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Elaine Belson LCSW: Why is it so hard to stop overthinking even when you don't want to? Welcome to the Self-Authority Podcast. I'm your host, Elaine Belson, the Self-Authority Coach. Today we're talking about overthinking, why we do it, and why telling yourself, just stop thinking about it, doesn't work. I'm going to explain the six types of overthinking. why overthinking creates a false sense of control, and how emotions actually help us to solve the real problem underneath it. So I want to share a story with you about a client, and I'm gonna call her Rachel. she had time off over the winter holidays and she was telling me how she felt like a bad mom and that she felt like a bad housekeeper or that her house was a mess and then she was telling me that she's not getting any time to spend on herself and she also was thinking about already getting back to work and all the emails that were gonna be waiting for her when she got back. So she's talking about all these things, and I just said, okay, hold on. The first thing that we did was we went back to the emotion. What are you feeling? And the reason why is because that's why we overthink. Overthinking is really a way of coping with emotional discomfort. So What do we mean when we talk about overthinking? So I've identified six types of overthinking. There's mind reading, second guessing, anticipating other people's reactions, comparing yourself to others, overanalyzing, and self-criticizing. Sound familiar? So I call all of those chocolate cake. And the reason why is because sometimes when we're upset, we might reach for chocolate cake as a way of coping. But instead what we do is we reach for overthinking. it creates this illusion that if we just keep analyzing the situation, we'll eventually find the perfect answer. Instead, what it does is it increases our anxiety, creates more possibilities to worry about, and it leaves us feeling like we have to solve everything at once. So what the real issue here is, is there's a feeling underneath that we're trying to cope with. And the to to do that is by using emotional intelligence. So let's talk about why we have feelings. If I touch a hot stove, I'm going to feel pain in my hand. Because if I didn't, I could burn my hand. if I don't eat, I feel hungry because if I didn't, I could starve myself to death. So we have emotions for the same reason. They are information of a need or a threat. that we're overlooking. But too often the way that we cope with emotions is by telling ourselves that we have to get over it, right? So we ignore it, try to talk ourselves out of it. When instead those emotions are trying to tell us something. They're trying to help us to address our underlying needs. So what you do instead is a three-step process. Number one, you're going to identify what the feeling is. You want to label the feeling. Then number two, you're gonna ask yourself, what specifically is causing the feeling? Now it's really important here to be specific. And
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I'll get into that a little bit more. And then the third step is then asking yourself, what's in my control to address the thing that's causing the emotion? So again, what am I feeling? What's causing it? What's in my control? So that's what I did with my client Rachel. I said to her, okay, time out. What are you feeling? And she said, I feel overwhelmed. So so the first step was identifying what the feeling was, which was overwhelmed. Then the second step was to identify specifically what was causing it. And so the first thing was that she decided that she wanted to paint some rooms in her house because she was feeling that the house looked disheveled. the second thing was she wanted to spend time with her daughter. the third thing is that she wanted to spend time for herself. And then the last thing that was overwhelming her was that she was starting to anticipate all the emails that would be waiting for her when she got back to work. So that's what I mean by being specific. And then what we did was we looked at what's in her control. So the first thing was the painting. She acknowledged that she knew someone that could do it for her and they could afford to pay them. And then that freed up a lot of time for her to spend with her daughter and for herself. And then as far as the emails were concerned, what we talked about was trusting herself that she would handle the emails when she gets back to work. So in other words, giving herself permission to stay focused in the present moment and enjoying. her time off. So you notice that The answer didn't come from overthinking. It came from being problem solving oriented. It came from understanding what she was feeling, what was causing it, and what was in her control. So, an important thing to remember also about feelings is that when we ignore them, they don't go away. They still impact our behavior, but in a reactionary way. And that's when we have a tendency to make bad decisions. So when we're doing this three-step process, we are being proactive with our feelings as opposed to. Reactive, we're being intentional, right? And we're treating our feelings as something that is there to help us. Even the uncomfortable ones. They're uncomfortable for a reason because they're trying to get our attention and they're trying to get us to to do something, right? They're not trying to get us to worry, to ruminate, they're there to get us to actually act. The other reason that we have feelings is because they help us achieve balance. So it's very rare that we feel one way about something. Most things in life we have multiple feelings about. I like to joke, chocolate versus vanilla ice cream, that's easy, right? But we have multiple needs at the same time. So we have multiple feelings at the same time. And so when you take into account all of your feelings. aka all of your needs, that's how you achieve balance, which is the essence of well-being. address an underlying need. And so that can be solved in many different ways. So, for example, I had a client who was just finishing up college and She ended up taking some time off from college and she felt behind colleagues who had already graduated and were already out working. And she kept comparing herself to her friends And then criticizing herself, for where she was at. So, what I find is that when we compare ourselves to other people, what we're really doing is we're identifying a need. And so we started there. what is it that she was feeling right and and it was that she was feeling anxious about being behind and what that meant for her life because she had other ambitions she wanted to have a family So when we talk about, okay, so the underlying feeling is one of anxiety about the future and her life. And then we could look at what specifically is causing that. And it's the fact that she is just getting done with school and didn't have a job yet. And so then we talked about, what is in her control. And so that's the way to handle whenever you're feeling uncomfortable about something, right? Is to identify what the feeling is. In that case it was anxiety about the future, and then what's in her control to what was in her control to control the future to to to improve her chances of achieving what it was she wanted to achieve, right? It's by setting goals specific ways of reading meeting those goals, right? But the other thing that we talked about was forgiving herself for being human, right? And being understanding of why she was where she was at, as opposed to judgmental of it. And one way to do that is to also be inquisitive about what happened, what can I learn from this, what can I do differently next time, or just to be understanding of there was good reasons of why I'm where I'm at in my life. Thank you for listening to the self authority podcast. If you found this episode helpful, like, subscribe, and share it with someone who could use a little self-authority in their life. And remember, your emotions aren't something to overcome or control. They're something to harness to solve problems. I'm Elaine Belson, the Self-Authority Coach. Until next time, remember, you already have what you need for self-authority. You just need to harness it.