You are listening to the Overthinkers Guide to Joy, episode 48. This is the one
where we're going to talk about the power of your thoughts. Let's dive in.
This is a podcast for overthinkers, overdoers and overachievers who are tired of
feeling over anxious and just want to feel better. I'm your host, certified life
coach, Jackie de Crinis. Hey there and welcome back. So I hope everybody's enjoying
their summer. Mine has been rather mellow and hot and a little quieter the last few
months. And I think maybe because there was so much activity leading up to the
summertime with graduations and reunions and family, and we had a ton of visitors,
just kind of all the things. But summer has quieted down quite a bit. And while I
welcome the decompression after all the events, it's interesting that I have a
tendency to overthink when things get quiet. When I'm crazy busy,
everything seems more normal. And like so many others, I kind of operate at my best
when I'm juggling a lot of balls. So this has been a lifelong lesson for me to
learn to lean into the quieter moments, embrace them, appreciate them.
And my biggest challenge is to not go looking for things to fix. So a few weeks
ago, I did an episode called, Are You Looking For Problems? And after this episode,
I had several people reach out to me and say, oh my God, that's so me. I heard
comments like, I've been in survival mode for so long with such huge responsibilities
that when the chaos stopped, I found myself wondering what had gone wrong. Well,
this is not unusual. It's super common for Type A overachievers,
over thinkers to overanalyze things when things get quiet.
Now, the tendency is really hypervigilance, and it's a learned behavior or a coping
mechanism from our upbringing. At some point, we felt the need to manage,
take care of, or mitigate chaos that was around us. And then we made it a habit
and brought it into our adult lives, whether or not there was chaos or trauma that
still existed. So when things get quiet, because of a circumstance like work slows
down, or we haven't connected to family or friends in a while. But we just don't
have a big project to supervise or a crisis to manage. Rather than embracing the
peace, we end up waiting for the other shoe to drop. So instead of celebrating the
calm, we think it's the calm before the storm. We think that there is something
that we're neglecting or that we need to get ahead of. So we start to do one of
two things. We either spend all of our peaceful, well -deserved rest searching for
problems or worrying about problems that haven't happened yet. And as we all know,
if you search for problems, you're likely to find them or create them. Now,
this may look like something as simple as starting an unnecessary argument with
someone you love or becoming more judgmental of others, or becoming more judgmental
of yourself. And this is something so many of us struggle with. So when a new
client comes to me, they're often in crisis mode, or they are just looking to make
a big change and don't know where to start. They feel stuck in something. And when
we work together for a few months, they very quickly start to feel a shift within
themselves. Their initial problems start to become less of a problem,
and they start to take control back in their life. They feel freer,
happier, lighter, but when they are overthinkers,
overdoers, people -pleasers, as so many of my clients are, when they quell the chaos
in their life, they start to feel discomfort in the new comfort. I know that's
really weird, right? Like, why would you feel discomfort in comfort? Because we're
not used to it. We don't allow ourselves to let down that guard. So they think
something's wrong because everything is better. And then they worry they might be
overlooking something or because they've let their guard down, they think something
bad will sneak up on them. They've been wired for so long to stay hyper -vigilant,
overly busy and always putting out fires. They can't accept their new normal of
tranquility or peace or calm. And I say this all because I see it time and time
again. And it's something I still have to manage within myself too. So,
you've all heard me talk about the power of our thoughts. When we let our
irrational or negative thoughts get ahold of us, it can lead to unintended results.
For example, the thought "things are too quiet, something must be wrong." And then
we go searching for anything past, present, future that supports our theory.
In other words, we create the result to match the thought, even subconsciously.
So rather than letting that runaway train metaphorically derail our peace and
tranquility with negative thoughts, we can simply choose another thought.
And people always bristle when they first hear this concept. Everyone says, "How can
I go from a thought that makes me fearful or upset to just a random happy thought?
I can't do that." And the answer is you're right. You can't do it. It's not a
light switch, it's not a magic bullet. You have to work through the negative
thoughts. You have to find the noisiest one and you've got to question it,
challenge it. You have to ask yourself, is this negative thought 100 % true? What
evidence do I have that it's 100 % true? Could there be another explanation,
or outcome. And once you realize it's not usually, almost never,
a hundred percent true, it's just a thought. It's just a thought.
So let me tell you a story that happened the other day. I'm driving down the
highway. It was a gorgeous day, like 85 degrees, the sky was blue,
big puffy white clouds, warm breeze, I could see the sparkling ocean in the distance
and at first I was thinking wow I am so lucky to live here and be able to take
off early on Fridays and go play tennis with friends and then have dinner with my
family and then as I was driving I could see how my thoughts started to shift like
well maybe I shouldn't be taking Friday afternoons off and I didn't plan anything
for dinner and I need to go to the grocery store. Oh, and I forgot to schedule a
doctor's appointment. And then I started thinking about my daughter going off to
college next month. And then I started thinking about what life would be like as a
true empty nester. And so my totally awesome Friday afternoon, beautiful summer day
mood goes from complete contentment to guilty to slightly anxious in like a span of
two minutes. In other words, I took a perfect opportunity to enjoy a moment and I
let my brain hijack my good mood. I did the exact opposite of mindfulness and
gratitude. And then I felt guilty for having these thoughts and worries by returning
to my hyper -vigilant default setting. So I caught myself and I said,
stop. Just stop. That's simple. One word. And I reminded myself that this thought or
this thought pattern is a choice. And I can choose a different thought or feeling.
So I went back to noticing the blue sky, puffy white clouds, sparkling ocean, and I
decided to choose contentment. I chose to guide my thoughts back to what was
working, What was good? What was 100 % true?
Which was, it was a beautiful day and I was going to have some fun. Not focusing
on what could, should, or needed to be done later. None of those things that popped
into my brain were urgent. They all could wait, they would all get done.
So I was sharing the story with a client who was struggling with kind of the same
things. Things were going well. And she found herself looking for problems. And she
shared a story with me in which she was working on a big project with another
colleague. And it was a marketing project that had a fair amount of financial risk
and some unknown variables. And her first instinct as they were trying to work
through it was to try and get ahead of all the potential problems before pulling
the trigger, making any financial commitment to this. She wanted to anticipate
everything that might go wrong before they even got started. And her partner on the
project finally said, "Why don't we just trust our future selves that we'll be able
to handle the problems as they come? Since this is not a life -or -death thing, we
can problem solve as we go." And so she was sharing with me that she adopted this
new thought. "I trust my future yourself to be able to problem solve if and when
the problems arise. I love that. I trust my future self to be able to problem
solve when the problems arise. So there's two powerful thoughts of choice.
Mine was I choose contentment. I choose to be content right now. And hers was I
trust my future self to problem solve if I need to. So over the course of the
weekend, every time I found myself or my mind wandering to worrying about something
that might need to get done or could go wrong, I pulled my thought back to just
that one thought. I choose contentment. I am content. So let me ask you this
question. Are you in the middle of something that's challenging you? What thought or
thoughts are you caring about this circumstance? Can you distill it down to one
really nagging, sticky thought? And then can you challenge that thought?
Is it 100 % true? Or could there be another thought or possibility about this
circumstance? And what's an alternative thought you can choose? Or what's the feeling
you would like to have about the circumstance. Is it confidence? Is it calm?
Is it peace? Is it empowerment? Is it satisfaction? Because sometimes you can work
from the feeling backwards to the thought. And then what thought would you need to
have that feeling? Because the power is all in the thoughts and feelings.
And that's where we create the results. And the best part of this is that power
resides in you. And it's available to you 24 /7. And it's not dependent on anybody's
approval. It's your thoughts. You get to choose them. And you're just one thought
away from a different result. How powerful is that? All right,
friends, that's what I have for you today. So if there's something that's derailing
your contentment or your happiness or there's a project where you're thinking about
all the problems, what's a different thought that you could think that would give
you that sense of confidence or power or calmness? It's such a great opportunity to
take control back in your life, to just pick one different thought today.
I'm wishing you 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 would like to learn more about working with me as a coach,
you can connect with me through my website at jackiedecrinis.com.
