Begin to sort your brain out by doing a SOAP progress report on yourself
According to Dr Lee Warren, a SOAP progress report is what neurosurgeons carry out on their patients. It's an acronym that stands for Subjective, Objective, Assessment, and Plan.
You're not going to be opening up your skull to poke around in your brain, but you can change the way your brain works (neuroplasticity), and this method is a good start.
Here's an explanation of how to do a SOAP report on yourself. You are both the patient and the surgeon. You are operating on yourself. Write about the following things, referring to yourself as 'the patient'. I did this earlier today with something I was struggling with in my mind, and it really helped.
Subjective
What the patient is feeling or telling himself in the moment
Objective
The actual facts of the situation, stripped of interpretation
Assessment
Comparing the two to catch where the patient's automatic thought has drifted from reality
Plan
What the patient should deliberately think or do instead