Overthinking – we are all guilty of it, and let’s face it, it really doesn’t lead to happiness, but in fact makes us feel worse, so why do we all do it?
Well, let’s think (!) about what we overthink about?
Usually it’s problems
Or, should I say perceived problems.
Problems are made up by the mind.
When something comes along that we think is unpleasant, upsetting, hard, annoying, hurtful, for you to perceive a problem, your mind needs to JUDGE it as negative, and only then it is considered a problem by you.
Think about it like this: without your mind judging something as negative, you would happily trundle along in life without ever thinking of things as a problem.
What YOU judge to be a problem is, of course, completely different to what I or anyone else would judge to be a problem – it’s all down to how we perceive it.
Now, what happens when we judge something as problematic? Our minds are designed to fix problems, so we go into overdrive trying to find a way to fix something. It really doesn’t matter to our minds whether this is a minor inconvenience or a major tragedy, your mind will respond the same; ‘Why me?’, ‘How will this affect my life?’, ‘How will we find the money?’, ‘Will we be Ok?’, ‘How can I make things better?’.
Of course, this has its place. We do all have problems that we need to solve, but what happens is that when we start to judge, if we are not aware, we judge more and more and soon we may well spend the whole of our day trying to solve problems in our minds (Overthinking!)
Believe me it’s no fun!
This leads to so much stress and we all know the dire effect that has on our long term health.
So how do we stop Judging?
Awareness. Most of you will have heard me say awareness is your Super power, and it really is.
Without being aware of what you are thinking, what is going on in your head, you will just continue doing the same thing day in and out.
If you want to stop overthinking, then start to notice what you are saying to yourself and to others,
Then SUSPEND judgement. What I mean by that is notice what you are being judgmental about, notice when you are seeing things as wrong, negative, worse etc and then pause. That stopping and noticing allows you the space to see it for what it is – a thought in your mind about your life.
See it, don’t be it!
Now you are in position to respond differently – it’s always your choice.
As Sandy Newbigging said, when you “see the judgement instead of being the judger” you might be surprised how much calmer you feel.