A friend of mine is turning 50 early next year.
The stress of reaching this milestone has been on her mind…a LOT!
We talked about her challenges and the difference between….
THINKING IT (Being in your head & overthinking turning 50)
and
FEELING IT (Being in your body & feeling the experience of turning 50).
She was definitely in a state of THINKING IT!
In my past, I’ve also had a tendency to overthink things…
…Difficult decisions, a challenging conversation, how to best move forward, what to eat for dinner….the list goes on.
On one hand, I’d like to think that my past tendency to overthink things is the sign of having a powerful mind.
However, when you get down to brass tax, overthinking ultimately causes a lot of unnecessary pain, suffering and anguish.
I know this, because I’ve had a lot of practice!
For instance, I recently had a difficult conversation with someone and found myself being concerned about the outcome.
Would this person still like me?
How am I going to feel?
Will I be ok with the results?
Thankfully, I was able to recognize what was happening and shift my focus from my thoughts to my feelings.
In doing so, I moved the energy from my head to my body and started feeling into the conversation.
I gave myself permission to live in the experience versus the anxiety surrounding the outcome.
In very simple terms, anxiety is a fear of the unknown, and comes from having an overstimulated, or overthinking mind.
I tend to subscribe to the belief that your “thoughts become things”, so the more that you think good thoughts, the better off you’ll be.
If you tend to delve into the negative and experience bouts of depression, or anxiety, rewiring your brain to focus on positive thoughts requires lots of practice.
The good news is that there’s certain practices that you can immediately put into place, such as…
Get good sleep,
Reduce stress,
Read a good novel,
Choose things that bring purpose into your life, etc..
…that will help you start to rewire your brain.
One of the best ways, I believe, to rewire your brain is to get into your body.
Allow yourself to experience things.
Allow yourself to feel.
When you sense that your brain is going into overthinking mode, do the following:
Close your eyes, take a deep breath and imagine all of the weight that you carry in your brain slowly starts to drop into your body.
Allow yourself to feel this sensation spread out within your body….in your neck, chest, limbs, and stomach, etc.
I’m telling you, this works!
Even if your feelings are challenging, it’s far more advantageous in the long run to feel into them versus overthinking and not feel anything at all.
The more you allow yourself to feel, the more present you become.
So, back to my friend…..the one who’s turning 50….
….The day after we had our conversation, she sent me an Instagram post that read the following,
“What’s comin’ will come and we’ll meet it when it does”.
This quote put a big smile on my face!
She made the shift from focusing on the unknown future to the present moment.
She’s learning to train her brain – to bring her back to the NOW, because in the end, the NOW is all that we have.
And most importantly, she’s preparing herself to have a fantastic 50th birthday!
