Please read this if you're an overthinker
There’s something you should know about your overachieving brain cells
When one of the overwhelming number of thoughts that are racing through your mind is: ‘‘Why am I always overthinking everything!?’’ (with as many question marks and explanation points at the end as you see fit 😬), there’s something you should know:
Your brain has your best interest at heart.
Yes, my dear human, I promise you: that chatty Cathy means well. All your mind tries to do, day in, day out, is to keep you safe. How it likes to do that? By controlling the narrative.
Your brain’s perspective – why you’re always overthinking everything:
🤬 The inner critic
Your brain believes it can prevent you from failure and experiencing shame by attacking, what it perceives as, your flaws and imperfections.
If you never stop thinking about your mistakes, you’ll never make the same ones again.
If everything is your fault, you are in control, and that means you are safe.
😨 Worst-case scenarios
Your mind believes that if it rehearses every single worst-case scenario and your response to it, you’ll be perfectly prepared and nothing can go wrong.
😈 All-or-nothing thinking
Your brain tries to create safety in knowing that it for sure will all go to shit, because now at least you have some certainty and the world will feel a little more predictable.
Of course, what our minds don’t know, is that they only make things worse. Overthinking narrows our focus and exaggerates our experience AND signals to our nervous system that we’re in trouble. #notgoodnotgoodatall
Also good to know: Your thoughts are NOT reflections of you or your authentic self, they are reflections of your past experiences. You are the awareness perceiving the thoughts. Or as Pema Chödrön put it: ‘‘You are the sky. Everything else - it’s just the weather’’ (and that everything else most definitely includes stuff like thoughts and feelings).
Okay, but how do I stop it?
The way out of your head and into your life isn’t by making an enemy out of your mind; it is by collaborating with it. By shifting your focus on what you CAN control. You have no say in when the storm happens and what it looks like, but you do have the freedom to choose how to respond to it.
Fighting (or believing) your brain will not only drain your energy. By doing so, you’ll give away your power, the control you DO have. Respecting your mind for doing its job is the first step in detaching yourself from it. So, no matter how gloomy, critical, scary or exhausting your thoughts are, know that they are just trying to keep you safe in the only way they know how.
And, as Yong Kang Chan writes:
‘‘Your unhealthy, habitual ways of thinking are the result of past conditioning, and they have become a part of your protective mechanism. It’s not easy to change this system overnight. Be patient. Slowly and gently guide your mind back to peace. When it resists your guidance, don’t push it. When you fail to lead it back to peace, forgive yourself. Every single day, you are given an opportunity to choose. Even if you don’t get it right today, tomorrow you will get to choose again.’’
Also what if we are just thinking the right amount? But different people have different levels of what is ok or normal. In the same way we have different ideas about what is thoughtful Vs pretentious...