Become a Creator today!Start creating today - Share your story with the world!
Start for free
00:00:00
00:00:01
Caught in the Spiral: The Anxiety of Overthinking
68 Plays14 days ago
In this episode, we explore the impact of overthinking on our mental well-being, especially how it can fuel anxiety. We break down the vicious cycle of overthinking and anxiety, and how it keeps us in a state of heightened awareness, making problems seem bigger than they are. Join me as we discuss practical strategies to manage overthinking, stop the mental clutter, and reclaim peace of mind.
Recommended
Transcript
The Nature of Overthinking
00:00:10
Speaker
life's toughest moments, break them apart, and rebuild them. Last week, you might have tuned in where me and my friend, Radio Tom, as I like to call Tom Rell,
00:00:22
Speaker
Dope into reframing our thoughts, finding some courage to see things differently, and rewriting the whole narrative that holds us back. But let's be real, Tom. Reframing is easier said than done. And what happens when those thoughts take on a life of their own? Then what do we do?
00:00:39
Speaker
What happens when we spiral, when we're in this endless loop of what-ifs and should-haves? Well, that's the world of overthinking. It's a place in our minds that we're trying to just solve everything, but often we're just paralyzed. Overthinking clouds our judgment, it feeds our anxiety, it drains us, and oh my gosh, do I not deal with that every day?
Episode Focus: Overthinking and Anxiety
00:01:01
Speaker
We're gonna take a look today into the deeper meaning of what it is and why it happens, and how it's connected to anxiety and why Tom and I were like, we need to do this podcast. Oh, for sure. Because as soon as you said, hey, this is the topic, I was like already on it.
00:01:20
Speaker
I'm already there. I'm already doing 38 minutes later. Tom is like, I'm ready. Let's go. I've got all my information, meaning myself. Yeah, because I mean, the topic is overthinking today and the anxiety that that it causes. Right. And I mean, first, let's think about let's talk about what overthinking is. This may be an oversimplification of it. People probably already know what this is, but it's replaying ideas or thoughts or situations that have happened.
00:01:49
Speaker
or haven't happened yet. It's running those scenarios. I like to think of it as like war gaming, right? Like what's the next move? that It's like chess. There's eight moves ahead, 20 moves ahead, 30 moves ahead. What is this going to create? But it happens simultaneously. I don't know if you can if people aren't over thinkers, they don't and understand what this is, but like it's having every possible scenario play out in your brain over and over and over again all day long. And it's exhausting. Exhausting. We're going to get into all of that, but it's like this, um you know, you talked about it last week, so I think it's really interesting to bring it up this week because I'm realizing it is just kind of embedded in
Ancient Mechanisms in Modern Times
00:02:36
Speaker
us. It is this fight or flight yes response defense mechanism to protect us. yeah And we talked about how in ancient times, I mean, that was great. I mean, you had predators and and like yeah life threatening things. But I mean, we're using it now, like with situations with our friends. And the problem with it is that it's this it's supposed to be short lived. It's supposed to be like there's a bear. Get the tree. Yeah. A or B. Right. But we take it and then we draw it out, as you're saying, into the 28 chess move. Well, because it becomes A and then There's moves upon moves upon moves upon moves. Yes. moves And this is my life. And this is why I'm laughing because Tom and I, like every day, we we get we we we talk and we're like, so what did you overthink today? Yeah. The first question is, am I overthinking this?
00:03:29
Speaker
And the answer is always, yeah, yeah, you're overthinking this. So I'm going to say this, Tom, I'm sorry. I hope I'm not embarrassing you. But him even before we got on this podcast, right before I hit record, he goes, all right, I'm a man. I like to fix things. So should I not say any of the fixes? And he's like, because then will people think I go, you're completely overthinking and I have to presenter haven't even pressed record. Yeah.
00:03:50
Speaker
So there's like a fine line, though, I find between being ah like ah aware or being prepared and overthinking and spiraling like Tom and I do. I don't know if that's at 18 scenarios or 20 or maybe it's at six. I don't know where it is, but there's a fine line between being prepared ahead of time and overthinking. Absolutely. And the overthinking part becomes where it's um paralyzing where it's a ah ah paralysis through analysis week we in in the in my in my job that's what we have right and a paralysis by analysis what happens is we think about an idea so many times and we have every scenario figured out and every this way and what if we do this and that way did and that we end up doing nothing and that's really the problem because then inaction happens and then the same
00:04:46
Speaker
the same patterns or the same things that the problem you're trying to solve in the first place, nothing happens with it because yeah
Overthinking in Everyday Decisions
00:04:53
Speaker
you're too afraid to make the wrong decision. Well, you have too many scenarios now, so you don't know which one to choose because you don't know how it's going to play out. So you've paralyzed yourself. Like how many times have you been? And this is because I'm a fat guy. You have to. everybody You're not a fat guy. Don't body shame yourself. If put the donut down, put the donut down. That's another episode idea.
00:05:14
Speaker
have you gone to Stewart's and here locally here Stewart's is like a it's like an ice cream shop primarily they have gas and coffee and stuff like that but theyre they're primarily known for their ice cream shops right you stand in front of that board that they have at the dip counter and they've got 28 36 29 I don't know how many flavors they have but it's a bunch it's more than three it's ice cream you can't make a wrong decision. here Yeah, I don't overthink ice cream. So I'm not feeling you on that. I just go with i like six of them. Can you mix them together? I do that every time though. You do. yeah You know what? I've never had. I've never had the pecan maple chocolate banana crunch. I've never had. I've never had that one before. I should try that. Yeah. But what if it's awful?
00:05:59
Speaker
yeah You know what? No, no, no, no, no. Do they do tastings? like They do. They do do tastings. But then it's even worse because now you're like, oh, it is good. So is that other one. And so is this other one. Just pick one. So what you're saying really is overthinking doesn't just happen in the big scenarios of our life, but also in the little ones, which causes just paralysis all around. I mean, if you cannot even get ice cream. Exactly.
00:06:23
Speaker
without you know having to rethink your decision four times. Death by a thousand paper cuts, that's what it is. It it builds up, it does, because it it overtakes your life and even simple decisions like that. And then what do I end up doing? I always, always, always get the chocolate chip cookie dough, because of course it's the best. But but it's also the safest. It's also the safest, exactly. And I never venture outside of that to get something different.
00:06:48
Speaker
You don't take the risk because you now identified 48 different risk that could happen if you don't go with the safe guy. But I know that if I go with the safe one, I'm not going to be dissatisfied. I'm going to be happy. I'm going to be OK. I'm going to be OK. Yeah. I don't want to live being OK. No, we want to live being fantastic. You should have had the maple syrup bacon banana crunch. There were pecans and there are things somewhere along the line. But but yeah, but that's what I mean. I do that at sandwich shops, too. There's 85 different options at a sandwich. roast beef, lettuce, mayo, onions, every time. I can recite it verbatim because that's exactly, that's the only thing I ever order when I go to a sandwich shop. I'm going to bring you like a chicken cutlet or something. Don't please. So I think with overthinking.
Impact on Relationships
00:07:33
Speaker
So obviously that's in a fun way that we're yeah we're talking about overthinking, but this gets into like relationships too. It does. It's a really debilitating thing. I think the problem is when you're overthinking, you feel that you're doing something right.
00:07:46
Speaker
But what you're really doing is you're on this this loop, right? And you're creating this short term sense of what you think is like control. But really, you've now created all these scenarios which have completely led you out of control. And it's simple things like you said, like I just, you know, I do it as ah as a leader. So this entire um podcast,
00:08:11
Speaker
which is called exhausted sparrows unite some people you know listening around the world so cool we had an argentina listener get out of yeah like last week there was somebody in argentina and uh people are like i don't even know what this this this means so i have a charity here in the hudson valley which is located in the beautiful state of new york um top's kind of smiling i know there's plenty of thoughts on whether it's a beautiful state or not but um We feed people that have a cancer diagnosis.
Leadership and Overthinking
00:08:40
Speaker
And in the middle of doing all of this, I have a staff of three others, and I'm just exhausted, right? like My husband's like, do you did you shower today? I'm like, I have no idea. I can't even keep it together. So I kind of thought I can barely keep my head above a water, right? Trying to be a mom, trying to be a boss, trying to feed people that are sick, have a nonprofit, raise money, all this stuff. I'm exhausted. And I said, I am not the only one that's exhausted. And I want people to see the vulnerable me, which is why this, you know, we have this podcast. But one of the things that I had to learn is how to be a leader in the nonprofit world, something I'm not comfortable with. Tom and I have been on radio stations all our life. And when I say all our life, I mean, like 20 years, that's like half our life.
00:09:23
Speaker
I'm not trying to say our age. But it's all this stuff right that I've got to do. And I'm like, people need to see the vulnerable me because people see, if you Google Sparrow's nest of the Hudson Valley or Sparrow's nest, people see like, oh, you have it all together. It's a beautiful building and it's great food. and it And it is not that. So being a leader is something that does not come naturally to lead to me because I am a people pleaser. So my whole ramble is that every single day,
00:09:51
Speaker
I am fighting this overthinking yeah because right I don't want my employees to feel that their opinion doesn't matter but I will give something that you know we are now going to open up on Sundays and we're going to start cooking okay guys and instead of just going okay guys I'm like And what do you think? yeah And then what do you think? And then now I've got seven other opinions that now I want to make them happy. But deep down I know that's not going to work or it's not going to work for me or this is not the vision that I had.
00:10:27
Speaker
And then I start overthinking and changing my entire vision. Exactly. Yes. And in some ways, like even like if you if you're going to make a decision, you have to make it and you got to stick through it. Right. um Overthinking, like you said, prevents you from even making a decision or it can even prevent you from making the right decision.
00:10:50
Speaker
or a watered dar water down decision of your vision. So there's an idiom that I'm going to give you and going forward you're going to hear idioms and and stuff like this because all the time because i this is how I operate. um So a camel is a horse designed by committee.
00:11:10
Speaker
Let me say that again. A camel is a horse designed by committee. So I come to you, Kristen, I say, Hey, listen, I got an idea. I'm I have an idea for this animal is called a horse. It's this majestic beast, very muscular, very lean. It runs really fast. It's really beautiful. um Chicks dig it. The girls love them. I don't know why courses girls love horses for some reason, but it's this really great animal.
00:11:37
Speaker
Do you have any input on it? And then you give me some input and then I ask someone else and I give some input from them and I get some input from this person, from this person, this person. And what I end up with is all this amalgamation of other ideas.
00:11:51
Speaker
that have turned this majestic beast into a camel. Because someone suggested that maybe if it's in the desert, it should have bigger feet and maybe like instead of like short hair, it should have longer hair to keep it warm and then and then this thing and maybe the tail is too long. So maybe within the so you the the idea is you get all these other ideas, and then you end up with something completely ah different and and not even this not even remotely close to the same thing as what you originally had. So so in some some cases, your gut instinct is the best choice.
Emotional Consequences
00:12:26
Speaker
That's the best way to go. Hey, listen, if the horse fails, that's on me.
00:12:30
Speaker
But here's my idea in its purest form, let's go with it. And if it doesn't work, then we'll adjust. But if we if I don't get a chance to put that idea out in its fullest form, then I'm ending up with a camel. yeah Which is not at all what I wanted in the first place. And here's the thing, I think piggybacking on that, that's what then leaves you bitter, right? You had this idea, you knew exactly what it needed to be,
00:12:58
Speaker
if you're a people pleaser or an overthinker you're getting a lot of other opinions in it it is no longer that and then if it does not work you're bitter you're upset you're mad because well i mean i took what you told me to do and and i did what you told me to do and it didn't work And that also goes back to self-esteem issues. yeah And sometimes having to say with anything, going into a job interview, going into a, you know, I know my worth, I know my value, i i I have this idea, I believe it can work, but you're not giving yourself the chance because you're watering it down with all these other things. So it leads to like this whole spiral effect that leads to that, that leads to depression, that, I mean, my goodness, just from
00:13:40
Speaker
the horse the horse that is now a camel. Yes, exactly. And and so one of the ways that you can, um and another way that this manifests as well in relationships, for example, we've all had this experience. um What do you want to do for dinner tonight? where do you Oh, gosh, the dreaded dinner conversation. Yeah.
00:14:01
Speaker
so So, again, in this fake scenario, not that this has ever happened before, this is completely not based on any relationship that I'm in or ever at all. ever But ah one spouse says, hey, where would you like to go? And the other spouse trying to outthink the other spouse, like, what does the other spouse want to do? I don't want to say someplace that they don't want to go to. I want to be agreeable here. So um the other spouse, probably I don't know, probably wants to go to, you know, restaurant B. Right. um But I really want to go to A, but I don't want to tell them because what if they don't want to go to A, then I'm like, now I'm being pushy. Right. And that I don't want to be pushy because we had a conversation last week about being pushy and a and I don't want to be pushy anymore. So i I'll just I'll just say B, because I think that's what they're going to want. Now we go to the other spouse who's also overthinking and says, well,
00:14:52
Speaker
I they're probably going to want to say they're probably going to want to go to B. um And I don't want to say A, because I don't want to be pushy because we had this conversation about being pushy last week and we try to be more 50 50. But, you know, so I don't really want to say exactly what I want, because if it's not what they want, then I'm then I look like the bad guy, right? Yeah. So let's let's go to B. Oh, she said B to great excellence. So that's where she wanted to go. Let's let's both go to B.
00:15:18
Speaker
When really? mean Meanwhile, they both just wanted to go to A, so they both settled when if they were honest with each other, they just said, hey, listen, I I don't know where you want to go. no No offense yeah taken, whatever. yeah I'd prefer A. I'm good for anything, but if it was my choice, I'd i'd want to go to A. but But I'm okay if we go to B. So if the other person is, well, I'd like to go to A as well. And you might find that. You might find that you know the other person has the same thoughts as you do.
00:15:48
Speaker
Right, because you're overthinking it and you're not being truthful with your thoughts, right? You've overthought yourself. You have, you have. With anything and everything, I think that that's what you have to do. I try to just do that in the role that I have here. If I feel something in the air or if I... Because I do, I will spiral out of control. I will be like, I feel like Beth doesn't like me today in this meeting. She's really snarky. Yeah, did you see how she put her cup down on the table? Yeah, right.
00:16:15
Speaker
Some silly, silly things. Exactly. Yes. And so what I have realized is that mentally, that is not good for me. Something that silly, which is not silly at all to me, right, will trip me up and will have me for days over assessing, like, I don't know what I said to Beth in that meeting. I don't know what I, so what I really tried to do is immediately after the meeting, yeah I've gone, Hey,
00:16:44
Speaker
You good? You mad at me so that she can stop my spider wings? And maybe she is mad at me. Maybe she's like, yeah, Krista, I don't like the fact that you wore those black leather pants. in the me mean Yeah, you didn't see the way I put my cup down. It was an obvious sign that I was angry. Whatever it is. But like, but then I can get that off my plate because I know how dangerous it is. We say that overthinking leads to anxiety. Yeah. And it also then leads to depression. But why does it lead to anxiety? Well, let's talk about that.
Fear of Unknown Outcomes
00:17:14
Speaker
I think the reason it does is because it's the unknown. A lot of people are stressed out about things they don't know about or they're they're not sure about. Right. The thing that's that's not known. So when you have when you play out a scenario and it's like, hey, you can either go A or B. OK, well, now I have two things and I don't know which one it is. When you play out a scenario and it could be one of eight situations.
00:17:36
Speaker
right or one of 16 or 32 situations, that creates even more because I've got to be prepared mentally and emotionally for all 32 of those scenarios, yeah right? Like what am I going to say if this happens? What am I going to say if that happens? What do i what is she going to say if I say this to what she hasn't even said yet? So to your point,
00:17:59
Speaker
communicating and and being in communication and having open and honest communication is a great way to stop overthinking because then you know, then you don't have to worry about it. Then you know, ah unless of course, this is where we throw the wrenching gears, unless you're thinking overthinking the overthinking and you go, well, yeah, she's just saying that because, but don't do that.
00:18:19
Speaker
Did I just, did I just blow up your brain with that? Tom, I'm going to pretend you didn't even say that. I didn't even say that. Nope. I'm openly, openly communicating. That's not the scenario. If you, I'm assuming though, if you tell me something, if I come to you and say, Hey, listen, are you mad at me? There's something going on that you're going to be open and honest with me. And then that puts that to rest. You're a hundred percent right. But let's be honest.
00:18:42
Speaker
I absolutely fall into that trap as well. And I will say, well, but you know, I'm the boss. So is she really going to be honest with me? And she's really going to tell me what she thinks. And she is. Yeah. So there's a lot of that. But like you said, it's because you are playing out every single possible outcome, which you cannot do.
00:19:01
Speaker
You can't do it. you You can't possibly find a solution for every outcome of every problem. My pastor um last year did this really great sermon on overthinking and anxiety. And in it, it just really resonated with me because, you know, he said,
00:19:20
Speaker
you are creating all of these scenarios in your head, and the possibility of any of them happening are one in a million. yeah So you have created a million scenarios, like and then I'm gonna go outside because I wanna go to Stewart's and then I wanna get this ice cream, and what if I get the wrong flavor that's gonna make me have the stomach flu? Then I'm gonna throw up, I'm gonna end up in the hospital, my loved ones will never see me before I pass away. He said, you are creating scenarios that are honestly,
00:19:48
Speaker
never going to happen and you have robbed yourself of peace. Yes, in that moment, in that in that very moment. And that moment, though, is like weeks. It could be weeks because you're waiting for the outcome of, let's say, a decision. And he says, and then you get the decision and maybe the decision isn't even what you want. and Maybe you're going into this job interview and you didn't get the job.
00:20:08
Speaker
It's just that simple. I didn't get the job, but you've robbed yourself of weeks and weeks of, I mean, you know, I'm not adequate. I'm not, you know, stop. You just didn't get the job. We we have to stop all of this thinking, this self-esteem bashing that is leading us into such turmoil. And we we have to get more into the What's the worst case scenario? And that's not the worst case. Like we, we have to really in our heads, really, we have to get more logical. What really, I'm really not going to get stomach poison from your maple syrup, crunchy walnut, pecans, chocolate banana crunch. yeah Like, and I'm not going to go to the hospital and I'm not going to die from it. Like that is just spiraling. And I think that made me feel a little better when he said that. Cause I was like, you're right. I robbed myself all the time of peace.
00:20:59
Speaker
So my wife, this was when my our kids were very young
Humorous Example of Parental Overthinking
00:21:03
Speaker
still. They were probably five, six years old. And my oldest one, ah he missed a couple of days of school because he was sick or whatever. You know, with this this happens couldn you when your kids and my wife was particularly stressed that week. And I asked her, so what's going on? what What's what's happening? This is you're more stressed than you normally are as a mom. What's good what's happening?
00:21:22
Speaker
And she confessed to me. I don't and i't remember all the details of this specifically, but it was something that the effect of, um well, he's missed this time at school. And so he's going to miss this math quiz. And because of the math quiz, he's probably not going to pass math for them, which is not even remotely possible. Sure. but Then because he's not, he's going to get stuck behind in the next grade. And then because he's in the next grade, he's going to be here behind and then he's not going to be able to graduate on time and he's never getting to a good college. It's a doomsday. Holy. Are you he's six. He's got.
00:22:03
Speaker
What? Tom Morell being the voice of reason. I know, right? At six years old, you think he's not going to go to college. that That's I mean, but that and we and we can joke about it now. But in the in the moment that was really debilitating to her. She was really afraid that that was going to happen because she had all these scenarios built out like that. He's not going to do this and he's never going to find that. And he's never. What if this happens?
00:22:29
Speaker
We don't know if that's ever gonna happen. there's And that's the thing, like I said, go back and going back to the unknown.
Living in the Moment
00:22:35
Speaker
There's a lot of things that we don't know. So that whole like living in the moment thing, that applies to this as well. I mean, there's a there's a fine line between being prepared for a so situation, like coming into the podcast here.
00:22:50
Speaker
I turn my i turn my own podcast that I listen to off for the 20 minute ride over here so that I can focus on Hey, here's here's the things that I want to say here's the bullet points that I want to cover. um But I have to be flexible enough to fill in with whatever Krista wants to say as well because it's both of us doing this. So I'm not overthinking I'm preparing.
00:23:12
Speaker
Overthinking is that scenario where my kid misses a week of school because he's got pneumonia and now he's not graduating college and he's not going to have a good job and he's going to end up living at home with us until he's 38. What? Probably not happening. Probably not happening. And oh, by the way, now I'm thinking about all of this stuff that hasn't even happened yet, how he's never going to get married and we never have grandchildren, all this, all these other things that build on top of this ah imaginary scenario.
00:23:41
Speaker
that all creates stress internally. And you can rationalize, like you said, if we just think logically about it. That's the that's the hard part. it Is that this is a very emotional thing and to just like throw out, hey, just think logically about it. That's really, really tough. And I think we need to talk about that coming up, but I think you touched on something that I just want to reiterate. You know, we are making light of this, but it is a deep dark hole and we're both aware of it, you know? And I think in the middle of the situation,
00:24:10
Speaker
you know I don't do anywhere near as well as all this great stuff I'm saying on a microphone. I'm really in it and I'm in it deep and sometimes I'm in it for an hour and sometimes I'm in it for two weeks. So it is a real thing and we are not in any way negating the fact that as you're going through it, as your wife went through it, as I'm going through, you know poor Beth, she's going to be like, Christa, why am I getting all these phone calls?
00:24:33
Speaker
But whoever it is, you know, being mad at you, um it's a real thing for you. It really does have value. And we're not trying to devalue that at all. It's just it's um it's a lot and it's debilitating. Yeah, we're just we're pointing out the the the less um the less critical ones, the ones that we can find humor in. Sure. But there are ones like at work where for weeks I will I will have this this innate feeling like, um well, the boss hasn't talked to me in a couple weeks, or I haven't been invited to this meeting, or um he hasn't mentioned anything to me about this, or he hasn't replied back to my email about that. what is he like what is Why is he doing that? And is it because of this? Is it because of that thing? Is it because of the other thing? And it that can be really, really tough, because then that stress at work,
00:25:30
Speaker
you're you're having to work with other people. That stress affects the other people that you're working with as well. 100%. And then not just that, but then you you come home with these imaginary, and I say imaginary, I don't mean it like that, but imaginary in the sense that like these aren't these haven't manifested.
00:25:46
Speaker
In reality, yet, in my imagination, every nobody listens to me at work. Everybody's mad at me at work. Nobody thinks I'm doing a good job. You might be losing your job. I'm on the cusp of losing my job, and i and I go home, and now I have to deal with my wife and my children.
00:26:01
Speaker
who you love dearly. Absolutely. With all of that, but with all of that baggage yeah that they don't even know anything about because none of it is reality. It's all in my in my head. And now imagine this is the other part that overthinking does. Now I go home and if I even remotely start to dive into that to just get it off my chest, that's a lot to dump on somebody.
00:26:25
Speaker
And you're also causing a worry to something that really, as you said, hasn't manifested itself, right? You're saying, I may lose my job. Now you've got your wife worried. And at the end of the day, it's just all this noise that also then prevents you from concentrating on things you need to at work because this noise is more important than yeah your self-esteem, if you're liked, if you're good enough, are you adequate enough that it really prevents you from doing all these other things that you have to do because it's always there. It dulls itself, but it's there because now if I'm not, if I'm not liked at work, if I'm not good enough at work, if, if my boss at work doesn't like me, well, what about the other coaches that I coach baseball with?
00:27:09
Speaker
What about um what about the the guys that I work with trivia at? What about the people that I do podcasts with? What about you know the the friends of mine that I have? what yeah Maybe everything maybe everything is is not as it seems. Nothing is as it seems. All of this is a lie.
00:27:26
Speaker
And that's like that's way overthinking. It is. But that's what it does. But that's exactly what it does. And it in in it again, it can be emotionally and mentally, physically, even just absolutely draining.
00:27:40
Speaker
So let's talk about that.
Strategies to Break Overthinking
00:27:42
Speaker
Let's, let, let's talk about breaking the cycle because something for me that I found very interesting is somebody that really, I have a attention deficit disorder. Nobody has ever ah squir diagnosed me with it yeah me or Tom, but you know, I know that I have it when, when I was young, medication was starting to come out. My mom never put me on anything, but you know,
00:28:07
Speaker
The thing is overthinking does not provide clarity. It actually creates mental clutter. Yes, I think that's really important because then what happens is you have this inability to solve yeah anything and reframing that using that first when you realize so being mindful of that going way, way, way. Hold on. Hold on. Hold on, Krista.
00:28:33
Speaker
I'm overthinking this and I know logically that overthinking creates not a solution, it creates more problems that don't even exist yet. This isn't helping me. So now that's the that's recognizing that and then reframing that. And then it all goes into like being mindful of it as well. um So one way that you can help is setting a time limit for the amount of time that you're going to spend thinking about this.
00:29:02
Speaker
I do this at work all the time. Just the other day at work, ah something came up at work and a guy treated me like garbage for a minute. And I was like, what's going on with him? What did I do? Wait, did I do something? And then, yeah right? And we start down that spiral.
00:29:19
Speaker
And I realized that I was feeling this anxiety and I was talking to myself and I'm going upstairs about to ready to get to my desk and I'm like, okay, Tom, by the time we get to the desk, we're not thinking about this anymore because it's and it's meaningless. He's having a bad day. I'm not going to let that ruin my day. I can't overthink what he's got going on.
00:29:39
Speaker
When I get to the top of the stairs, whatever that time frame is, I'm done. I got to stop thinking about this because I have to move on to the next thing. So if you set yourself a time limit, hey, listen, for the next five minutes, I'm allowed to overthink. But it fight at the end of five minutes, I got to I got to lock that away and put that in a box and put it back on the shelf because I yeah don't have time to deal with that because the longer I deal with it, excuse me, the deeper that spiral gets. So.
00:30:07
Speaker
You need to learn how to interrupt that, right? Give yourself five minutes, and then you have to completely interrupt it. You have to bring yourself to the present. You have to say, this is enough. You have to disrupt that that that loop, which is what causes all this this
Role of Communication
00:30:24
Speaker
anxiety. And it's a tough thing to do, but sometimes you have to say, stop.
00:30:29
Speaker
you know this this this this this is not helping me i've had my five minutes i'm done i'm not revisiting it and i'm not saying that's easy it's no it's not easy no no no no but you know i i i guess i use the analogy swinging back into the right tree yes right like you have to you can stick in the tree that's you know poor me.
00:30:50
Speaker
But then you you've got to get back into the tree of life. You've got to get back into the tree of living in the moment and not overthinking things. So get out of it and regroup. Exactly. Yeah. It's like taking it like like taking a drive. Here's the here's the road that I'm going to drive on. I can I can turn off left and right. But it's going to only delay where I want to get to. Right. True.
00:31:13
Speaker
Another way is we talked about it before is communicating openly. Hey, the minute you have that thought of like, OK, Beth, put her cup down weird at the meeting. Right. Going back to that analogy. She looked at how she put her cup down. Oh, my God. She's probably mad at me. Hold on. ah Or is she mad at me or she mad at somebody else?
00:31:31
Speaker
immediately when that question pops in your head, go explore that, go find out, get that information, communicate openly, and even like even if you are having that kind of, um ah that that spiral, like what I was saying before about how it worked now and thinking about all these other things, you go home, instead of instead of thinking it as thinking as dumping on my ah my wife right or my family,
00:31:57
Speaker
Talk to her about it. And oh, by the way, what is she going to do? She's going to help me through this time. You know, that's not the case. Right. You're amazing at your job, which I am.
00:32:09
Speaker
Which I have to tell myself. Self-esteem issues he does not have. No, I do, I do. That's why I have to tell myself these things. But she's gonna tell me, yeah, but he didn't say that. Yeah, but he didn't do that. Yeah, but she didn't mean that, right? I mean, look, you're reading a text, but she's gonna try to reason it out with me. Sure.
00:32:27
Speaker
where it that's hard to do with yourself in your head. it is so don't So communicating openly is is also about finding out the information so there's and you're releasing that uncertainty, but also releasing the stress of that and having someone go, Tom, it's going to be okay.
00:32:44
Speaker
come Come back from the ledge. That's not going to happen. yeah You're not going to lose your job. but You're not going to this. That's not happening. and You know, the guys who you coach with, they love you, man. They're they're awesome. They're good guys. You don't have to. Why? why why Where are these thoughts coming from?
00:33:00
Speaker
And then that's when you can kind of back into it and you go, okay, that's where because it's yeah there's uncertainty here. But when you talk about communication too, I think when you immediately communicate with the person that you're feeling something from and you know they assure you like, oh, i didn't I didn't mean it that way. It also creates for them an awareness that you're sensitive to certain things, right? They redo their patterns, you redo yours. And if you if you work things out and you go to people immediately, you will notice too that maybe they stop having an edge to their voice when you talk about certain things. Or you will also notice that communication will help the two of you and you will really start feeling a little bit better in different situations with with people that may cause you angst. You know, if you don't put it out there, they don't know what they're doing. I say that all the time here. Like if you don't tell me that this bothers you it and it could be something silly that I would never think would bother you. But, you know, putting that cup down, if she slams her cup all the time, poor Beth. Yeah. Like Beth, Beth is going to like beginning phone calls. Like, are you angry? do We need to confiscate her cups right away. Go to her office, yeah get her cups, all of them.
00:34:06
Speaker
and Yeah, but I think that communication thing also helps you. You're clear in the air with somebody, but you're also saying to somebody like, you know, this thing makes me feel this way. Yeah. If I know that, Tom, then I'm going to stop. You know, i'm I'm not going to bring the cup in the room. I'm going to be like, all right, I'm not going to even put the cup down, but not bring in the cup. It also helps in the next scenario with someone maybe you don't know, where you don't have that opportunity to communicate with them openly, right? Where you can go, wait a minute, same thing happened last time with Beth and it was nothing. So it's probably nothing here too. Yeah. So it the more often, like any of these things that we talk about that are that are the the fixes, the helps, anything that we talk about here, the more often you do it, the the easier it becomes. Yeah. And then I think too, we can also do things like,
00:34:51
Speaker
engage in other activities. oh Definitely. For me, I need to reset myself. I need to refocus myself. So getting involved in something different when I'm in a funky mood helps and I may not want to get involved in anything. I may not want to get outside and go for a run. I may not want to just switch to another project, but sometimes you to get you off of it, you've got to get yourself on something. You've got to change the channel you do if you think about it. Another thing that we we talked about too is ah focusing on the solutions.
Solution Focused Thinking
00:35:20
Speaker
Like, hey, we've got this situation, this problem is coming up. Yeah, I can war game it out and there's 85 different scenarios, but ultimately what's the solution? So focus on the solution, not the what ifs. Here's the solution. Here's the problem. Here's the direct solution for that. And that may be, like we were saying earlier, you you have to take the noise of everybody else out of it. You have to really go with your guts sometimes and and not ask for too many opinions, too many chefs in the kitchen. Exactly. Limit the number of people that you ask for that and limit that to people that you really, really have a ah deep understanding and trust with. Because like you said, if there's too many chefs in the kitchen, the soup gets ruined. Yeah. And I think lastly, but we say this in every podcast, you know, there are people that really are
Professional Help and Self-Kindness
00:36:04
Speaker
suffering from this. It is a big deal. If you need to seek, you know, medical attention for this, if you need to talk to a therapist, if you need to talk to a doctor, you absolutely should. I think that is where a lot of us fail.
00:36:16
Speaker
ourselves by not just admitting that, you know, we can't get out of this on our own. and and And there's nothing wrong with that. I have seen therapists before. I have talked to therapists before. I've done medication before. I don't think that there is any wrong, anything wrong with going after something that is there to help you. Absolutely. No. Any any tool to help you. If you're if you're if there's a tool that's available to help you and you don't take advantage of that, that's that's the real shame.
00:36:44
Speaker
Yeah, it is. it is yeah I'd love to be in with you again today, Tom. Absolutely. Let's do it again sometime. Maybe we'll do it again next week. Maybe next week, yeah. That's a good thing. Overthinking is a little bit like quicksand. The more you fight it, the deeper you sink in. So breaking the cycle is hard, but I need you to know the most important thing is you are not alone. We all overthink.
00:37:06
Speaker
We all struggle, so this is about taking some time and working on things that you feel you need to. The next time that you catch yourself spiraling, remember that you are not your thoughts.
00:37:22
Speaker
You have the power to pause and reflect and reset. And if you don't take anything else out of today's podcast, I hope you take the fact that everybody goes through the same struggles you go through. No one else is any better than you are. So we've got a new Facebook page. Check it out. Exhausted Sparrows Unite. If you like the episode, share it with someone you love. We're on all the major broadcast stations and eventually YouTube. you're gonna be able to find us there. So keep in mind that we don't want you to have mental clutter in your life. Get rid of it and be kind to yourself and each other.