful tool, it must be used consciously, or it will begin to use us.

If our minds are overactive, it’s not because they’re broken.
It’s because we’ve never been taught how to moderate thought.

We’ve been taught how to accumulate knowledge… but not how to sit with stillness.
We’ve been taught to react quickly… but not how to observe quietly.
We’ve been taught how to think… but not how to choose when and what to think.

So how do we begin to take back the reins?

Mental Moderation Starts With Awareness

We don’t need to silence the mind with force, we need to listen with intention.
Every time we notice a thought before it spirals, we’re reclaiming presence.
Every time we pause to ask, “Is this thought useful? Is it true?” we’re restoring discernment.

This is not about suppressing thought. It’s about learning to watch it; calmly, curiously, without judgment.

Stillness Isn’t Empty: It’s Foundational

Contrary to what our overstimulated culture suggests, stillness is not a lack of life. It is the ground of life. It is the space where awareness can breathe, where perception becomes clear, and where real thinking, reflective, creative, intentional, can arise.

Practices like meditation, conscious breathing, breathwork, journaling, or even simply sitting with discomfort without reacting begin to create this space.
Not to escape thought, but to regain the ability to choose it.

Relearning the Art of Thinking

From Atkinson to the Stoics to modern neuroscience, the message is consistent:

Thinking is an art. It can be trained. Refined. Directed.

We can learn to:

• Recognize the difference between thoughts we have and thoughts we habitually replay.

• Catch emotional triggers before they hijack our logic.

• Engage in true reasoning, where we analyze, reflect, and test beliefs rather than just defending them.

And most importantly, we can remember that we have the power to direct attention, to be the observer rather than the echo.

Because thought, when aligned with awareness, becomes something extraordinary.
It becomes a tool for insight.
A vehicle for clarity.
A bridge between emotion and understanding.
A means by which we shape the world, instead of being shaped by it.

You don’t have to silence the mind.
You only have to learn how to listen, and when to speak back.

In a world that never stops talking, reclaiming your thinking is a quiet revolution.
And it starts now.

With the next thought you choose to not automatically believe.
With the breath you take before responding.
With the moment you return to presence.

Because presence is not the absence of thought.
It’s the awareness of it.

And from that awareness, everything changes.

If you have reached this point I would like to thank you for taking the time to journey with me today. I am deeply grateful for the opportunity to share with you, these insights which have truly changed my life. I hope you take away tons of value and apply them to your own life, internalizing, reflecting, and achieving.

Talk to you soon,

Yero