Overthinking Is Merely The Wrong Focus.
I often here the idea that the “worst” place sometimes is to be inside your head. That there is this concept of “over thinking.” There are even many forms of meditation that ask you cease thinking all together or at least let your thoughts run in free form and cling to no single thought. But is it truly a “strength” or “healthy” strategy to cease any thinking, even in meditation?
Well, I have been thinking about this for quite some time. Ever since I listened to an individual, which I cannot remember at this moment. That in gist, “To cease thinking at any form, is to teach yourself you have no control over thinking.” I believe this to be true, much like we teach addicts that we are not in control of our addictions.
Battling forms of addiction, I believed this to be so for many years. Till I dove into the psychology of the human mind. We protect ourselves from pain and seek pleasure. As an addict, you attempt this through your addiction whatever it may be. Your reality is painful in some way, so you seek the pleasure of you vice to “evade” the pain, even if it momentarily.
What you are really doing, is piling up that pain behind the closet door. Eventually those doors cannot hold back the misery any longer. You focused so much on the escape rather than solution and adapting to healthy habits. You gave control over to erratic patterns of thinking. To over think, I believe is to not think, you are allowing anything to make yourself seem without power, a pity party you could say. You are letting your mind be without a plan.
To become healthy in any form requires sacrifice, sacrifice is pain. Pain, which is something we try to avoid. Want to get fit? It requires the pain of lifting weight and sacrificing time away from comfort.
Want a healthier financial situation? It requires discipline, (which is often associated with pain. This is truly a false thought. Will bring this up in another post in the future.) The discipline to save, to not spend wildly, to miss out on events with friends and save. Maybe to work more hours and sacrifice more time.
But what if, you change your view on what brings you pain? What if, instead of thinking lifting brings you pain, not lifting brings you pain? That as you sit on your ass watching TV you see your body deteriorate. Not lifting, places you in an unhealthy mental and physical state. Become too unhealthy you could have a heart attack and miss your friends, your child’s, your grandchild’s wedding or graduation.
A switch of perspective can manipulate the mind into seeing what truly brings the pain. Procrastinating is a big pain bringer. Not doing that report, that essay until the week of instead of early, bit by bit. You build stress, unnecessary stress. Stress without focused energy to expel it, depletes the body and causes physical and neurological changes to the body.
How does this tie into over thinking? Well, much like what you focus on as pain, what you focus on in the mind is what leads to the pain. Lets say you have an interview coming up and you really need the job, all you can think about is not failing.
You think about how not to mess up or what could go wrong. You wonder if you are prepared. You think, “What will I do if I don’t get the job?” Then you trail down that path of pain, the thought of bills piling up weighs on your chest. Having to possibly move out and back to your parents, embarrassment soaks your ego. Maybe even possibly ending up homeless, you think about the cold, the rain, the loss of friends etc.
This, would be considered over thinking, what I would consider this is, “Thinking with intent to deplete.” To deplete any form of confidence, any existence of solution, and any faith you will overcome.
Now, we are human so there is no perfect way about thinking but there are negative ways and positive ways. How you may end up bringing the reins of your mind may be different or skewed a bit from what I am about to explain.
Take what I have said earlier, what you focus on to be pain, is what you will aim to evade. Now, instead of focusing how you may screw up your interview, focus on how you could learn from it.
Not win, but learn, life is a constant lesson with challenges that will teach us what we never would have ever thought of learning. Each negative and positive experience in life has something to teach but I believe the negatives have more.
Also, how can you set yourself up to achieve the results you want? What steps do you believe are necessary to win the interview? Make a list, portray that list into healthy reasons as to why it can help you win and if you don’t follow it list the pain it will bring. Also list the pleasure it will bring if you do.
Examples:
- Dress appropriately, this shows I care and if I physically show I care. Then the interviewer will most likely be more positive toward me. If I don’t, they may think I don’t care and am just slouching in the employment market. Also, dressing nicely grants me confidence. With confidence in my dressing and appearance, psychologically I will feel the same. Allowing me to be more outgoing during the interview. If I am not confident, I will be less likely to be outgoing.
- Make sure my posture is assertive but not cocky nor overpowering. It is shown in studies a confident/assertive posture can conjure up confidence and make you appear in an alpha state. Doing this may exude leadership qualities toward the interviewer. Possibly making me even more likely to get the job. Slouching will exclude confidence and make me appear to be weak. Doing so would most likely make me not get the job.
- I can practice the interview in front of a mirror or with a friend. This will allow for free flowing thoughts on how to express myself without a negative outcome before the interview. If I don’t do this, I will be ill prepared to respond and will trip up in the interview. Causing myself to look weak, feel embarrassed and not get the job.
- Overall, my solution for the interview is to create confidence in appearance through clean dressing and posture. Both complimenting the psyche then allowing me to express my response with precision. I can get the job with mock preparation. If I don’t I will write down what I learned from the interview, ask why I did not get the job. Apply what I learned to the next interview.
This is a basic outline for an interview situation. But what about a very close friend or family death or a major loss in financial stability? I bring these up because I have been in both, pretty much at the same time.
Do the same thought process, focus on the solution and the pain there will be if you do not attempt to find a way through the situation. You don’t want to be the one to fall apart during all this, running around blind hoping for a handout do you? Living on pity, passing blame or thinking what you could have done to save that person if you were there.
These are not solutions nor goals to achieve pleasure through the understanding of what it means to face pain over avoiding it. Pleasure, cannot be met without pain. But to place more pain in avoidance than facing it, will bring about new perspective.
Much like the interview, it will be “painful” to do all that preparation for the interview. But if you don’t do it, there will be more pain.
So, over thinking, I believe is merely the thought that thinking has negative consequences at any given time. To think is normal, we all think and think often without reason that we can find. Lurking throughout our minds, pulling down painful memories and nostalgia. Trying to link our present to our past. Rather than seeing, if you made joyful memorable moments then, why can’t you do the same?
Memories are not memories until they pass. So, it is a bit of a challenge to know what moments will become good ones and bad ones. But to try that is to be foolish. best you can do, is to look at moments all as a blessing, some more than others.
To conceptualize what could still become of the future. Your mind is in your control. Tell it that thought is painful and you should stress about it, it will. Tell it that memory is painful but there are many joys, lessons, transformations behind it, it will.
Nothing of pleasure would be pleasure without the understanding of pain. So, when you meditate or are stuck in over thinking, remember. It is not that you are over thinking. It is that your focus is on the pain rather than a solution, a lesson, or even just the thought, “I rule the suffering and joy in my body, my heart, my soul.” No, you won’t be without slip ups, but doing this bit by bit I believe can drastically change ones understanding of self and the mind.
Start off by thinking of everything that is stressing you, now take each one by one. Dissect them by importance, by ease, by pain, and by which one can be achieved with least resistance. The least resistant ones I find are best to deal with immediately.
It clears up the heart and mind for the more challenging ones. Is your room a mess, your car, your house? Start with that, clean it. Realize it is in your hands to control that. Execute and that which you cannot control, hand over to God. Death is after us all, stop thinking in steps of depletion, think in steps of solution.
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