Do you ever feel like your mind is too busy,
Too busy criticizing us,
Too busy thinking about all the responsibilities that we have,
Too busy thinking about all the responsibilities that there are in the world,
Or too busy thinking about maybe how we don't have enough to think about?
If so,
My name is Dr.
Elisha Goldstein.
I'm a psychologist.
I am the founder of the Mindful Living Collective and the creator of the personal coaching program Uncover the Power Within.
We're going to talk about the most impactful thing that you can do to begin to turn the volume down in your thinking,
Stopping overthinking,
And be able to reclaim control of your mind and your life.
Okay,
So to begin with,
The most impactful thing to understand when it comes to overthinking and how to stop overthinking is to understand how thinking actually works.
We have a part of our brain called the default mode,
Which is this cortical midline area of the brain,
Which is involved with trying to figure things out,
Problem solve,
Make decisions.
It's a valuable part of our brain.
The problem is when we're feeling uncomfortable,
Our nervous system is a little off kilter,
It's going to go into how do I fix this?
One of the things it does is attack us immediately,
Tells us all the problems that we have,
Everything that's wrong with us so that we can be aware of it,
Of course.
But meanwhile,
We're starting to feel the wearing edges of the self-criticism come after us.
Once we start doing that and we start getting more off kilter,
We begin to become more overwhelmed and start thinking more and we get caught in this vicious loop.
The thing to understand is our brain,
There's two different parts of our brain,
We cannot focus on something in this present moment and also be really thinking at the same level of intensity.
What does that mean?
Our body and our breath is always here,
Totally portable.
Our senses are always here,
For some more than others.
Again,
Portable.
We can choose what we want to attend to,
But we need to anchor to something in the present moment because if we can do that consistently,
We're going to turn the volume down in our thinking.
One of the things that I love to do is understand where the feeling or emotion is in my body and place my hand there.
In other words,
I can place my hand on my shoulder,
I can place my hand on my face,
I can place my hand on my heart,
I can place my hand on my stomach that's here.
What that does is my brain now has to map the sensation of my hand.
In order to do that,
It has to take attention away from the overthinking in order to do that.
There's only so much attention we have.
As I start to stay with the sensation of my hand on my body and start to play with it to make sure that it's comfortable and it feels good and then I can bring attention deeper into it,
My mind's going to start thinking again,
Worrying about the next thing or how this isn't working and how this was meant to solve the problems.
What we do is we just take note of that,
Soften our body,
Come back to just putting our hand on our body.
You know that this works because if you're eating a delicious meal,
You love that delicious meal,
You're not worrying too much in that moment.
If you're worrying while you're eating a delicious meal,
Most likely you're not really tasting the meal.
Inverse relationship between the two.
Play with today practicing putting your hands on your body or attending to something in your environment that's here and getting curious about it and just really exploring it.
As you bring your sense to something,
Without trying,
Your mind will start to settle down.
As you bring your attention to where your hands are on your body,
Your mind will begin to settle down.
Practice and repetition is what makes this come alive.
Bring this into your life and see what you notice.
What's your go-to thing that you want to begin bringing more attention to?
Hands on the body,
Things you're seeing,
Hearing,
Tasting,
Smelling.
Bring your attention to it.
It will allow life to come alive.
