If you subtract overthinking for hours, what are you left with?
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- Uncomfortable emotions.
- And a mind attempting to make sense of those feelings (I’m using emotions and feelings interchangeably).
And as much as there are hundreds of messages to fix our emotions, to understand them, to make sense of them. There are emotions to feel and there are emotions to be tossed. But to make the distinction, when dealing with overthinking rabbit holes, you need to check what are the thoughts about emotions your mind is holding onto.
I feel it; therefore, it’s true.
We all struggle to distinguish what’s happening in a moment from what our mind tells us is happening; it’s as if the feeling of the moment dictates reality. For example, if I’m taking an elevator and have shortness of breath, my mind could anticipate that being in the elevator is unsafe, that I may have a panic attack, that I may need to avoid taking elevators in the future. And just like that, he decides to avoid taking an elevator because of all those reasons my mind is giving me. It’s as if because I feel something, is true.
My uncomfortable feelings will last forever
As uncomfortable as feelings can be, they do have a life of their own: they usually last for seconds and dissipate one after another. When emotions are left alone, on average they may last 90-seconds, including the uncomfortable ones.
It’s always good to think about my feelings
If you have watched the movie Inside Out, you may agree that every emotion is trying to convey something to us, including the uncomfortable ones. But identifying what an emotion is trying to communicate to us is very different than mulling over the emotion over and over (as I do when complaining about the water company I have to deal with). Dwelling endlessly on our feelings can actually amplify the intensity and duration of them and that applies to all feelings.
I feel it, therefore I need to act on it
We feel what we feel, and our mind instantaneously comes up with thoughts about what to do in that situation. It is as if whatever we feel means that we have to act on. Think about this: if you’re driving in your car, you hear about a new type of virus, and if you’re prone to overthinking, then naturally, your mind will come up with what-if thoughts. Along those what-if-thoughts, you may notice your teeth clenching, your face flashing .. and then quickly your mind will push you to rehearse all different ways to handle that possibility of having that virus .. and then you’re worrying for hours in your head, attempting to solve a hypothesis. What a waste of energy!
Having a feeling doesn’t mean acting on the feeling
It’s natural to overthink and sometimes it’s necessary, but when overthinking has its own journey and takes you away from being present in your life then it’s acting as a form of avoidance. As a form of protecting yourself from sitting with those uncomfortable feelings and all the thoughts, your mind comes to about the feelings and that particular situation.
No matter how terrible the emotion is, it’s the way you think about it, that prolongs it for looooooooooong periods and if you act on those feelings, then you keep prolonging those uncomfortable emotions. Thinking about the situation over and over, dwelling on it, getting upset at us for being upset at a situation, trying to come up with a positive emotion right away, etc .. and any other thinking strategy just makes things worse for you.
As much as we would like to control our feelings, especially the uncomfortable ones, we don’t have control of them; we only have control of our behavioral responses to a given feeling.
We just don’t have control of what we feel, we feel what we feel.
And you can handle that.
