February 4, 2025 • 26 mins
This series is all about overthinking: where it comes from, why we do it, how to know if you're overthinking, and most importantly -- how to stop.
Spoiler alert: it has a lot to do with us not trusting ourselves or God.
I polled 22-35 year olds on Instagram (follow @em_led11) about their own overthinking patterns and...
- 81% say they are overthinkers
- 48% say they overthink their relationships the most
- 71% say they don't always pray before making a big decision
- 77% say they prefer to be in control most of the time
If you fall into these statistics, this episode is absolutely for you baby. Tune in!
Resources mentioned in this episode:
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:24):
What's up, you guys?
Thank you so much for tuning intothe Wrestling With Life podcast.
I am your host, Em Led, and it has beena fat minute since we've last talked.
I've been taking some very muchneeded time off from podcasting and
I've just been pouring a lot of myextra free time into my real life.
(00:46):
So when I'm not working, I've beenhanging out with my friends and
exploring the area that I'm livingin, in North Carolina, and spending a
lot of time time with God, honestly.
Just trying to pour into myrelationship with the Lord.
Um, I've really beenworking on slowing down.
I told y'all in the last series thatfor a really long time, I've just kind
(01:07):
of been motivated, um, by the senseof urgency of like, Trying to run a
million miles an hour and try to beas productive and successful and, and
all these things that I can be, try tosqueeze the most out of every single day.
And I think that mentality canbe great, um, in some ways, but I
think that it was draining me fora long time and I have felt the
(01:30):
Lord just calling me to, to chill.
So I've been trying to chill and, um.
It's been really cool to, to watchmyself do less and to just kind of
like fall back and learn to put mytrust into God and that kind of really
leads into what I really feel theLord's put on my heart to talk about
(01:50):
in this next series on the podcast.
We're going to be talking a lotabout overthinking, and we're going
to be talking about how overthinkingcauses a lot more problems than it
solves, how our generation really,really struggles with overthinking.
We're going to talk about where thatstems from, how to know if you're
overthinking, and really the negativeside of what overthinking can do to
(02:15):
us and how we can learn to let go, howwe can learn to let go of control, how
we can learn to trust the Lord, andhow we can get out of our own heads.
In the last series, we were talking somuch about pride and overthinking is
actually, it actually stems from pride.
(02:36):
It comes from pride.
Like if you really sit down and thinkabout why am I overthinking this?
Why am I ruminating and dwellingon something from the past?
Why am I unable to make a decision?
It all comes back to pride, thinkingthat we are God, that we are way more
in control of our lives in the outcomesof our choices than we actually are.
(02:58):
And, um, yeah, personally, I'vestruggled a lot with overthinking
in the last couple years of my life.
And I really think that thatcame from not trusting God.
A lot of my overthinking came frompressure and feeling like It was all
on me to constantly figure everythingout in my own power and by myself, and
(03:22):
I'll definitely share a little bit moreabout that later on, but, um, I've been
pulling y'all about your overthinkinghabits because I know that I'm not alone
in this struggle from conversations thatI have with my friends and coworkers and
different people that I meet, you know.
Overthinking is, is a huge issue,especially for Gen Z Millennials,
(03:44):
those of us who are between the agesof about 22 to 35 working full time,
especially when you're, you're managingall these different variables all the
time and being the one who's kind ofcalling the shots of your own life.
If you're not necessarily takingcare of a family and you're.
Mostly worrying about you and youonly, it really does feel like,
(04:07):
okay, holy crap, like it's on meto figure this all out by myself.
So I've been polling you guys on Instagramas always if you don't follow me You can
give me a follow at em underscore led 11And i've been asking you about your own
overthinking Issues because again, I knowi'm not alone and just a little like side
(04:28):
tangent really quick the reason that Ilike to poll you guys is because I have
a pretty engaged audience on instagramabout 200 people consistently will answer
these polls You And usually when I postthese polls on Instagram, I'm saying, Hey,
please only answer this if you are betweenthe ages of 22 to 35, you're working
(04:49):
full time, and you don't have kids.
And the reason why is because I don'tknow about y'all, but I struggle to
know what data I can and can't truston Google, and I don't want to just be
like throwing random stats at you guysthat I, I'm not sure if it's accurate
or not, you know what I'm saying?
So I like to do my own research and.
(05:09):
I also like to experiment in my own lifeto see if the things that I'm learning
in psychology and the articles that I'mreading and the research that I'm doing,
the books I'm reading, all these things,I want to test and see if I actually find
it to be true in my own experience andin my own research, if that makes sense.
So that's just a little side tangentas to why I pull you guys, but I
(05:33):
asked you guys recently a lot aboutyour own overthinking habits and.
This is not shocking to me.
81 percent of us considerourselves overthinkers.
And again, about 200 peopleresponded to this poll.
So that's a pretty sizableamount of people to pull from.
(05:54):
Out of 200 people, 80%, that's 160 people.
Are saying, Oh my gosh, I'man over thinker out of 200.
That's crazy to me.
It's crazy, but it's not crazy.
But it just goes to show that thisis a huge problem in our generation.
A lot of us are overthinkingover analyzing, getting caught up
(06:16):
on details, not really trustingthe decisions that we're making.
And if we can't trust ourselves, Thatprobably means that we don't trust
God and it probably means that wedon't trust other people too, right?
Trust is one of thoseinverse things, right?
Like, if you trust others, you probablytrust yourself, you probably trust
(06:36):
God, you probably have an open heart.
If you don't trust yourself, ifyou don't trust God, that bleeds
out into your relationships, right?
So 81 percent of us considerourselves overthinkers.
I asked you guys, what doyou overthink the most?
48% of US overthinkrelationships the most.
(06:58):
16% of US overthink financial decisions.
The most 20% of us overthink our career,moves the most, and then 16% of us said
that the thing we overthink the mostis something else that doesn't fall
into the category of relationships,financial decisions, career moves.
So.
(07:19):
That really stuck out to mebecause I would also agree that I
overthink my relationships the most.
48 percent of you agree with that.
So, this leads me, I got twomore stats for you, okay?
Uh, only 29 percent ofus say we always pray.
Before we make a big decision, and then85 percent of us say that we prefer
(07:45):
to be in control most of the time, orwe consider ourselves control freaks.
So to break that stat down evenfurther, it was 77 percent of us prefer
to be in control most of the time.
And then 8 percent of us actuallysay that we are control freaks.
So these stats are pretty compellingand pretty evident to me that a lot of
(08:10):
us have control issues, trust issues,and Pretty big overthinking issues.
Okay.
And so today I want to start us outwith a quote to kind of set the tone
of What I want this series on thepodcast to to really communicate.
Okay But the quote goes like thisYou cannot control what happens
(08:33):
to you, but you can control yourattitude towards what happens to you.
And in that, you will be mastering changerather than allowing it to master you.
I think a lot of us know that we're not incontrol of a lot of stuff in life, right?
Like you hear control thecontrollables, let go of the things
(08:54):
that are not within your control.
These are big, I guess, clichesayings that are thrown out a lot
and you, you'll see this stuff.
All of our social media, right?
So we know that we're not in control.
Logically, right?
Maybe we know that intellectually.
Maybe we believe that on the surface.
Yet, I think a lot of us still try tobe in control and we try to be God.
(09:19):
Again, going back to Thatreally deep seated pride issue
that we all have deep down.
I think if we're really being honest, andif we look at the messages of our culture,
we're always being told that we are incontrol or that we should be in control.
And we get that through marketingmessages, through social media, through
(09:41):
ads on TV, even through just mainstreamtherapy advice and self help advice
that's floated around, like, takecontrol of your own destiny, right?
And I think, I mean,obviously we have free will.
We can't, we can't deny we dohave free will, and we are in the
driver's seat of the day to daychoices that we make, but overall,
(10:05):
we are kind of just a pawn in life.
Like, there are a lot of thingsthat happen in our life that
we, we know we can't control.
We can't control the weather, wecan't control if we get laid off from
our job, we can't control if someonebreaks up with us, we can't control
if we somehow lose all of our money,maybe someone steals from us, or,
(10:28):
we decide to make a risky financialinvestment and that blows up in our face.
There are a lot of things in lifethat we really, really can't control.
Yet, a lot of us spend so much time inanxiety and overthinking and ruminating on
what could possibly go wrong in an effort,a lot of times, to protect ourselves or to
(10:52):
plan for the worst, etc. And this leads meto kind of answering the question, okay,
so where does this overthinking stem from?
Where does this come from?
what we know about the human brain isthat it is wired for survival, right?
You know that feeling when yourheart starts beating really fast
and you have a lot of anxiety andyou have that rush of adrenaline?
(11:16):
That is what is going on.
Considered your fight or flight response.
It's a physical response to yourbrain picking up on some type of
threat and that exists in your body.
That is a natural reaction that weall have in order to help us survive.
So back in the day, if there's aphysical threat, whether it be a
(11:37):
big animal or another person orsomething that is threatening our
life, we go into fight or flight.
Our body naturally kicks into fightor flight to keep us safe, right?
And that hasn't gone away and weactually still need that today because
you can very much be in positionswhere your life is at risk now.
(11:57):
But.
modern day anxieties, modern day issuescan trigger that fight or flight.
Like if you get into a conflict withanother person, that confrontation,
a lot of times your heart startsbeating fast, you get nervous, right?
That's triggering your fight or flight.
And it's giving you a rush of focus andadrenaline and energy to be locked into
(12:20):
the moment and to know how to navigateand respond to the situation, right?
And a lot of times, Overthinking can stemfrom fight or flight being triggered.
Something feels high stakes, somethingfeels overwhelming, whether it's a
big decision coming up, or you madea mistake and you're worried about
(12:41):
the consequences of that mistake, andhow are you going to respond to it?
You're afraid of the future.
Something really feels like it's on theline, whether it be a job opportunity
or a really important relationship ora even emotional trauma from the past.
Like this can all lead to overthinking.
Okay, so how do you knowif you're overthinking?
(13:04):
A lot of times it's characterizedby repetitive, obsessive thoughts.
You can't get one singular thought ora series of thoughts out of your brain.
No matter how many times youthink about it over and over
and over, it doesn't go away.
If you're feeling mentallyexhausted, you could be overthinking.
If you feel unable to make choices,like you're paralyzed, you may be
(13:28):
considering some decision or some actionthat you could possibly take from every
angle and you're trying to gauge allpossible outcomes and you do this so
much to the point where you feel stuck.
If you're second guessing choicesthat you've already made, you
could definitely be overthinking.
And if you're catastrophizing things,like jumping to the worst possible worst
(13:52):
case scenario, If you're kind of operatingfrom a place of all or nothing thinking,
like very black and white, if I makethis choice, things are going to blow up.
If I make that choice, thingsare going to go perfectly.
And you've, Come up with only liketwo possible scenarios, and one
is worst case, one is best case.
You could definitely beoverthinking in that situation.
(14:13):
And then lastly, if you areovergeneralizing, like you are pulling
from past experiences and you'rethinking, okay, well, if I make this
choice, it's just going to end theexact same way as it did before.
All of these patterns and all thethings that I just mentioned are
characteristic of overthinking.
I want to be clear here whenI say it's not bad to make
(14:36):
calculated decisions, okay?
It's very important actually tothink through really big life
choices that you're making.
What I want to address today is when weare ruminating on maybe things that don't
really matter as much as we think they do.
Or we are just.
overthinking something that maybe isbig to the point where we are paralyzing
(15:01):
ourselves and we're causing so muchmore anxiety towards this decision or an
action or a situation than we need to.
When we're doing this, it's gonnaput us again into that place
of being stuck and it can alsolead to depression and anxiety.
It can just create this pit that we'rein and we don't know how to move forward.
(15:25):
And it can also really take a tollon our personal relationships, it
can make us needy, it can make us askfor more reassurance or question the
quality of relationships that we havein our life more than we need to.
And all of this to say again, it'sreally good to be aware of what's
really going on and to analyzesituations to a certain extent.
(15:48):
But when it is keepingyou from making choices.
When it is keeping you from feelingpeace, overall, and when it is keeping
you from having good relationships,that's when you know that you are
severely, severely overthinking something.
I wanted to mention this podcastepisode that Joe Rogan released
(16:08):
probably about a year ago.
He had a woman named Abigail Schreiercome on, and this woman was a journalist.
who had sat down with severalpsychologists, therapists, people
who really deeply understand andare educated on the human psyche,
psychology, and the effects of therapy.
And it was a super, super interestingpodcast episode because it examined
(16:32):
how therapy can actually hurtus more than it can help us.
And kind of the theme of thispodcast episode is that regularly
ruminating on your bad feelingscan actually make you feel worse.
So overthinking things orproblems can actually make you
(16:54):
feel worse, in other words.
And I found this to be super interesting.
And me sharing this actually might come asa shock to some of y'all who have listened
to the podcast in the past when we werereally focused on self help y stuff.
I used to be a huge advocate fortherapy and honestly, I still am like
if you've gone through some crazystuff and you're afraid to talk to
(17:16):
someone in your personal life about it.
I think therapy can be a great option.
However, I went through therapyoff and on for several years and.
What I noticed, I got to a certainpoint where I feel like I hit a
wall, where therapy was no longerhelpful for me because I was almost
(17:37):
ruminating on tiny little everyday lifeproblems that you absolutely could not
possibly equate to like real traumaor going through something like life
altering, which I feel like therapyis really appropriate for those cases.
But what I noticed is that I startedusing therapy and the techniques that I
(17:59):
had learned about coping, kind of likeself reflection and journaling, I started
using that kind of stuff on everydaylittle problems, which is life, which
we all go through, and I found that Ithink it started hurting me more than it
was helping me our generation, I think,has done a great job of normalizing
(18:22):
conversations around mental healtharound asking for help around admitting.
That you're not okay, you know, thewhole it's okay to not be okay thing,
and I still agree with that very much.
I still think it's very important thatyou're having conversations with people
in your life about hard stuff where Ithink that the therapy mental health
(18:43):
movement has really hurt us is thatwe're now ruminating and focusing on it.
What are essentially small problemsthings that don't need to be overthought
that don't need to be ruminated on Weare overthinking little tiny things in
our relationships We're overthinkingthe next career move that we should
(19:05):
make maybe what we should eat for dinnerMaybe what we should wear and I think
having overwhelming number of optionswith The introduction of overconsumption
and technology and all these kind ofthings like that obviously plays into it,
but I think like the the normalizationof talking about your problems and
(19:27):
ruminating on your problems, I actuallythink there's a really big downside to
that that we haven't considered and.
If you want to learn more about that, Iwill link that podcast in the show notes,
but, but genuinely, guys, I experiencedthis in my own life I have always been
like a very glass half full type ofperson, like I definitely struggled to
(19:48):
forgive myself for my mistakes, like Idefinitely used to and still do dwell
on the times that I really mess up orthat I really miss the mark, right?
But generally, Always been a very glasshalf full type of person like I choose
to focus on the positives And then Iwatched myself the last couple years as
I was in therapy and also Producing avery self help oriented podcast where
(20:14):
I was digging into Mistakes that I havehad made tough lessons that I had learned
problems that I had even self imagestruggles that I had and I was deeply
Analyzing myself and past problems,obviously for a good reason, to try to
help people work through their own, right?
But I saw the effect that thathad on me, to keep revisiting old
(20:39):
pain, old problems, old struggles.
Relive them, talk about them,bring them up and make that
a part of my present story.
That had an insane negativeimpact on my mental health.
A huge reason why I wanted to restartthis podcast was to kind of stop
(20:59):
talking about that kind of stuff asmuch and instead focus on Jesus, focus
on God, focus on the truth, which isthat so much is out of our control.
The truth, which is, we are humanswe're inevitably going to suffer, right?
So much of life is suffering.
So much of the human experience isbad things that are out of our control
(21:24):
happening, and the only thing that weare in control of is how we respond.
How we choose to respond to the thingsthat happen to us, the pain that we
feel, the relationships that we lose, thebad circumstances that we can't change.
How do we respond to that?
That is the only thingthat we can control, right?
(21:45):
And so the point of me saying and sharingall of this is just to give you real
life anecdotal evidence that when youfocus on all the ways that you missed
the mark, When you focus on everythingthat isn't right about you, all the bad
choices that you've made, or haven'tmade, or regrets that you have, when
(22:07):
you choose to overthink and dwell onevery possible good or bad outcome,
looking at things from all angles, kindof hyper analyzing everything about
yourself and your life, you will suffer.
You will suffer.
I have lived that.
I've lived that, you guys.
And, and it's really tough.
It's really, really tough.
(22:28):
And it's not a space that I want anyof us to continue hanging out in.
Not when we have a all powerful, allknowing, all wonderful, amazing God that
loves us and that we can put our trust in.
So in this series going forward, Iwould really like to kind of break
(22:48):
down what it looks like to overthinkrelationships, career moves, financial
decisions, overthink in general, andhow we can stop freaking doing that.
How can we actually Putour trust in the Lord.
How can we let go of control?
How can we stop trying to continuouslymanipulate and maneuver and control
(23:14):
every tiny piece of our lives?
And when we finally learn to do that,what kind of peace comes after that?
How much better does life get after that?
What does that actually look like?
And you guys, I've been livingthis in, in real time, and I
have very much not mastered this.
I think laying down your life andsurrendering to God, putting your
(23:36):
pride aside and choosing to trusthim, I think that's a daily choice
that we're going to have to make.
every single day for the rest of ourlives, but it's one that I have been
consciously trying to make a choice thatI've been trying to make every single
day for the last six months or so.
And I have watched making that decisionchange so many things about my life,
(24:00):
but namely just change my peace.
It has decreased somuch stress in my life.
It's given me so much moreclarity on Where I should be
investing my time and my energy.
It's allowed me to freaking breathe.
And I'm so excited to, to share thatwith you in the rest of the series.
So I hope that you tune back in tothe next episode and that you stick
(24:25):
around for this series on overthinking.
And I hope you'll have a fantastic week.
We'll talk soon.
Bye y'all.
What's up, you guys?
Thank you so much for tuning intothe Wrestling With Life podcast.
I am your host, Em Led, and it has beena fat minute since we've last talked.
I've been taking some very muchneeded time off from podcasting and
I've just been pouring a lot of myextra free time into my real life.
(00:46):
So when I'm not working, I've beenhanging out with my friends and
exploring the area that I'm livingin, in North Carolina, and spending a
lot of time time with God, honestly.
Just trying to pour into myrelationship with the Lord.
Um, I've really beenworking on slowing down.
I told y'all in the last series thatfor a really long time, I've just kind
(01:07):
of been motivated, um, by the senseof urgency of like, Trying to run a
million miles an hour and try to beas productive and successful and, and
all these things that I can be, try tosqueeze the most out of every single day.
And I think that mentality canbe great, um, in some ways, but I
think that it was draining me fora long time and I have felt the
(01:30):
Lord just calling me to, to chill.
So I've been trying to chill and, um.
It's been really cool to, to watchmyself do less and to just kind of
like fall back and learn to put mytrust into God and that kind of really
leads into what I really feel theLord's put on my heart to talk about
(01:50):
in this next series on the podcast.
We're going to be talking a lotabout overthinking, and we're going
to be talking about how overthinkingcauses a lot more problems than it
solves, how our generation really,really struggles with overthinking.
We're going to talk about where thatstems from, how to know if you're
overthinking, and really the negativeside of what overthinking can do to
(02:15):
us and how we can learn to let go, howwe can learn to let go of control, how
we can learn to trust the Lord, andhow we can get out of our own heads.
In the last series, we were talking somuch about pride and overthinking is
actually, it actually stems from pride.
(02:36):
It comes from pride.
Like if you really sit down and thinkabout why am I overthinking this?
Why am I ruminating and dwellingon something from the past?
Why am I unable to make a decision?
It all comes back to pride, thinkingthat we are God, that we are way more
in control of our lives in the outcomesof our choices than we actually are.
(02:58):
And, um, yeah, personally, I'vestruggled a lot with overthinking
in the last couple years of my life.
And I really think that thatcame from not trusting God.
A lot of my overthinking came frompressure and feeling like It was all
on me to constantly figure everythingout in my own power and by myself, and
(03:22):
I'll definitely share a little bit moreabout that later on, but, um, I've been
pulling y'all about your overthinkinghabits because I know that I'm not alone
in this struggle from conversations thatI have with my friends and coworkers and
different people that I meet, you know.
Overthinking is, is a huge issue,especially for Gen Z Millennials,
(03:44):
those of us who are between the agesof about 22 to 35 working full time,
especially when you're, you're managingall these different variables all the
time and being the one who's kind ofcalling the shots of your own life.
If you're not necessarily takingcare of a family and you're.
Mostly worrying about you and youonly, it really does feel like,
(04:07):
okay, holy crap, like it's on meto figure this all out by myself.
So I've been polling you guys on Instagramas always if you don't follow me You can
give me a follow at em underscore led 11And i've been asking you about your own
overthinking Issues because again, I knowi'm not alone and just a little like side
(04:28):
tangent really quick the reason that Ilike to poll you guys is because I have
a pretty engaged audience on instagramabout 200 people consistently will answer
these polls You And usually when I postthese polls on Instagram, I'm saying, Hey,
please only answer this if you are betweenthe ages of 22 to 35, you're working
(04:49):
full time, and you don't have kids.
And the reason why is because I don'tknow about y'all, but I struggle to
know what data I can and can't truston Google, and I don't want to just be
like throwing random stats at you guysthat I, I'm not sure if it's accurate
or not, you know what I'm saying?
So I like to do my own research and.
(05:09):
I also like to experiment in my own lifeto see if the things that I'm learning
in psychology and the articles that I'mreading and the research that I'm doing,
the books I'm reading, all these things,I want to test and see if I actually find
it to be true in my own experience andin my own research, if that makes sense.
So that's just a little side tangentas to why I pull you guys, but I
(05:33):
asked you guys recently a lot aboutyour own overthinking habits and.
This is not shocking to me.
81 percent of us considerourselves overthinkers.
And again, about 200 peopleresponded to this poll.
So that's a pretty sizableamount of people to pull from.
(05:54):
Out of 200 people, 80%, that's 160 people.
Are saying, Oh my gosh, I'man over thinker out of 200.
That's crazy to me.
It's crazy, but it's not crazy.
But it just goes to show that thisis a huge problem in our generation.
A lot of us are overthinkingover analyzing, getting caught up
(06:16):
on details, not really trustingthe decisions that we're making.
And if we can't trust ourselves, Thatprobably means that we don't trust
God and it probably means that wedon't trust other people too, right?
Trust is one of thoseinverse things, right?
Like, if you trust others, you probablytrust yourself, you probably trust
(06:36):
God, you probably have an open heart.
If you don't trust yourself, ifyou don't trust God, that bleeds
out into your relationships, right?
So 81 percent of us considerourselves overthinkers.
I asked you guys, what doyou overthink the most?
48% of US overthinkrelationships the most.
(06:58):
16% of US overthink financial decisions.
The most 20% of us overthink our career,moves the most, and then 16% of us said
that the thing we overthink the mostis something else that doesn't fall
into the category of relationships,financial decisions, career moves.
So.
(07:19):
That really stuck out to mebecause I would also agree that I
overthink my relationships the most.
48 percent of you agree with that.
So, this leads me, I got twomore stats for you, okay?
Uh, only 29 percent ofus say we always pray.
Before we make a big decision, and then85 percent of us say that we prefer
(07:45):
to be in control most of the time, orwe consider ourselves control freaks.
So to break that stat down evenfurther, it was 77 percent of us prefer
to be in control most of the time.
And then 8 percent of us actuallysay that we are control freaks.
So these stats are pretty compellingand pretty evident to me that a lot of
(08:10):
us have control issues, trust issues,and Pretty big overthinking issues.
Okay.
And so today I want to start us outwith a quote to kind of set the tone
of What I want this series on thepodcast to to really communicate.
Okay But the quote goes like thisYou cannot control what happens
(08:33):
to you, but you can control yourattitude towards what happens to you.
And in that, you will be mastering changerather than allowing it to master you.
I think a lot of us know that we're not incontrol of a lot of stuff in life, right?
Like you hear control thecontrollables, let go of the things
(08:54):
that are not within your control.
These are big, I guess, clichesayings that are thrown out a lot
and you, you'll see this stuff.
All of our social media, right?
So we know that we're not in control.
Logically, right?
Maybe we know that intellectually.
Maybe we believe that on the surface.
Yet, I think a lot of us still try tobe in control and we try to be God.
(09:19):
Again, going back to Thatreally deep seated pride issue
that we all have deep down.
I think if we're really being honest, andif we look at the messages of our culture,
we're always being told that we are incontrol or that we should be in control.
And we get that through marketingmessages, through social media, through
(09:41):
ads on TV, even through just mainstreamtherapy advice and self help advice
that's floated around, like, takecontrol of your own destiny, right?
And I think, I mean,obviously we have free will.
We can't, we can't deny we dohave free will, and we are in the
driver's seat of the day to daychoices that we make, but overall,
(10:05):
we are kind of just a pawn in life.
Like, there are a lot of thingsthat happen in our life that
we, we know we can't control.
We can't control the weather, wecan't control if we get laid off from
our job, we can't control if someonebreaks up with us, we can't control
if we somehow lose all of our money,maybe someone steals from us, or,
(10:28):
we decide to make a risky financialinvestment and that blows up in our face.
There are a lot of things in lifethat we really, really can't control.
Yet, a lot of us spend so much time inanxiety and overthinking and ruminating on
what could possibly go wrong in an effort,a lot of times, to protect ourselves or to
(10:52):
plan for the worst, etc. And this leads meto kind of answering the question, okay,
so where does this overthinking stem from?
Where does this come from?
what we know about the human brain isthat it is wired for survival, right?
You know that feeling when yourheart starts beating really fast
and you have a lot of anxiety andyou have that rush of adrenaline?
(11:16):
That is what is going on.
Considered your fight or flight response.
It's a physical response to yourbrain picking up on some type of
threat and that exists in your body.
That is a natural reaction that weall have in order to help us survive.
So back in the day, if there's aphysical threat, whether it be a
(11:37):
big animal or another person orsomething that is threatening our
life, we go into fight or flight.
Our body naturally kicks into fightor flight to keep us safe, right?
And that hasn't gone away and weactually still need that today because
you can very much be in positionswhere your life is at risk now.
(11:57):
But.
modern day anxieties, modern day issuescan trigger that fight or flight.
Like if you get into a conflict withanother person, that confrontation,
a lot of times your heart startsbeating fast, you get nervous, right?
That's triggering your fight or flight.
And it's giving you a rush of focus andadrenaline and energy to be locked into
(12:20):
the moment and to know how to navigateand respond to the situation, right?
And a lot of times, Overthinking can stemfrom fight or flight being triggered.
Something feels high stakes, somethingfeels overwhelming, whether it's a
big decision coming up, or you madea mistake and you're worried about
(12:41):
the consequences of that mistake, andhow are you going to respond to it?
You're afraid of the future.
Something really feels like it's on theline, whether it be a job opportunity
or a really important relationship ora even emotional trauma from the past.
Like this can all lead to overthinking.
Okay, so how do you knowif you're overthinking?
(13:04):
A lot of times it's characterizedby repetitive, obsessive thoughts.
You can't get one singular thought ora series of thoughts out of your brain.
No matter how many times youthink about it over and over
and over, it doesn't go away.
If you're feeling mentallyexhausted, you could be overthinking.
If you feel unable to make choices,like you're paralyzed, you may be
(13:28):
considering some decision or some actionthat you could possibly take from every
angle and you're trying to gauge allpossible outcomes and you do this so
much to the point where you feel stuck.
If you're second guessing choicesthat you've already made, you
could definitely be overthinking.
And if you're catastrophizing things,like jumping to the worst possible worst
(13:52):
case scenario, If you're kind of operatingfrom a place of all or nothing thinking,
like very black and white, if I makethis choice, things are going to blow up.
If I make that choice, thingsare going to go perfectly.
And you've, Come up with only liketwo possible scenarios, and one
is worst case, one is best case.
You could definitely beoverthinking in that situation.
(14:13):
And then lastly, if you areovergeneralizing, like you are pulling
from past experiences and you'rethinking, okay, well, if I make this
choice, it's just going to end theexact same way as it did before.
All of these patterns and all thethings that I just mentioned are
characteristic of overthinking.
I want to be clear here whenI say it's not bad to make
(14:36):
calculated decisions, okay?
It's very important actually tothink through really big life
choices that you're making.
What I want to address today is when weare ruminating on maybe things that don't
really matter as much as we think they do.
Or we are just.
overthinking something that maybe isbig to the point where we are paralyzing
(15:01):
ourselves and we're causing so muchmore anxiety towards this decision or an
action or a situation than we need to.
When we're doing this, it's gonnaput us again into that place
of being stuck and it can alsolead to depression and anxiety.
It can just create this pit that we'rein and we don't know how to move forward.
(15:25):
And it can also really take a tollon our personal relationships, it
can make us needy, it can make us askfor more reassurance or question the
quality of relationships that we havein our life more than we need to.
And all of this to say again, it'sreally good to be aware of what's
really going on and to analyzesituations to a certain extent.
(15:48):
But when it is keepingyou from making choices.
When it is keeping you from feelingpeace, overall, and when it is keeping
you from having good relationships,that's when you know that you are
severely, severely overthinking something.
I wanted to mention this podcastepisode that Joe Rogan released
(16:08):
probably about a year ago.
He had a woman named Abigail Schreiercome on, and this woman was a journalist.
who had sat down with severalpsychologists, therapists, people
who really deeply understand andare educated on the human psyche,
psychology, and the effects of therapy.
And it was a super, super interestingpodcast episode because it examined
(16:32):
how therapy can actually hurtus more than it can help us.
And kind of the theme of thispodcast episode is that regularly
ruminating on your bad feelingscan actually make you feel worse.
So overthinking things orproblems can actually make you
(16:54):
feel worse, in other words.
And I found this to be super interesting.
And me sharing this actually might come asa shock to some of y'all who have listened
to the podcast in the past when we werereally focused on self help y stuff.
I used to be a huge advocate fortherapy and honestly, I still am like
if you've gone through some crazystuff and you're afraid to talk to
(17:16):
someone in your personal life about it.
I think therapy can be a great option.
However, I went through therapyoff and on for several years and.
What I noticed, I got to a certainpoint where I feel like I hit a
wall, where therapy was no longerhelpful for me because I was almost
(17:37):
ruminating on tiny little everyday lifeproblems that you absolutely could not
possibly equate to like real traumaor going through something like life
altering, which I feel like therapyis really appropriate for those cases.
But what I noticed is that I startedusing therapy and the techniques that I
(17:59):
had learned about coping, kind of likeself reflection and journaling, I started
using that kind of stuff on everydaylittle problems, which is life, which
we all go through, and I found that Ithink it started hurting me more than it
was helping me our generation, I think,has done a great job of normalizing
(18:22):
conversations around mental healtharound asking for help around admitting.
That you're not okay, you know, thewhole it's okay to not be okay thing,
and I still agree with that very much.
I still think it's very important thatyou're having conversations with people
in your life about hard stuff where Ithink that the therapy mental health
(18:43):
movement has really hurt us is thatwe're now ruminating and focusing on it.
What are essentially small problemsthings that don't need to be overthought
that don't need to be ruminated on Weare overthinking little tiny things in
our relationships We're overthinkingthe next career move that we should
(19:05):
make maybe what we should eat for dinnerMaybe what we should wear and I think
having overwhelming number of optionswith The introduction of overconsumption
and technology and all these kind ofthings like that obviously plays into it,
but I think like the the normalizationof talking about your problems and
(19:27):
ruminating on your problems, I actuallythink there's a really big downside to
that that we haven't considered and.
If you want to learn more about that, Iwill link that podcast in the show notes,
but, but genuinely, guys, I experiencedthis in my own life I have always been
like a very glass half full type ofperson, like I definitely struggled to
(19:48):
forgive myself for my mistakes, like Idefinitely used to and still do dwell
on the times that I really mess up orthat I really miss the mark, right?
But generally, Always been a very glasshalf full type of person like I choose
to focus on the positives And then Iwatched myself the last couple years as
I was in therapy and also Producing avery self help oriented podcast where
(20:14):
I was digging into Mistakes that I havehad made tough lessons that I had learned
problems that I had even self imagestruggles that I had and I was deeply
Analyzing myself and past problems,obviously for a good reason, to try to
help people work through their own, right?
But I saw the effect that thathad on me, to keep revisiting old
(20:39):
pain, old problems, old struggles.
Relive them, talk about them,bring them up and make that
a part of my present story.
That had an insane negativeimpact on my mental health.
A huge reason why I wanted to restartthis podcast was to kind of stop
(20:59):
talking about that kind of stuff asmuch and instead focus on Jesus, focus
on God, focus on the truth, which isthat so much is out of our control.
The truth, which is, we are humanswe're inevitably going to suffer, right?
So much of life is suffering.
So much of the human experience isbad things that are out of our control
(21:24):
happening, and the only thing that weare in control of is how we respond.
How we choose to respond to the thingsthat happen to us, the pain that we
feel, the relationships that we lose, thebad circumstances that we can't change.
How do we respond to that?
That is the only thingthat we can control, right?
(21:45):
And so the point of me saying and sharingall of this is just to give you real
life anecdotal evidence that when youfocus on all the ways that you missed
the mark, When you focus on everythingthat isn't right about you, all the bad
choices that you've made, or haven'tmade, or regrets that you have, when
(22:07):
you choose to overthink and dwell onevery possible good or bad outcome,
looking at things from all angles, kindof hyper analyzing everything about
yourself and your life, you will suffer.
You will suffer.
I have lived that.
I've lived that, you guys.
And, and it's really tough.
It's really, really tough.
(22:28):
And it's not a space that I want anyof us to continue hanging out in.
Not when we have a all powerful, allknowing, all wonderful, amazing God that
loves us and that we can put our trust in.
So in this series going forward, Iwould really like to kind of break
(22:48):
down what it looks like to overthinkrelationships, career moves, financial
decisions, overthink in general, andhow we can stop freaking doing that.
How can we actually Putour trust in the Lord.
How can we let go of control?
How can we stop trying to continuouslymanipulate and maneuver and control
(23:14):
every tiny piece of our lives?
And when we finally learn to do that,what kind of peace comes after that?
How much better does life get after that?
What does that actually look like?
And you guys, I've been livingthis in, in real time, and I
have very much not mastered this.
I think laying down your life andsurrendering to God, putting your
(23:36):
pride aside and choosing to trusthim, I think that's a daily choice
that we're going to have to make.
every single day for the rest of ourlives, but it's one that I have been
consciously trying to make a choice thatI've been trying to make every single
day for the last six months or so.
And I have watched making that decisionchange so many things about my life,
(24:00):
but namely just change my peace.
It has decreased somuch stress in my life.
It's given me so much moreclarity on Where I should be
investing my time and my energy.
It's allowed me to freaking breathe.
And I'm so excited to, to share thatwith you in the rest of the series.
So I hope that you tune back in tothe next episode and that you stick
(24:25):
around for this series on overthinking.
And I hope you'll have a fantastic week.
We'll talk soon.
Bye y'all.
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