It seems that many of us have a tendency to overthink things and dwell on thoughts like 'what if?' and all of the would have, could have, and should haves. It's an interesting problem and one that I cannot downplay the significance of, but is also one that we can learn to manage through mindfulness. It's interesting that we can hear things over and over again and not really accept the wisdom in them until they finally click into place in our minds. I find this problem also aligns pretty heavily with addiction and compulsive behavioral issues, and today I'll discuss my perspective of what causes this and what I do to keep my own overthinking in check.
The first and most fundamental thing that I must stress is that you cannot force thoughts from your mind as that in turn just creates more thoughts. Metaphorically, the only way to get out of a forest is to go through the trees. We have to first accept the thoughts that we are overthinking about for what they are and then determine if they are rational or irrational thought patterns. It's actually part of our survival mechanisms that we as a species have developed over time and accepting them as that and just a natural response is as good a place to start as any. Once we have accepted that we have thoughts and are okay with that fact it's time to accept the things we cannot change and change the things we can.
It's interesting that I heard that exact statement and the Serenity Prayer many times in my journey to sobriety. I've tried to explain to people that addiction to a substance is merely a symptom of actually being an addict and the substance dependency or compulsive behavior is used more or less as an excuse for the addict. Believe it or not, I've seen people get addicted to recovery and fail to ever address their own personal issues, and yes, for a period of time I was one of them. I've written posts in the past that at the core of all of my compulsive issues was a desire for control and the only thing I could really control was how I escaped from my own obsessive negative thought patterns. The problem I ran into is that at some point there is a limit to what other people will allow, our bodies can handle, or what we can get away with, and in the end, we are forced to face the thing we have been running from, which is ourselves. The only alternative that I've found is to die before making the connection.
From this mindset, it seems that we often isolate and dwell in our own negative thought patterns. We can blame other people, society, or whatever we want for the isolation, but ultimately it's about our own inability to cope with our own thoughts. This feeling of being stuck with no way out and being unlovable is a sort of analysis paralysis from my perspective. We've basically worked ourselves into a corner with the world pinning us down and no means to fight back. Every outreached hand feels like a slap in the face or just our next fix and even the guilt of that starts weighing into our negative thought patterns. So how do we break the cycle of our own negative thought patterns and compulsive behaviors to stop the cycle of self harm and isolation? I purpose we stop identifying ourselves as the negative thought patterns or behaviors and start looking at ourselves as the one allowing them. We are not the thought any more than we are the behavior.
I can't say there is any one size fits all solution to overthinking, but what I can do is tell you how I've managed to get and keep my own emotions and thoughts in check. I started with meditation and just taking dedicated time to think about my issues one at a time. Acknowledging that each of these thoughts is just our own way of telling ourselves we need to change something is the first step. The second step that I did was to start adjusting the irrational thoughts and shifting them into more rational lines of thought. "I'm a worthless piece of shit because I want to get high," changes to something positive like, "I'm not a worthless piece of shit because I didn't get high today." Over time addressing each thought one by one and tracing them back to the source of my own negative thoughts allowed me to work through them and become mindful of my own habit to assume things and develop unrealistic expectations of reality and my own inability to actually listen to anyone else.
Over time and with practice, I found myself at a state of addressing the negative thoughts as I came to have them. All of the years of built up negative thoughts that I had allowed to persist and all of the assumptions that I allowed to flood my mind and block out anything that anyone else had to say were gone because I had already worked through them. The compulsive need to escape no longer exists when there is nothing inside of our own heads to run away from and the world in general starts feeling like a much better place. I was then able to actively listen and engage in conversations without just focusing on my own assumptions of another person's intentions and beliefs. I don't think this problem is rooted in addiction or compulsive behaviors and to treat those things is much like giving someone with bronchitis a cough drop. While relieving the symptoms is important for our own comfort, the core "illness" or problem isn't going to be fixed without addressing it directly. I can't promise this method works for anyone else, but my hope is that someone finds this post useful in starting the process for themselves. Namaste.
Hi, you were one of two winners in the Tales from the MAP Room curated content post.
Your prize is 200 SP delegated for 10 days (from the @rycharde account). Apologies for the delay in processing this, but I hope it comes as a welcomed surprise!
That's awesome, thanks for including me! :)
Nice @clayboyn, I've gone through a similar process and continue to. I like that you focused on addiction a bit, I feel like I used to be addicted to negative thinking, and not really purposefully. Like all my negative thoughts would subconsciously come up as I went about my day, and I didn't know how to deal with them so I just kept thinking that way and eventually became pretty apathetic towards the world because I never could listen to anyone either.
My method for dealing with these thoughts during the day is by catching myself thinking them whenever they come up. They come up quick, so I can't really avoid them, but once I notice I can sort of release them, because like you said, I was
Once I realized I was apart from my thoughts it really helped, I just had to remain aware of them.
And of course, meditation has been huge, I started being able to be quiet and let the rest of the world speak to me, it actually took longer to be able to listen during conversation, I was less open to other people's words and opinions at first. That was a difficult step, but one I knew I needed to make.
Awesome article, this topic is a huge interest of mine and really cool to see your perspective on things!
Glad to hear you are making positive progress as well. It's certainly a big hurdle to shift that perspective away from identifying with out own thoughts and being separate from the rest of creation, but once we make that transition it's kind of comical in some aspects to think that it was such a massive hurdle in the first place.
I feel like I'm going through this still, I can tell how my perception is changing, and during my meditations I start losing the tension that holds "me" in place and really open up and free myself. Sometimes, since it's so different, I automatically shrink back from it, so it's a process of more and more letting go for me. It's odd how we separate ourselves
Really enjoyed this. I am very interested in mindfulness meditation, as well as the neuroscience behind its effects on the default mode network. I am considering making an article on this very topic! if your interested, I wold love feedback on my most recent article about memory engrams:
https://steemit.com/neuroscience/@ngans/what-really-is-a-memory-bio-physical-representations-of-memories-and-implanting-fake-memories-on-command
Interesting post, I like the distinction between memory types and the purposes.
Hi @clayboyn,
Thanks so much for this masterpiece !
As said, i believe one can deal with it. It has a process and with time ,one can overcome it.
Also, this question of " why me " should be eliminated. Everyone faces challenges in one way or another. It will never stop coming as long as you are on earth. All you need is keep equiping yourself with the right knowledge on how to deal with them . Be prayerful as well.
I believe we are all born a winner.
Keep it up.
I am glad to be your follower.
@unique18
Very Great Post! We all find ourselves in that place where the world is to blame, until we sit back & find the power in our very psyche that creates the reality perceived. Changing negative thinking to positive looks more like switching the thought “I’m a peice Of shit because I spent my money on a watch I don’t need” .. to “I am good with money because I saved 5 dollars today”.. instead of “I’m not a peice Of shit because I did not spend my money on a watch” which is still technically a negative thought..
See the difference?
Makes sense.
Terrific article! I have always loved that phrase: "Analysis Paralysis." In my work as a Substance Abuse Counselor I love to use an exercise called "Putting Your Thoughts On Trial." The idea is to identify an irrational belief or thought and to literally "put in on trial" by developing argument for its validity of in invalidity. In a group setting this can be fun because you can set it up as a "trial" with one half the group being the "prosecution" and the other the "defense" for the thought on trial. Also, one member of the group can be selected as the judge and hand down the verdict as to the truthfulness of the thought. This can help people identify and consider irrational thoughts when they are on their own.
We’ve been down a similar path, though my addictions were mostly things which people don’t really associate with addiction. I’ve also developed a habit of addressing negative thoughts as well and learning to replace them without denying how I feel. Once I got in the habit, I found Everything kind of started falling into place, and when it doesn’t I know I’ve missed something.
It’s interesting what you said about being addicted to the recovery process. I remember a family member telling me all about AA and how brilliant one of the fundamental ideas was, something you mentioned, to focus on what you can change and forget what you can’t. Still I always felt offput by this continuous identification with being an addict, like once an alcoholic, always an alcoholic, as if it’s the alcohol that’s the problem and not the addiction. I never saw that as being very productive, not nearly as productive as the other take away, focusing on the present.
I really enjoyed this read.
It seems many problems come from our labels of things and the inferred meaning and associations we learn from society.
This nice post i like it philosophy.. thanks for sharing..
Thanks man for the valuable information... @clayboyn appreciate for the hard work...
go for long walks!