If you subtract overthinking for hours, what are you left with?

• • • Uncomfortable emotions.
    • And a mind attempting to make sense of those feelings (I’m using emotions and feelings interchangeably).

And as much as there are hundreds of messages to fix our emotions, to understand them, to make sense of them. There are emotions to feel and there are emotions to be tossed. But to make the distinction, when dealing with overthinking rabbit holes, you need to check what are the thoughts about emotions your mind is holding onto.

I feel it; therefore, it’s true.

We all struggle to distinguish what’s happening in a moment from what our mind tells us is happening; it’s as if the feeling of the moment dictates reality. For example, if I’m taking an elevator and have shortness of breath, my mind could anticipate that being in the elevator is unsafe, that I may have a panic attack, that I may need to avoid taking elevators in the future. And just like that, he decides to avoid taking an elevator because of all those reasons my mind is giving me. It’s as if because I feel something, is true.

My uncomfortable feelings will last forever

As uncomfortable as feelings can be, they do have a life of their own: they usually last for seconds and dissipate one after another. When emotions are left alone, on average they may last 90-seconds, including the uncomfortable ones.

It’s always good to think about my feelings 

If you have watched the movie Inside Out, you may agree that every emotion is trying to convey something to us, including the uncomfortable ones. But identifying what an emotion is trying to communicate to us is very different than mulling over the emotion over and over (as I do when complaining about the water company I have to deal with).  Dwelling endlessly on our feelings can actually amplify the intensity and duration of them and that applies to all feelings.

I feel it, therefore I need to act on it

We feel what we feel, and our mind instantaneously comes up with thoughts about what to do in that situation. It is as if whatever we feel means that we have to act on. Think about this: if you’re driving in your car, you hear about a new type of virus, and if you’re prone to overthinking, then naturally, your mind will come up with what-if thoughts. Along those what-if-thoughts, you may notice your teeth clenching, your face flashing .. and then quickly your mind will push you to rehearse all different ways to handle that possibility of having that virus .. and then you’re worrying for hours in your head, attempting to solve a hypothesis. What a waste of energy!

Having a feeling doesn’t mean acting on the feeling

It’s natural to overthink and sometimes it’s necessary, but when overthinking has its own journey and takes you away from being present in your life then it’s acting as a form of avoidance. As a form of protecting yourself from sitting with those uncomfortable feelings and all the thoughts, your mind comes to about the feelings and that particular situation.

No matter how terrible the emotion is, it’s the way you think about it, that prolongs it for looooooooooong periods and if you act on those feelings, then you keep prolonging those uncomfortable emotions. Thinking about the situation over and over, dwelling on it, getting upset at us for being upset at a situation, trying to come up with a positive emotion right away, etc .. and any other thinking strategy just makes things worse for you.

As much as we would like to control our feelings, especially the uncomfortable ones, we don’t have control of them; we only have control of our behavioral responses to a given feeling.

We just don’t have control of what we feel, we feel what we feel.

And you can handle that.

Every time I notice I’m getting into a rabbit hole of thinking, I tell myself, “Here is my worry-maker announcing its arrival..” and then move on with my day, just like nothing has bothered my mind ..” .. just kidding!!!!

When catching a thought that could lead me to an overthinking hole….

• What If I cannot handle what happens?
• If that were to happen, I would never be able to be okay with myself
• I don’t recall exactly what I said, and now I cannot let it go. I need to know what I said.
• I won’t make it.
• Can’t stop thinking of the time in which I made a mistake.
• What – if
• It’s my responsibility to make sure things go well.
• If I’m thinking a lot about it, it means it’s important.
• If I don’t know all options, I cannot move forward with my decision

I noticed a recurring theme: a push to overthink, to dwell, to spend hours and hours solving this thinking problem, and with it, to play-it-safe. Who doesn’t play-it-safe? And yet, all those overthinking strategies – playing-it-safe moves as I call them – can lead us to live in our head while life passes by in front of us.

Not our fault. We’re prone to overthinking by design, because of evolution. But, when going along with those urges, then . . . we are at the mercy of our overthinking patterns.

You can get unstuck from overthinking patterns

So far, you have learned what makes overthinking worse, to recognize the types of overthinking you’re prone to, to watch your mind and its minding, to bring yourself back to the life you’re missing when engaging in overthinking patterns, and to observe those thinking patterns without getting swept away by them.

Those micro-skills help. And, you and I know that making a shift comes with urges to go back to the old behaviors, to the old ways of responding to thinking with more thinking; to the behaviors that have been reinforced hundreds of times.

Treat those urges to overthink with kindness

Acknowledge your urge for overthinking, respond to it with kindness and caring. There are hundreds of definitions of self-compassion; sometimes people think about it like flowers and butterflies. But, putting it simple self-compassion is:

• Treating yourself with kindness, gentleness, and caring.
• A real-time decision you make without attachment to any outcome
• A choice you make to make room for uncomfortable thoughts, feelings, urges, and sensations.

Sometimes people decide to fight those urges to overthink.. and while those thinking responses work for a little bit, it’s a matter of time the mind comes up with another thought that pulls into a rabbit hole of thinking. We’re never going to win our minds by responding to thinking with more thinking.

But recognizing that we’re struggling, that we’re getting stuck with a pull to dwell on our thoughts and live in our head, and respond to those moments of stuckness with caring is much more courageous.

One compassionate action

When noticing the urge to overthink – whether you’re driving, eating a piece of dark chocolate, drinking a glass of scotch, or enjoying a meal with your partner – take a deep breath, adjust your posture, maybe lift up your shoulders, and then tell yourself something along the lines of “I’m struggling right now, this is hard.”

The key to practicing self-compassion is to acknowledge that you are struggling in those moments with a push to jump into overthinking land . . .  and that you make a decision to respond yourself with kindness and with gentleness.  If your mind were to be an overprotective friend of yours – so you don’t make a fool of yourself – how would you respond? Perhaps you will say things like, “easy my friend, let’s go easy with those urges .. I get it, this is hard . . . and let’s just be gentle . . . we don’t need to jump into thinking land right now . . . ”

When you learn to face those urges for overthinking with gentleness, you also learn to move from living in your head to living in the present, because you are not busy any longer, trying to control your mind or responding to thinking with more thinking.

“How we spend our time is how we spend our days. How we spend our days is how our life goes. How our life goes determines whether we thought it was worth living.”

– Keith Yamashita

When you wake up, your mind starts its own journey. It’s like you’re getting into a car and your mind is the driver. Sometimes it takes you exactly to your destination. Sometimes it drives really fast. Sometimes, you can’t just get out of being lost in the streets of big houses, condominiums, and golf courses in the middle of the city. Sometimes, your mind takes you to the end of a cul-de-sac where you feel all those ruminations, worries, doubts, anticipations and many other acrobatic thinking patterns that occupy your time.

• Thinking about doing things right and perfectly
• Thinking about all the good reasons to postpone and delay stuff
• Thinking about how much certainty you need to move forward
• Thinking about the worst-case scenarios
• Thinking about past negative outcomes or past mistakes
• Thinking about not being good enough in some way
• Thinking about the different ways to get out of a stressful situation
• Thinking about how you’re the only responsible person for others’ wellbeing
• Thinking about how thinking is fundamentally important

Overthinking patterns have this automatic quality, rushing you into feelings of stress, anxiety, loss, or dread. You may get so attached to them that they seem real and push you to do things that create much more pain, such as ejecting you from your present.

Dealing with overthinking partners is like every moment you’re confronted by a “haystack-sized pile of needles.”  Each one of those patterns pushes for your attention, makes you feel in a particular way, and claims to be legitimate. They are all interesting thoughts to have; for example, did I marry the right person? Can’t stop thinking about what happened before, I need to make sense of it; what if I don’t make the right decision? 

But the consequence of all of them is that they take you away from what’s happening in front of you, who is in front of you, and what the experience of that moment is for you.

Bring yourself back to the present

• Acknowledge the cue to overthink
  Remember an important principle: The first thought on your mind, whatever you do afterward is on you.
  Do your best to notice that cue for overthinking (e.g. did I.. I need.. what-if…).
  Don’t fight it; don’t resist it; don’t respond to it. Just say to yourself “here it is.. “ and then …
• Connect with your body
  Notice your body posture; notice the positions of your legs; notice your back posture; notice the ebb and flow of your breathing; you can also move your arms a bit to notice their movement.
  
• Connect with what’s in front of you
  Notice your surroundings: what’s around you. What do you hear? What do you see? What do you smell?
  Notice who is in front of you: is there someone in front, next to, or behind you? How do they look? What colors are they wearing? What pieces of clothing do you see? How are they talking to you? Are they speaking fast or slow? Can you see the movement of their lips?

Final quote

I leave you with this last quote:

“How we spend our day is, of course, how we spend our lives.

– Annie Dillard