You are listening to the Overthinkers Guide to Joy, episode 42. This is the one
where we're going to talk about looking for problems where there aren't any. Let's
dive in.
This is a podcast for overthinkers, overdoers, and overachievers who are tired of
feeling overanxious and just want to feel better. I'm your host, certified life
coach, Jackie de Crinis.
Hey there and welcome back. So it's only mid June, if you're listening to this in
real time, but it definitely feels like summer. The weather is getting warmer and
the days are certainly getting longer. And with the kids out of school and people
taking summer vacations, it feels like it's a little more carefree. It just feels
like summer is here and everybody can exhale a little bit. But interestingly enough,
I have been seeing another pattern come up in the last few weeks. One of my
clients was commenting on how well things were going in her business. She had a
huge uptick in her sales with new opportunities, and everything was just feeling very
abundant. And she felt this huge sense of relief, like she was meeting her goals
for the year, and she felt like she's really got a handle on her business. And yet
she confessed that there was this little nagging voice in the back of her head. It
was like it was saying don't get too comfortable. Now she felt sheepish about even
admitting that this little voice was popping up because things are going better than
they ever have. And she was so grateful for how well things were going and how
things were on the upswing. But it's not unusual for overthinkers,
over -warriors, type A people to have this habit. And that's the habit of looking
for problems. And I know this one all too well, because my brain,
left to its own devices, will do exactly the same thing. And I noticed there seems
to be two triggers for it. The first one is when things aren't going well, either
because there's a problem that's come up or things have gotten kind of quiet. And
the second one is right after things start going really well. Now, that sounds
weird. I mean, how can both good things happening and bad things trigger the same
bad habit? Well, in my experience, it's something like this. Let's say you have one
thing that has gone wrong, like maybe it's just a little inconvenience, or maybe
it's a genuine problem, might be a disagreement with your significant other, or maybe
it was an unpleasant exchange with your boss, or a dissatisfied client, or maybe
even a misunderstanding with a friend, or maybe it's something like more tangible,
like you pulled a muscle, someone dinged your car, you got an unexpected tax bill,
your refrigerator stops working, or just a majoring convenience, which can feel very
threatening. So you start looking for evidence of other things not going well.
In other words, you start looking for more problems. It's like your brain says,
"Well, I didn't see this thing coming, so there must be other bad news on the
horizon. I'll go look for it." And if you do, well, you're guaranteed to find
something. And then you now have a list of things that have gone awry and suddenly
one little problem becomes a bad day or a bad week or a bad month. And I talked
about this in an earlier episode. It's what I referred to as putting things in the
blender or putting problems in the blender. And that's when you take individual
issues or problems and blend them all together and make gross generalizations like
"I'm cursed, I'm unlucky, I'm being punished." You gotta get these circumstances out
of the blender and tackle them one by one. Prioritize, problem solve,
delegate or ask for help, but whatever you do, stop looking at them as related
issues. It's understandable why when things aren't going well we have this tendency
to pile on other complaints or irritations. But again remembering that they're
unrelated and the only thing that's connecting them is you So treat them like
separate instances separate circumstances So the bigger question is why do we look
for problems when things are going well? I mean, it's understandable why our brain
goes to places when things aren't going well to look for more evidence that things
aren't going Well, but if things are going, "Well, why would we want to find
problems?" For instance, let's say your business is flourishing, but all of a sudden
you think it's a fluke. You don't even know how it happened, and your fear is that
you can't replicate it. Or maybe you and your significant other are finally getting
along really well, but then you start to question why are they being so attentive?
Your mind goes to crazy places. Or maybe you finally lost the weight you wanted to
lose, but you start to doubt your ability to keep it off. In other words, you've
started mentally sabotaging your success by looking for evidence otherwise.
You are looking for problems. And the interesting thing is, oftentimes when there's a
lull in your life, when things get a little quiet, that's when we really want to
hunt for negative thoughts. I mean, we don't want to, we just do it. So like
you'll be driving by yourself, you know, and everything's going great. And then all
of a sudden you're like, oh, I didn't do that. Oh, wait, I forgot to do this. Oh,
what if this happens? And it's like you allow your mind to indulge in a cycle of
negative thoughts. Same thing happens if you're sitting at your desk and things are
kind of quiet or you're trying to fall asleep at night, all of a sudden you'll see
your brain may start searching for problems. So rather than focusing on what's
working, your brain is thinking, uh -oh, things are too good, when's the other shoe
gonna drop? Does any of this sound familiar? Does this resonate with you?
So rather than focusing on what's working, your brain wants to say, uh -oh,
things are too good, when's the other shoe going to drop? Like, why do we allow
that to happen? What causes this need to look for problems when things are already
maybe not so good or when things are going just fine? Well, last week I talked
about the pattern of walking on eggshells around certain types of people. Research
shows that this is a coping mechanism that often stems from an unstable childhood or
childhood trauma. What looking for problems is kind of the flip side of the same
coin. It stems from a coping mechanism that we adopted as children when we are
looking for more control or safety in our life. Circumstances like death or divorce,
financial hardship or even unstable parents may have been the triggers for this
coping mechanism. So, as children, we might have learned that we weren't in control
of most of our decisions and circumstances. Our parents made all the big decisions
and we sometimes suffered the consequences. But as a result of that,
many of us compensated or overcompensated by becoming hypervigilant.
We developed a habit of looking for problems in a false attempt to give us some
sense of control. We think if we search for problems, find them and prepare
ourselves for the outcome, then and only then we can avoid being ever hurt or upset
or blindsided again. We think that imagining every worst case scenario will protect
us, but it's actually not true. It's a false sense of security.
It's a thought error. And here's the thing, it's a terrible waste of energy.
So why do we do it? Well, it's the way we were wired for survival.
You know, it was like never get too cozy in your cave because there's always a
lion or bear ready to eat you. Our primitive brain tells us to be on high alert
for danger and it hasn't really caught up with modern society. Now that doesn't mean
there aren't legitimate dangers in modern society, of course there are, but we're no
longer running from lions and tigers and bears while hunting and gathering. So the
point being we simply can't control everything and we are exhausting ourselves when
we try. But the other downside is that when we worry about things that haven't
happened yet or we quote look for problems, we stress our minds and bodies out.
We are pumping unnecessary cortisol into our bloodstream literally making our organs
work harder and our muscles tighter and additionally we are robbing ourselves of the
present. So if things are good then we're robbing ourselves of enjoying it in the
moment, and when things aren't so good, we're actually robbing ourselves of fixing
things efficiently, because when we feel anxious and fearful, we don't think as
clearly. So it truly doesn't benefit us in any direction to get fixated on problems
that have not presented themselves. So now the question is how do we stop the
habit? Well, like I say almost every week, we retrain our brains.
When we have that urge to look for problems, catch yourself. Ask yourself,
am I looking for problems? And then ask yourself why? What insecurity is showing up?
What old pattern is arising that needs to be addressed? Is it fear of abandonment?
Is it fear of rejection? Is it fear of loss of control? Ask yourself,
what do you need to feel safe right now without creating or looking for more
problems? I'll give you a couple of client stories. I had a client who always felt
that if she got too comfortable in her romantic relationships that the guy would
leave or change his mind about her. And when we did a deeper dive on this, it
turned out that she didn't feel deserving of true love. She had issues about her
body and shame around food and eating and getting fat and just then not feeling
sexy. So she equated being comfortable in a relationship with settling in and getting
fat and and not being worthy of love. And these were just mixed messages from her
upbringing 'cause her parents put a lot of value on people being thin and in good
shape. So this created kind of this vicious cycle of fear in her romantic
relationships. And mostly the fear of being rejected when she was vulnerable. And
ultimately the fear of being hurt. I had another client who whenever she started
making money in her business, she would start creating problems in other facets of
her life. She would become irritable with her partner and not delegate to her work
staff, and she was short tempered. And this left her feeling like she was doing it
all herself, which led to burnout and then distrust of everyone else. And as much
as she wanted to be successful, she had this inner critic, the voice of of her
mother was a young girl always telling her that she would never be successful, so
she would unconsciously get in her own way of achieving her financial goals. In
another instance, I had a client who, when she finally started to lose weight, she
would self -sabotage by binge eating or midnight snacking because she didn't think she
deserved to feel good or have attention. This came from the childhood trauma of her
mother being a narcissist and would punish her when she received too much attention.
So staying overweight protected her even though her mother had long passed away. She
felt that being overweight was a way to avoid getting too much attention and then
upsetting people in her life. But things all changed when these clients did one
thing. when they learned to recognize the cycle before it became a runaway train.
They would get curious about the real underlying fear, not the superficial fear,
but the one under the surface, the one they developed as a coping mechanism, as a
child, to try and make their parent happier. So as adults,
they challenged this line of thinking. asking the simple question, is this still
true? Or is this just an old pattern of thought? And then questioning, is it even
your thought? Or is it one that came from a parent? And when we confront it and
challenge the thought and demystify it, we break this cycle, this cycle of
hypervigilance, this cycle of feeling like we need to get ahead of everything,
control everything, and look for problems. So trust this.
Trust that if something serious should arise, you have the skill set and the
bandwidth to manage it as it comes. You don't need to anticipate everything.
You are no longer the little boy or the little girl whose survival is dependent on
that unreliable adult or circumstance. By using tools like mindfulness,
staying present, and observing without judgment, you can unlock this habit.
Another method is when you start to see these things come up, when you start
finding yourself like searching your brain for problems or going to look for
problems. Distract yourself. Instead of stewing on the negative or the problems that
aren't there, try a crossword puzzle. Go read your favorite book or watch something
on TV, even just for a few minutes, just to break the cycle. But mostly,
learn to trust yourself. Trust that you can challenge your hyper -vigilant overthinking
brain. It's a practice, and it takes time to rewire these old sleep patterns,
so be patient with yourself. Now I invite you to try this this week. When things
are inconvenient or something bad comes up in your world, don't look to add more
negative things to the blender. Focus on the one thing at a time. Make a list and
recognize they're all separate circumstances and you will deal with them one by one.
And when things are going well, Trust that it's not a fluke and stop looking for
evidence otherwise. Celebrate your successes, big and small, and I guarantee more will
come your way. You got this. You are the captain of your own ship,
which reminds me of the great line from the screenplay Captain Phillips. I am the
captain now. So go be the captain and stop your overthinking brain from looking for
problems where there aren't any. All right, friends. I look forward to talking to
you next time. Have a great week and bye for now. Thank you for listening to this
episode of The Overthinker's Guide to Joy. If you're enjoying these episodes, please
subscribe or follow this podcast so you can always be in the know when the next
episode drops. If you I'd like to learn more about working with me as a coach.
You can connect with me through my website at jackiedecrinis.com. That's J -A -C -K -I
-E -D -E -C -R -I -N -I -S .com.
