There are many times that I have to pull myself out of the kind of thoughts I have. It’s like a war within myself where I have to make a conscious effort not to think beyond the way things are. I struggle with those thoughts and sometimes it feels like a losing battle but other times, I win those inner wars.
I believe strongly that life should be simple and no matter the circumstances we go through, we should try to make our lives simple and free of complications, unless you’re the type of person that feeds or gets off from drama.
And achieving a simple life starts with the mind. It’s like coming into your scattered room with clothes strewn everywhere, there’s a lot of junk to sort through and what you’re seeing with your eyes already makes you afraid, but if you can school your mind into calmness first of all, and try to do the uncluttering in your mind, starting from the easy parts, you’ll feel relief because you’re already done with the work in your head and it suddenly doesn’t seem so difficult anymore. I know what I’m saying guys, I’ve been in this kind of situation too many times to count. And no, I’m not a slob. Lol.
But I digress.
My whole point is simply having a simple mindset. And I don’t mean being naïve or not being observant of your environment because that could land you into a lot of not-so-pleasant situations, I mean taking life easy through your mind. I know the world currently has degenerated into a place where you have to second guess practically everything and everyone and take nothing at face value but you can still help yourself by not dwelling too much on it mentally.
I have on many occasions taken myself to the point of illness due to overthinking. I overthink every situation. Maybe it’s because I observe people a lot, or whether I observe people a lot because I overthink, I’m not sure. But I notice the slightest flicker in your facial expression, the little eye twitches, you suddenly turning your face away for a second and looking somewhere else while we are talking.... Unnoticeable gestures like that.
And I get back home and think and think. And then, when I’m done thinking, I think some more. Why did she comment on this but didn’t comment on the other one? She used that blushy emoji on this one and used the tight-lipped smile emoji on the other one? Did that one annoy her? Was she preventing herself from saying something she shouldn’t say…. And it goes on and on and I just keep dragging myself into that abyss of self-despair.
I was going through one of these times recently and talked to my dearest friend @samsmith1971 about it. We hadn’t talked for a while and I was already beginning to overthink that too. She was genuinely flustered that I’d think that I’d done something wrong and the more we talked, I got to understand the whole situation.
The thing about overthinking is that ninety percent of the time, it never gets to that or the whole situation was just in your head in the first place. So you’ve ended up being in emotional turmoil for nothing.
Thinking simply without letting my mind get out of hand is one thing I know that would thoroughly simplify my life for a whole lot of reasons. It would reduce the emotional turmoil and despair I’d have to subject myself to, to the barest minimum and that in itself is a blessing because imagine having so many actual challenges to deal with but your overthinking makes you dwell on less important things.
This brings me to another personal benefit of thinking simply. My time would be allocated more effectively. If you’re an overthinker or you were once one, you’d know that each item I’d listed previously of how your thoughts go is not just listing. Your mind would pick a subtopic and expatiate on it, create more sub-points and expatiate on that too. So, no it doesn’t last for a few minutes. Hours that could have gone into something productive pass just like that.
I’m happy to bare all these out because it’s something I’m currently working on and I’m making steady progress too. You can’t be an overthinker and have positive, stress-free relationships with people so it’s a huge but necessary step. Think simple. Live simple.
How have you dealt with overthinking in the past? I’d love to hear your views on it.❤️
