How to Stop Overthinking, Thought Loops and Acceptance
I’ve been a practicing therapist and coach for over 10 years, and some of my favorite work that I do is working with other thinkers. In psychology, there is a word to describe consistent overthinking, and particularly overthinking on negative thoughts – it’s called rumination.
So many of the clients I work with are stuck in their own heads. They constantly worry about worse-case scenarios (see last week) and get hooked on thought loops. If this sounds like you, you’re going to want to read on because this week I’m going to walk you through how to stop ruminating:
Step 1:
First, you need to notice your thoughts. You need to know that you’re ruminating. Oftentimes people have trouble separating who they are from their thoughts and assume that whatever they are thinking must be them. We’ve worked through this concept in previous OPBs but to demonstrate clearly that you are not your thoughts, please do the following:
- Raise your right hand out in front of you, as if you were passing something to someone else across from you.
- Once raised, tell yourself to lower your hand BUT don’t actually lower it.
- Really tell yourself – yell it in your mind – but don’t actually lower your hand yet.
- Once you’ve thoroughly yelled at yourself to lower your hand, go ahead and lower it, coming back to normal.
In this exercise, there are "entities" present. There’s “you”, the person who is raising and lowering your right hand – and then there’s “your mind” – the thing that is telling you what to do, but that you’re ignoring.
Herein lies a fundamental concept in psychotherapy: you are not your thoughts. Your thoughts are always on, always happening, always occurring as if they are a part of a never ending sound machine that plays while you go about your day. Unfortunately for us, our thoughts are almost always negative – telling us that we can’t do something, that we shouldn’t try, that we might fail, that we aren’t capable, that we aren’t loveable, or that we’re simply not good enough.
Now that we know that this negative thought loop is consistently in the background of our lives, we can begin to learn how to stop it.
Want to Practice?
Write down one recurring thought that shows up for you.
Then write, “I’m noticing I’m having the thought that…” before it.
That single phrase can instantly change how much power it has over you.
Step 2:
Well…unfortunately…you can’t stop negative thinking (intrusive thinking happens all the time), but you can stop engaging with it. This is where we focus less on rumination itself – and focus more on re-engaging with anything else. Knowing what we know from step one, our thoughts are always on – but we aren’t actually our thoughts – you are you, the one who controls the body, controls what they do, what they focus on, where they go etc. So, because you are you, and not your thoughts, you can also choose to engage or not engage in whatever it is that you choose. Here are the two most common errors I see with clients who are experiencing negative thought loops, are overthinking and want it all to stop:
- The discomfort of the thinking is so great that they use any method of distraction they can find.
If you’ve ever overthought something, you’ll know just how ineffective it is to try and distract yourself. If you try to distract yourself away from the thoughts that are bothering you, you inevitably know that there is something lurking that you can’t ignore forever. As one of my clients called it – there is a “psychic cost” that comes when you know there’s a thought there that you’re trying to actively avoid thinking about.
- The discomfort of the thinking is so great that they try to ignore it and try to focus on positive thinking instead.
If you try and positively think your way out of it, it won’t work either, because in effect you know you’re lying to yourself. This is one of the biggest misconceptions of working with a therapist. People believe it’s all about thought restructuring or reframing – and while some therapy does focus on that work, it’s not supposed to just be positive thinking layered on top of negative thoughts.
Instead of distracting your thinking or trying to think positive thoughts, I’d suggest something a bit simple, and yet often unexpected – accept the negative thoughts as what they are – a looped narrative that doesn’t actually affect what happens.
Since you’ve identified that your thoughts are just in existence, you can actively choose to accept them or welcome them as data, but detach or, in psychological terms – defuse – yourself from just how meaningful you think your thoughts are.
Worried about the outcome of something in your future and can’t stop thinking about – accept that it’s okay to worry. It’s not unusual, and even if it’s uncomfortable, that discomfort is not bad.
Constantly thinking about how other people are better than you? Accept those thoughts as potential data points, but ones that don’t tell the full story. Sure, it’s uncomfortable to know you are a beginner at things, but you’ve been a beginner at many things in your life before and have overcome it. Embrace the feelings of uncertainty that come with beginner hood, don’t resist them.
Ok – so now you know that accepting whatever negative feelings that come with rumination is your path forward, all you need to know is one final step to free yourself from continued overthinking…
Step 3:
We need to establish actions in the directions that you want to be headed in, in spite of all that rumination. You see, rumination keeps us from engaging fully in our lives because we’re fully in our head. To get out of your head and into your life again, you need to establish what it is that you really want, and then take committed action towards those things – regardless of what your thoughts are saying to you. Importantly, your actions should be aligned with what you believe is important in your life (what you value) NOT just what you want (your goals).
As I described this to a client I was recently working with – goals are like gasoline for driving actions – you’ll be burning hot to go and achieve what it is that you want, but once it’s achieved you may find yourself ruminating on just how unprepared you are for the next goal. Values, or beliefs in things that matter to you, are more like wood for a fire – it burns much more sustainably, and slowly, ensuring that you feel in line with your wants, not just what you’re achieving.
To close this week, I’ll give you a real world example from the best client I know – me…
It was Thursday evening and as we began to wind down and get ready for the evening the rumination started. My shoulder has been bothering me and I knew I should exercise in the morning, but didn’t want to go to the gym, so the decision I was ruminating on was whether to run or not the next morning. I was hooked on a loop of all the reasons I should put it off...here’s where my mind went (I can tell you this because I noticed it – see Step 1):
That it might be best I rest…that I could use the extra sleep…that I could run in the afternoon when it’s warmer out…that I’ll leave it up to being a game time decision on how I feel when I wake up…that maybe I’ll just run 1 mile versus longer.
I went to bed knowing that there was nothing I could do to solve this problem until the morning. My mind went to rest, and came back with a vengeance the next morning, reminding me that I shouldn’t do what I wanted to do. My mind said: “It’s dark out, it’s cold out, it’s an early morning. No reason to get dressed. It’s just not necessary.”
Having been through this experience hundreds of times, I thanked my brain for all the warnings and took action towards my values anyway. 40mins later, and I had completed my run.
Remember, nowhere in my own experience did I enjoy any of what I endured. The thoughts were all negative, convincing me not to do a thing, and plenty of reasons not to take action. The reason I took action is because a) I value being physically fit but more importantly b) I value being the one who controls what happens to me versus what happens in my mind. The victory came from overcoming what my mind was telling me – it was not about the run.
As you move forward on your journey of overcoming overthinking, I encourage you to be patient and respect how difficult this whole process can be. It can feel like learning a new language, and as a result, sometimes it's helpful to have some help – almost like having a language tutor.
If you’re struggling with obsessive-compulsive disorder (typically a diagnosis that struggles with obsessions/overthinking), struggle with negative thought loops or want to perform better in your relationships, at work, or personally, we’d be happy to help. Click here to book a consult with us today!
Thanks for reading as always.
Time to win the week 🏆
See you next week :)
– J
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