Yesterday, I lay awake in bed my brain churning for hours before my alarm was due to go off. I was worried about something and my brain turned it over and over again imagining every outcome – every possible outcome except what actually happened:
Nothing.
In all that stress and worry and hours of thinking, nothing happened, everything was fine, and I lost hours of sleep for nothing.
Prone to overanalysis anyway, I’ve always been the introspective sort to weigh my options, dissect things and events in my mind and take things down to the bare bones to evaluate – so while this isn’t a new thing, it’s something that’s actually really starting to annoy me.
It annoys me because I have real stuff to think about.
What’s real: job hunting, programming my thermostat so I don’t spend too much money heating the house when no one’s home, my stepfather’s recent surgery, securing childcare while my stepfather recovers from surgery, why my hip hurts every time I run.
What’s not real: the thought that somebody could yell at me about a thing that a rational person wouldn’t be mad enough to yell about. For example.
You see the ridiculousness.
And if I were to dissect that, I could see what that thought would upset me: I hate conflict. I’m a people pleaser. I try to not intentionally upset people. I work hard. Yelling is yucky. Do not like.
No wonder I wouldn’t want that.
But.
What I need to do when the hamster wheel that is my brain starts turning is this:
What is the worst that could happen?
If that bad thing happened, what does that mean?
Will I care in a week, a month, a year?
Right.
Will it work? I don’t know but I do know that realistically, I can’t do anything about hypotheticals, really. I can only deal with reality. I am a creative person, and nearly every worst case scenario that my brain can create has been worse than reality (I’m that creative, y’all). I gotta start using my power for good instead of evil. Would be nice to start envisioning some happy plot lines, wouldn’t it?
If you’re an overthinker, how do you deal with it? Do you give in to the thoughts or are you able to channel your thinking in more positive ways? If you’re a recovered overthinker, how did you kick the habit?
About sarah
The one thing that I have found helps is to not fight the thoughts. Having accepted that I am prone to bouts of severe anxious episodes when my brain literally can’t stop the only thing i can do sometimes is wait. I do my best to allow the anxious thoughts to pass through me instead of focusing even more energy on feeling bad about thinking them. Easier said than done but I try.