Over with Over-Thinking!

Are yaar tu kitna sochti hai ….

Familiar line right?

I have been a receiver of this line like a zillion times. Well yes, sometimes we do happen to screw up our peace of mind by just sulking over a certain situation and then presuming outcome or regretting that we could have done it some other way.  

In both the situations --it’s futile! Neither we can time travel and change things nor can we predict any outcome by our thoughts alone. There is no good in over thinking .

Well true, and as individuals we all realize this too. But can we really stop ourselves from ruminating?

Honestly, that would hold a No for me. If I have to spill a secret here, I’d say there was a time when I was engrossed in the vicious cycle of ruminating or over thinking as the people around me were calling it. I had zoned out , started losing out on the people around me for some vivid situations in my head, my relationships were getting affected, my mood used to be for a swing always: High, low, stuck, oscillating between happiness and sadness all at the same time.

Anyone who would meet me used to tell me, Stop “Over Thinking” ,but their advise only used to make it worse. Because then I used to over think about how to stop “Over Thinking “.

The issue was : Over-analyzing everything interferes with problem-solving. It will cause you to dwell on the problem rather than look for solutions. The same happened with me; I started to get panicky about my thought process.

Even simple decisions, like choosing what to wear to a movie night or deciding where to go for dinner, felt like a life-or-death decision .So many thoughts used to run in my mind, I was under this constant struggle to quiet the persistent barrage of thoughts.

There followed so many suggestions: help books, inspirational videos, some articles from well-known bloggers, mom’s advice, it all did help for a fraction of moment , but as soon as I was in some “me” time, those dark clouds of over thinking came hovering over my mental peace.

To make it more worse,  was my introvert nature coupled with my over thinking, made me a total alien for my friends. People started avoiding me , rather I started pitying myself, and that was when I realized I definitely need to put my shit together.

Now we need to focus on this thing that I wasn’t SAD over a particular incident, or as people would presume “break-up hogya hoga” .  No!!!! Nothing, I was just forcing my brain not to stay happy in any situation. I was unknowingly training my mind to be a suicide bomber.

When we think way too much or focus on things more than what is required and most of the time end up focusing on the negatives. Excess happiness makes us uneasy. It gives us the feeling that something wrong is coming our way or that we are going to screw this up in one way or another.

It's not that we don't want to be happy, we just feel like we are forgetting something major when we are.

Since I had dwelled on this habit of making a mountain out of a molehill in my mind I needed constant attention and reassurance on things. If someone didn’t reply, after the blue tick on watsapp, I used to assume the person has started hating me, even though the facts were complete different. This habit of mine made me come out as needy, insecure, possessive and a constant cribber, even though in my eyes I was never one.

It even took a toll on my sleep patterns, my attitude at work, my appetite and slowly on my overall personality: both mentally and physically.

But the good part was, I realized my short coming well in time before it could have consumed me!

Why do we over think, is it a self-inflicted behavior, a mental state or a disease?

 I think we all do it, to know when to stop is the major call here. We somehow have this feeling that the more we replay incidents in our heads, the more clarity we will get on the matter. We feel like we will remember some detail previously forgotten which will help us feel better about ourselves.

Unfortunately, the opposite happens and we fall deeper into the overthinking pit.We are so concerned with how to fix something in the past or how to make our future better that we end up losing our present in the process.

How can we stop Over-Thinking?

Well I am not sure if we really can stop it altogether.

We cannot stop thinking unless we are some great saints, but we surely can change the way it affects our outlook on things. Here are few points when we overthink and how these are the actual triggers of us dwelling on our thoughts so much:

1.       It must have been a sign: This particular thought strikes us after something unexpected happens with us. We are somehow programmed to explain things in a dramatic way that we start thinking God or our Guardian Angels’ keep sending us secret signs that we need to decipher.   Signs are indicative clearly, like traffic signs we don’t need to study them, we just know what they mean, and similarly reading between the lines in a particular situation will only drain your mental energy and not generate some cosmic plan for you.

2.       Acceptance:  We overthink as a means of trying to manipulate ourselves and the experiences in our lives to be more aligned with what we think they should be, to be more aligned with what we think other people want to see and experience. Actually just “Fuck it”. Other people's opinions are out of our control regardless. Just evaluating, dissecting and rationally analyzing things like they "should." be is nothing but a waste of time. We should learn to accept and be at peace with it.

3.       Meaning: Sometimes we dwell on a certain situation or a thought because we try to find some particular meaning in it. We idealize so much that when reality strikes we get lost in a whirlpool of self-destructive thoughts. "Meaning" isn't something you usually have to think through. It's second to your initial mental and emotional reaction. Meaning is not self-applied, it's self-generated. If you want to change what something means in your life, you change the way you think about it, how for how long, or to what analytical degree.

4.       Thought before Action: I do agree that carefully considering your actions is an important part of making good choices. In essence, we overthink because we think it's a noble. It does something for us. The more we understand, the more we're aware of every potential outcome. But Wait that’s not true. Some thought is necessary, but other times you might find yourself reading too much into a situation that unnecessarily or spending too long making a decision when it's better off to just go with your instinct.

5.       Blaming Ourselves: We all make mistakes in life and life isn't always rosy and nice. However, it is very difficult for us to actually let things go and accept the right and wrong without trying to fix the situation. We replay scenarios in our head, over think, try to justify actions in our head, and just end up victimizing ourselves.

6.       Thinking we have time: We take our life for granted more than anything else in the world. Time is a gift to us, every day is a new chapter, we should realize that today, this moment is the only guarantee, we need to make a choice and it's time we make it right away. We get one life and we need to live it to the fullest rather than worry about problems that may or may not be there in the first place.

7.       Comparing to others: This is the worst thing we can do to ourselves. Comparing our lives with others. We should never judge our life on someone else’s bars. We should determine our own goals and work in that process rather than giving someone else the power to decide our goals for us.

These are some points I keep handy while dwelling on a certain thought process, and if I nothing of the above works , I simply close my eyes, take a deep breath and shout in my head , “ Fuck you negative thoughts, I am the best” !!! And surprisingly it works.

 To conclude I would say:

“There is nothing in this world that can trouble you as much as your own thoughts."

I cannot emphasize how true these words are. We don't realize how much we let our own thoughts ruin our relationships and our lives. So whenever you have the urge to overthink,  remind yourself that overthinking ruins you. It ruins the situation, twists things around, makes you worry and makes everything much worse than it actually is.

Have some faith; it will only get better from here on.