If my life were a movie, it would definitely be called The Unfortunate Events of a Serial Overthinker, let’s start there..
Now to a certain extent I know we all over think things some time or another but if you’re like me and you over think EVERYTHING, you understand the burden of this terrible habit. When I say I over think everything I mean EVER-Y-THING! I over think the conversations I’ve had through out the day, was my tone fine? Did I come across as rude ? Was I too submissive ? I overthink my actions, my body language, my delivery, to the point of nauseating myself, why can’t I get things right ? Why did I say that knowing better ? Why did I do that knowing better ? Why did I allow myself to be pushed over ?
I begin to question my life decisions and start to recall every single time I’ve messed things up. I start self-loathing, trapped within the prison of my thoughts, feeling helpless. It is a dark place to be because it often feels like there’s no escape, you can’t escape your mistakes, you can’t escape your flaws and you definitely can’t escape your thoughts… you can quieten them down for a while, distract them for a bit but the minute you’re alone they come flooding back because, well, you can’t escape YOU.
The crazy thing about all of this is that after a while of telling yourself you’re not good enough, you always mess up, nobody wants to be around you… you end up believing it and you manifest it for your life. I could never understand why some people would dislike me for no reason, I could never understand why despite knowing better I would make some silly mistakes, I could never understand why the same things happened to me all the time and honestly the answer was ‘me’, because of me and my thoughts. I would punish myself mentally whenever I did something wrong, regardless of how big or small, not realising that I was actually manifesting my thoughts and projecting exactly what I thought of myself.
I know to some people it may sound far fetched but after a while of telling yourself something you begin to believe it, it alters how you view things. If you keep telling yourself someone is not really fond of you, eventually you’ll believe it and you will view everything they do from that perspective so even if they really have nothing against you, you’ll think they do. That’s the power of the mind and that’s why overthinking is such a dangerous thing.
Like I’ve previously mentioned, you can’t escape you, you can’t escape your past or your mistakes and the dangerous thing about this is that the more you dwell on it the more you fall into the cycle of repeating the very same things and ending up in that dark place again..
Personally I feel the main reasons for all the overthinking we do is because 1. We struggle to forgive ourselves 2. We place too much value on the thoughts and opinions of people 3. Because we struggle to forgive ourselves we feel everyone views us in the same light we view ourselves.
I want to urge you to be graceful with yourself, allow yourself to stumble and know that even when you pick yourself up, you’re allowed to stumble again. I’m not saying don’t be accountable for when you mess up or use the excuse that you’re prone to error to do silly things but be understanding with yourself. You don’t always have to try and make things better, sometimes we’re so desperate to make things better we end up making it worse, some situations can be left in the past without interference, rather focus on how you can DO better going forward. I urge you to let go of the weight of the opinions of the world, a lot of humans will celebrate your failures and bask in your defeats, even the ones closest to you, know that your identity does not lie in the opinions of others and you are not defined by your mistakes or your flaws.
Start thinking of yourself the way you’d like to be thought of, start speaking to yourself the way you’d like to be spoken to, get to know yourself more and you’ll understand the root causes of a lot of your problems, get rid of things that drain you of your light and make you unhappy, declutter your mind of any thoughts that are not beneficial to you and your growth, find time to entertain things and people that help you become better and nurture your soul.
I started this post to show you how my overthinking has often caused some of my biggest heartaches in life and I’m ending it with a pep talk to you and myself, it’s a fight you’ll fight every day, and you’ll have good days and some times you’ll have bad days but the one thing about training your mind everyday is that you get stronger. Life may not always get easier but you’ll get stronger. You have to make the decision to make the most of the short time you have here, you have to make the decision to choose gratitude, happiness and forgiveness. You were created to be great and you can’t achieve that if you are bound by your thoughts. Remember you are the director of the movie that is your life, you can change your story, you can change your title.
Wishing you love and light.
Until next time x
Growing Pains 