EP.02- Navigating the Overthinking Mind

Do you find yourself thinking about everything and overanalyzing every situation?

Sometimes, it can be hard to know what's best for us when we are overthinking. I’m an overthinker myself, so in this episode, I share with you five strategies for navigating your mind and getting on track!

Understanding yourself, learning your strategy, and learning how your body works to give you the best outcome from your decisions in life is super important to help you live to your full potential.

TRANSCRIPT

Okay, let's rock and roll. So in this episode, we are gonna be fearlessly curious about overthinking and how to navigate overthinking from taking us away from a decision or a choice that is actually aligned with the best outcome for us. 

I know so many of you out there have been writing to me and messaging me about overthinking. I myself am an overthinker. I will more often than not, historically talk myself out of a decision I've already made and then go back and regret it. 

So how do we prevent that from happening? How do we reserve our energy supplies? How do we stop ourselves from making these bad decisions when in the very first instance, the first opportunity, when we were first invited somewhere, we're asked a question we always have the right answer for it. But it's our mind that leads us astray. Let's get fearlessly curious about that right now. 

So what's important to take note of is that we already know that there's no two people in this world that are the same, each and every one of us is different, you and I are absolutely unique. 

Based on that information, we know therefore that each one of us is going to have a different strategy that we employ consciously or unconsciously. We may or may not be aware of this, but as we're all different, but all gonna have our own unique strategy as to how we reach a decision, how we come to make a choice that is aligned to the best outcome for us, for you and for me separately. 

Now using the human design system, which is a brilliant, brilliant system, I've come to discover that there's probably about four or five different strategies that human beings like you and me employ to reach a decision that is aligned for us. I'll just break it down really quickly for you.

So the first would be something that we and many people refer to as a gut reaction. You literally feel it. It's a bodily physical reaction to a question. Do you like Nasi Lemak? Yes. Do you like black pudding? No. It's an immediate response and on a physical level, you feel it in your gut. For some people, they feel it in their belly, like a pulse, like a punch, like a spur of energy. It's indisputable, it's super clear, and it pretty much happens in the moment. 

What tends to happen is unless you get a clear yes, people then second guess themselves, we get in the mind and then we go, Oh, it's not really quite a yes, and then we'll break it down, we'll try and analyze it, and that's when the overthinking comes.

The truth is if you're not getting a hell yes in your gut, it's basically a no. That's the end of the sentence. We don't need to overthink it. We don't have to reason it. There's no need to even justify it. Trust that your body intelligence in the moment knows what's right for you. That's one strategy. That's a strategy that is aligned to me.

There's another strategy, which is for people who could claim to be a little bit more emotional, they need to feel things out. They might ask more questions, but they're gonna ride the wave of their emotions. People who are more emotional, I would suggest that you don't make a decision when you are on an emotional high, and that might look and feel like being super excited about an idea. Or when you're on an emotional low, that means maybe you're a bit fatigued. Maybe you're a little bit on the moody side. 

For people who are more emotional, ride the wave of your emotion like a surfer riding the wave of the ocean. You pick up on the information of your emotions and you collect that information, and as you collect that information of highs and lows of your emotion, as you reach a little bit more stillness is when the wisdom is, when the truth of what the right decision is for you will come through. To more emotional people take your time. 

Then there's some people who really work on instinct and that's very different to the gut reaction. The instinctive reaction is something that is absolutely instantaneous or spontaneous, and it can even be likened to in terms of human design terms, I believe, likened to a little whisper, like in a sense, an intuition, and in a voice that speaks to you right there in the moment.

What I've come to understand is people who have this sort of ability to make decisions right now in the moment, instantaneous, spontaneous are more open to changing their minds quicker because their ability really is in the present moment. So like a whisper, like an intuition, like an innocence, different again to the gut reaction, which is like a punch, which is like a belly pulse. And different to the emotional response, which is like riding the wave of your emotions. 

Some people need to talk things out, and these are people who literally think out loud. They will talk through the process of coming to that decision, and that helps them by kind of like activating their voice, their vocal chords, that vibration of activating their vocal chords helps them get clarity on what the right decision is.

They actually need to speak their process out loud to people, to specific people. People they trust, people they feel safe with, not because they need their opinion, but just because they need that energetic feedback.

They need someone to hold the space for them to process out loud. They could even be influenced by the environment they're in. Maybe they need to be in a quiet place. Maybe they need to be in a busy cafe because the energy of a busy cafe helps them find that clarity when they speak their process out loud.

And then there's another type who really needs to take their time and these types of people really appreciate planning. I have some friends that I know. I'm more likely to get a very supportive that I can help them if I give them a month of planning to come to a decision. So I've kind of broken that down for you.

How does that relate to overthinking is that to know that our best choices come from our body intelligence. Whether you speak it out loud and you activate your throat and you speak it out loud, being witnessed by somebody, whether you ride your emotional wave, whether you feel it in your gut, whether you listen for that inner voice.

And there's one more thing I forget, which is when somebody invites you somewhere, asks you a question, is to tune into your heart, does your heart fill up? Does your heart get excited? Your heart, okay, get excited. That means does your desire to do that action, to take that action, to contribute to that event, do you feel the fire of desire light up?

These are different strategies. Explore and be fearlessly curious to see which one resonates with you most. Experiment with it. Get people to ask you different questions. Tune into your body, feel into it. See what the answer is, and ride with that answer. Take notice of the narrative, the stories, the words that your mind then kicks in to tell you like, Oh no, you shouldn't do that, or you should do that.

Or maybe your mind takes you into judgment and judges you for it. Oh, that's a stupid answer. Why would you wanna go if you don't go, if you don't do that, what will people think? So the mind tends to take us away, has the potential to take us away from the truth that lives in our body and the here and now. 

That is how overthinking can take you away from the most, from the ideal, from the best decision you can make for yourself. 

One wonderful tool that I use to help me with my overthinking is music. Now, let's be really clear. Overthinking isn't something to overcome, neither is it something to push away or to fix. In fact, I feel like the more that we try to get rid of something we don't want, the more present it is. 

The power and I want you to be curious with this. When I say curious, I want you to experiment with this. The power with navigating something is to create a safe space for that pattern, so the overthinking pattern in this case, to show up without judgment, without rejection, without avoidance, let it just be there, and when we can let it just be there, then the charge it has on us reduces.

Now, I find that when I listen to music and when I curate a specific playlist of music, that helps me drop into my body cuz when I listen to music, I'm feeling, I get emo about it. If it's an emotional song or if it's got a really strong beat, I actually physically wanna move my body, I'm no longer in my head. I drop into my body. So a lot of the time, the noise of my thoughts actually completely disappears. I don't even notice if it's there at all, and I get into my body sensation. And from that space, after listening to curated music, I can then ask my question and with clarity, I get an answer and then again, be curious.

Notice again how the mind will switch on and second guess you. You will second guess yourself. Maybe you doubt yourself, and that's okay. Just hold space for it. Just witness it. Just observe it. You don't have to act on it, instead, experiment with the choice, the answer that you get in your body. 

Now, why is it so important to be able to navigate overthinking? And that's because we really, really want to be able to lean into trusting and having faith in the decisions and the choices that we make. 

When we overthink and we talk ourselves out of a decision and then we end up having a bad experience or an experience that's uncomfortable or causes this pain or struggle, we then start to self deprecate. We start to self-analyze and we start to criticize ourselves, and therefore, we no longer trust our own ability to make our own decisions. 

Once we lose confidence in ourselves, once we lose the trust that we have in our ability to make our own decisions, it becomes hard to trust anybody else, and it becomes even harder to trust life.

When we lose the ability to trust ourselves and we stop trusting other people, and in life, the world becomes a very very unsafe place, and that is no way to live at all. 

So my friends, if you are an overthinker, you relate to being an overthinker, just receive it. Just know that that's the way that your brain works, and in certain instances this overthinking can actually help you, and we'll come to that in another episode.

The importance here is learning how to navigate that overthinking. My tip to you is to use music because music helps you drop out of your head and into your body. Once you drop into your body, take notice of the different signs your body gives you to indicate to you what is the right choice. 

Maybe it's a gut reaction, it's a aha. It's that punch in the belly. Maybe you need to ride your emotions and ensure that you don't make a decision when you are on a high or a low, but when you reach stillness and calm. Maybe you need to talk it out. You need to just talk out loud to yourself, and that process of activating your voice helps you gain clarity.

Maybe you need to do that, speak your process to a handful of friends that you really trust the whole space for you and to energetically give you feedback, not advice, but just listen to you. 

Maybe you really need to plan. You're a planner. You like to take at least a month to come to a decision. Own that space. Maybe you get the gentle whisper of your inner sense of your intuition that gives you the answer spontaneously. 

Or maybe you feel your heart light up. Maybe you feel that desire, the fire of desire in your heart light up. That's your strategy. Stick with it. Be grounded with it. Be fearlessly authentic in the way that suits you best.

Remember, there's only one of you. And therefore, it is important that you live your life the way only you can because through living your life the way only you can, you harvest the wisdom through life's experience that only you can harvest. And that wisdom is there to be shared to the world by being you.

Learning your strategy, learning how your body works to give you an outcome, an answer that gives you the best outcome in your life is really super, super important to help you live your full potential.

Learning to navigate the overthinking mind so that doesn't take you away from the ideal decisions and choices you make is part of that process of living your fullest potential with fearless authenticity. Good luck. Let me know how things go. You know where to find me. Drop me some comments and let me know what your strategy is. Until the next one.

Resources:

If you enjoy this episode, please rate the show on Spotify or leave a review on Apple Podcasts. 

Don’t forget to subscribe to the Fearlessly Curious podcast to get notifications of new episodes every Friday at melissaindot.com/podcast. 

About Me:

I help women lead with fearless authenticity by smashing the self-imposed heteronormative stereotypes that keep you playing small through emotional healing inner child and inherited intergenerational trauma. Create a purposeful life of your unique design by disrupting societal norms and expectations of who you should be. Explore mindfulness, fearless curiosity and loving kindness through the lens of Human Design to thrive as the person you are born to be.

Learn more about my coaching method and join my emotional healing, mindfulness, and music community at melissaindot.com.