A confused woman (I’ll call her Nadine), 35, sat in my office last week and said, “‘Stop thinking’ might be the stupidest phrase in the English language.” He went on to say that his well-meaning girlfriend was trying to make him feel better, but that didn’t stop the whirlwind of thoughts in his head. In this post, I’m thinking about some of the many other counseling clients I’ve had over the years who have had similar frustrations about the kindness of others telling them to stop overthinking, and how the more accessible emotions that lead to overthinking are easier to manage than the thought spirals they create.
When good advice misdiagnoses the problem
A lot self help articles say the same thing: notice your thoughts, challenge them, and “just stop overthinking.” And every thoughtful person nods – at two in the morning when reading a text from six months ago. I have a newsletter for you. What if overthinking is an emotional problem rather than a cognitive problem? What if your mind doesn’t go into loops because it likes suffering, but because it needs to feel something in your body? Is it that overthinking occurs when your emotions enter your mind instead of being processed directly? What I’m saying is that overthinking can result from trying to process emotions that aren’t allowed to.
Overthinking is avoidance disguised as problem solving
It seems effective, but research shows that the more we personalize the response, the more it is emphasized out we will be the result. A period of overthinking will not solve the problems you face. Rather, it keeps you from feeling raw so you don’t have to face it. About thinking anxiety passing through it is not the same. Let’s look at Yolanda, who practiced a difficult conversation with her boss for three hours. However, she never admitted to herself that she was afraid of being fired underneath.
The feeling that started in the period is usually small
Overthinkers tend to think that their spiral means something is deeply wrong. In fact, from my consulting experience, the underlying trigger is often simple. I heard accounts of small rejection, a flash embarrassmentor a moment of temporary uncertainty. But since the emotions are never acknowledged, the brain returns to the scene. It hunts for solutions that can only come from acknowledging feelings rather than searching for certainty in an uncertain world. For example, David spent two days wondering why his friend didn’t text him back. In fact, what he was doing was growing a temporary feeling of “I don’t care” that he didn’t allow himself to feel.
This pattern of thinking and not knowing true feelings is not just for adults. In Free your child from overthinking I discuss how children appear in the same circles. Not only do they tend to think too much, but they lack the awareness and language to share their feelings. I help parents realize that the entry point is often the feelings underneath, which are more reliable than the thoughts above.
The way to overthinking is through your body
Nothing can be more anti-intuitive than realizing that you’re not thinking your way through a lot of ideas. Instead, you leave it through your body. When the body is finally heard, the mind relaxes. For example, Kim spent hours meeting her beloved parents. When she paused, put her hand to her chest and said, “I feel nervous,” she felt less physically and her thought spiral went away. She realized that her overthinking mentality wasn’t broken. On the contrary, it was working overtime in a job it did not belong to.
