How to Stop Overthinking
Overthinking comes from our evolutionary impulse to recognize patterns. Our ancestors benefited from tracking their environment—prey and predators, weather—it’s basically a natural predilection for vibe checks. This natural tool for survival turns into a kind of toxic constant vigilance when combined with childhood trauma. When everything is a threat, it becomes difficult to differentiate when to run, when to fight, when to freeze, or when to fawn. We become used to being in a state of hyperarousal. We scan everyone around us (especially any unstable caregivers) for danger, never knowing stability, always trying to anticipate how safe we are. Once we escape the instability, our brains have a hard time learning how to relax. That’s kind of what trauma is; the body and mind don't understand when the danger is no longer present. It runs itself ragged, not understanding it’s jumping at its own shadow. Often, we find ourselves repeating patterns that are very similar to what we went through in childhood. We haven’t yet created an environment where we can begin to learn how to relax.
Overthinking can be torturous. I used to have moments before I started healing where I would break down crying because of how sick of myself I was. I couldn’t sleep because of my brain’s incessant thinking. I was exhausted. I felt like if I had to live in this hell for the rest of my life, I didn’t know how long I could stand it. So I decided to figure out how to get out of my head.
I dove into self-help books and YouTube channels, therapy, spirituality, tarot, and meditation. I started taking loooonnnng walks outside. I started following my intuition. I started teaching myself to take action.
It helped to find spaces to emotionally dump and unload the thinking spirals. I needed a safe space, a nonjudgmental space, and a place to go where I could do no damage by speaking what was going through my mind. My journal was the first place I felt comfortable. I have journals on journals full of pages on pages of spiraling thoughts, fears, anxieties, patterns, and my deepest, darkest self-hating beliefs. When I go back and read, everything is so clear, but at the time, when I was just putting pen to paper, I had no idea.
Next, I went to therapy. This was revolutionary. Having someone there to witness my patterns and spirals, to point out the things I was missing, to mirror empathy back to me, and to give me the tools to move in a more positive direction changed my entire life. My healing started happening more quickly. The realizations were coming from every direction. I sobbed through every session, sometimes through the week following, but eventually, I started to feel lighter. I was starting to feel my brain slow down. I was starting to feel unburdened by my trauma.
My spirituality was unfolding simultaneously with the journaling and therapy—and once therapy ended, it carried me through. The self-reflecting nature of tarot, my connection with my spiritual guides through meditation, and my connection with nature helped regulate me even further.
I remember getting a tarot reading from a friend who told me that I needed to work on my solar plexus chakra because I didn’t know how to take action. That was way harsh, Tai. But 100% true. I was blocked from being able to take action on anything. The merry-go-round of overthinking was too overwhelming. I had what is called analysis paralysis. Even the thought of action would trigger my imposter syndrome, my self-doubt, all the horrible things that people had said to me in childhood, and all the different scenarios of how things could go wrong. I had interpreted the unstable patterns I saw in childhood and projected them onto my adult experiences, making even the most positive situations terrifying and overwhelming.
With every uncovered wound, the most amazing thing started happening. I started being able to take action, to put myself out there, to let myself have things I wanted. My life started shifting in the most beautiful ways. There was still grief, pain, and failure, but the shame that usually came with those emotions was abating. It made my energy feel even lighter as I moved through my life.
These days, after a little more than a decade at this work, I still find myself overthinking when I get triggered or overwhelmed. The difference now is that, because it isn’t my constant state of being, I recognize that it’s happening. I have an entire tool kit of self-care that helps me get myself regulated. I have built a support system of people I can reach out to.
Stopping yourself from overthinking is a liberating gift to give yourself. It can help you learn how to feel safe, how to feel stable, how to know what you want, know yourself, and take action toward your goals. It helps you parse out how you ACTUALLY feel from how you’ve been conditioned to feel. It makes life feel neutral at worst and like a daydream at best. It frees you from feeling like your patterns are happening to you because you are choosing new patterns. It helps you remember who you are. It helps you see that you are in charge of your life. And that changes everything.
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