Raise your hand if you over-think things. Raise your hand if you wish there was a switch in which you could turn your thoughts on and off. Raise your hand if you over-think your over-thinking. If you didn’t raise your hand, go directly to the comment section and share your strategies!! Seriously! I want to hear them.
If you’re still reading, it means you’re like me, relentlessly trying to find a way to silence the constant chatter in my head. Sometimes it’s important chatter, things that are serious to me or have me upset or worried. In those times, I over-think the most, over-analyze, rehash, try to put the pieces together to make things make sense, even obsess. My over-thinking tends to create problems that weren’t even there to begin with.
Most of the time it’s a mental list of all the things I need to do, errands I need to run, projects I thought would be finished by now, commitments I made to other people, carpool plans, kids’ schedules, work deadlines, and things I forgot to do.
And sometimes it’s just plain ridiculous. It goes something like this. I sit down to “meditate” for a minute (because I hear that’s really good for this). A bee buzzes by…I wonder if bees really die when they sting you…I remember a time Brandon got stung by a bee and how painful it was…Ouch, I’ve got a pain in my foot right now… reach down to rub the pain and notice my shoes… I hate these shoes, why did I wear them… I seriously need to clean out the shoes in my closet…wait, I still have that shirt I borrowed from Allison in my closet that I never returned…Allison, crap, I was supposed to call her back an hour ago…I bet she was calling about picking Catie up from school…Damn, I was supposed to make Catie a dentist appointment…actually, I need to make myself a doctor appointment…well first I need to shave my legs…I wonder if everyone shaves their legs before they go to the doctor of if that’s just weird…I’ll have to ask the next time I go to happy hour…oooh, I could really go for a happy hour…actually I could really go for a whole night out…well definitely not in these shoes!
“SHUT UP!” is what I want to say to myself!!! Quit thinking!!!
So how DO we quiet the mind? I’m still trying to figure that out, but yoga is one thing helping me. The first time our instructor told us to quiet our mind, I seriously had no idea what I was supposed to do! I spent the whole time overanalyzing what exactly I was supposed to be thinking about if I wasn’t supposed to be thinking! How can you not think about anything? Again Paige, SHUT UP!! So that’s what I did. I started focusing on the quiet music he was playing or the sound of my breath. I became present in THAT moment, whatever that might be. I realized the more I tried to “force” thoughts out of my mind, the less luck I had. So if I thought came in, I’d just tell myself not now, and do my best to focus on the silence. It gets a little easier each week, but it is still extremely hard for me. I’m not used to silence. I have a huge imagination and a curious mind. I have a passion for details and although it’s been construed as being nosy at times, it’s not. I’m sincerely interested in the small details of someone’s life. All of those qualities come in handy for my job, but in my personal life it’s exhausting.
So, I’ve been telling myself to HUSH UP (seems nicer) when I start to think too much and I just STOP. May not last as long as I would like it to, but it does work. How do you silence your mind? What strategies help you stop over thinking and obsessing? I would love to hear your thoughts! And if you don’t comment, I’ll just over think why no one responded and you’ll make my problem worse! Of course I’m kidding! Well, kind of. (Insert winky face!)
If you’re still reading, it means you’re like me, relentlessly trying to find a way to silence the constant chatter in my head. Sometimes it’s important chatter, things that are serious to me or have me upset or worried. In those times, I over-think the most, over-analyze, rehash, try to put the pieces together to make things make sense, even obsess. My over-thinking tends to create problems that weren’t even there to begin with.
Most of the time it’s a mental list of all the things I need to do, errands I need to run, projects I thought would be finished by now, commitments I made to other people, carpool plans, kids’ schedules, work deadlines, and things I forgot to do.
And sometimes it’s just plain ridiculous. It goes something like this. I sit down to “meditate” for a minute (because I hear that’s really good for this). A bee buzzes by…I wonder if bees really die when they sting you…I remember a time Brandon got stung by a bee and how painful it was…Ouch, I’ve got a pain in my foot right now… reach down to rub the pain and notice my shoes… I hate these shoes, why did I wear them… I seriously need to clean out the shoes in my closet…wait, I still have that shirt I borrowed from Allison in my closet that I never returned…Allison, crap, I was supposed to call her back an hour ago…I bet she was calling about picking Catie up from school…Damn, I was supposed to make Catie a dentist appointment…actually, I need to make myself a doctor appointment…well first I need to shave my legs…I wonder if everyone shaves their legs before they go to the doctor of if that’s just weird…I’ll have to ask the next time I go to happy hour…oooh, I could really go for a happy hour…actually I could really go for a whole night out…well definitely not in these shoes!
“SHUT UP!” is what I want to say to myself!!! Quit thinking!!!
So how DO we quiet the mind? I’m still trying to figure that out, but yoga is one thing helping me. The first time our instructor told us to quiet our mind, I seriously had no idea what I was supposed to do! I spent the whole time overanalyzing what exactly I was supposed to be thinking about if I wasn’t supposed to be thinking! How can you not think about anything? Again Paige, SHUT UP!! So that’s what I did. I started focusing on the quiet music he was playing or the sound of my breath. I became present in THAT moment, whatever that might be. I realized the more I tried to “force” thoughts out of my mind, the less luck I had. So if I thought came in, I’d just tell myself not now, and do my best to focus on the silence. It gets a little easier each week, but it is still extremely hard for me. I’m not used to silence. I have a huge imagination and a curious mind. I have a passion for details and although it’s been construed as being nosy at times, it’s not. I’m sincerely interested in the small details of someone’s life. All of those qualities come in handy for my job, but in my personal life it’s exhausting.
So, I’ve been telling myself to HUSH UP (seems nicer) when I start to think too much and I just STOP. May not last as long as I would like it to, but it does work. How do you silence your mind? What strategies help you stop over thinking and obsessing? I would love to hear your thoughts! And if you don’t comment, I’ll just over think why no one responded and you’ll make my problem worse! Of course I’m kidding! Well, kind of. (Insert winky face!)
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