Over Analysis?! Is There Another Way?

Lisa and James dig into the root of why we over analyze and how to stop! Practical ways to shift from the paralyzing world of fear and control to Joy and peace. Move away from the anxiety and worry today!

Transcript

Welcome to the Practical Consciousness podcast with James and Lisa,

Where we help you tap into your highest selves in everyday life.

Welcome to Practical Consciousness episode 20.

I'm Lisa.

And I'm James.

So today I'm hosting.

I'm running the show for the first time.

So I wanted to talk about a topic that many of us deal with on a daily basis,

And that has to do with over analyzing.

I never,

I never,

I never,

Never,

Never.

And the one idea around this is that like when we over analyze things or when we analyze things,

It always leads to fear.

Or you could think of it as it is fear.

And you might be like,

How is that Lisa?

Well,

I mean,

Wouldn't you say too,

That it's the fear is the cause of the over-analyzation as well?

Yes,

That's exactly what,

Yes,

That's exactly it.

So the reason that you're analyzing is because you're not trusting,

Right?

You're not believing maybe in yourself or you're not trusting the universe.

So you're questioning,

You're questioning things.

And so over analyzing is kind of like fear in disguise.

Picture it with a little trench coat in the hat.

I wish everybody could have seen this.

I was doing my like spy look.

She was like,

Had her little trench coat on or a little,

Oh that's funny.

So we all analyze everything all day long.

I would also say that,

Wouldn't you think that particularly those of us that are really logical and left-brained are even more analytical over-analyzing because we're looking for the linear path,

The logic that would make sense to move forward.

Yeah.

Right.

So some different types of fear that I can think of.

And maybe you can jump in if you think of some too,

Like worrying about something.

That's one reason why you might be over,

You might be analyzing it because you're worried about it.

Or maybe you feel guilty about something or self-conscious.

How would that lead to it?

Help me see the path to over-analyze with those fears.

Like if I'm afraid of,

What was the first one you just said?

Well worry was one of the examples.

So if I'm anxious about something,

How does that lead to over-analyzing?

Well I'm going to,

Since I'm the host,

I'm turning it over to you and you answered my question.

Yeah,

Crystal always did.

I mean,

Well okay,

So you're worried about something,

Right?

You're worried that,

Like I have a trip coming up next week and I'm concerned that it's going to snow because I'm going to a snowy place.

So I started down the path of thinking about,

Well if there's snow and I can't fly that day,

I started thinking about my schedule and whether I could go the next,

You know,

Just the long path of analyzing it.

You know,

What if this,

Okay,

These are not positive what ifs.

Normally we're talking about positive what ifs.

You know,

The negative what ifs or the what ifs on the fearful what ifs.

What if the flight is canceled?

What if it's delayed?

What if I get stuck in Minneapolis?

Or Chicago.

Are there hotels there?

What's that airport like?

You know,

All of that.

So what about you?

What kind of examples can you think of of worry?

That's probably,

I can tell you honestly,

And I just did this recently myself too,

Is that that particular anxiety pushes me into crazy over analyzing.

Like a couple weeks ago we were boondocking outside of Tucson and for the listeners boondocking,

Those that don't know,

Is you're living off the grid,

Right?

No support,

No water,

No electricity.

You have to support yourself out in the middle of nowhere,

Right?

In your luxury camper.

Yeah,

In my.

.

.

Let's just say,

With your generator.

In my land yacht,

Yeah.

But I was all,

There was so many unknowns,

Right?

There was so much I didn't know.

It was our first boondocking.

I didn't know the area.

I didn't know if it was going to be rough.

I didn't know how I was going to get in.

And it caused me to spend hours and hours and hours looking at Google Maps and looking at the weather and looking at,

I mean,

Just,

It was ridiculous.

How did that all feel?

How did that feel?

Terrible.

It feels,

It's time sucking and it's collapsed energy and it's catabolic.

Did it cause lack of sleep?

Yeah,

It did actually.

I woke up like at three in the morning and I was thinking about.

.

.

I mean,

Usually worry does,

If you've got something really heavy on your mind like that and you're allowing yourself to go down that path of analyzing it and worrying about it,

Then it can cause issues sleeping.

And you know what's interesting is actually I did some journaling on this,

That the root of it all is you talk about the fear.

The fear is I'm not safe.

The fear is that if I don't know exactly how it's going to come out,

Right?

Yes.

AKA fear of the unknown.

Is it safety for me?

It's like I can't feel safe if I don't know what's going to happen.

See,

That's a lack of trust.

It is a lack of trust.

Lack of trust in myself,

A lack of faith in the universe.

Yeah.

Right.

Or God or source or whatever it is,

Right?

It's actually a lack of faith in myself.

Because if I actually think about it,

I can't control what happens,

Right?

And I'm 52 years old and I have had 52 years of experience of dealing with things as they come.

Bad and good.

Right?

That I've judged bad or good.

And I've gotten past all of those.

Yeah.

And so another part of the trust is even when things didn't go the way that you liked,

There was some growth that came out of it.

Right.

Yeah.

And sometimes it's hard to see that.

Sometimes like you may have,

There are some people that might be listening and thinking,

Well,

No,

This one thing that happened to me,

There's no growth out of that.

Be patient.

Right.

And I say be patient because you probably will come to that conclusion at some point.

Is it okay if I share?

Maybe not,

But possibly.

Yeah.

Is it okay if I share kind of a recent example of this?

Yeah.

So I've made a commitment to myself that the towns I travel through,

If I'm there long enough,

I'm going to host this happiness workshop.

It's kind of my way for free of giving back to the communities that I'm living in without paying taxes or anything.

Right.

What a great idea.

So I did that for the first time.

I'm in Phoenix right now.

And so I did it in Phoenix and I did it last night and no one showed up.

Now in the past,

I would have spent a tremendous amount of time preparing,

Practicing,

Making sure my route was right.

The timing's good.

I would have over-analyzed like crazy because there was also,

I guess,

An attachment to my point I'm making is that there's an over analysis because I'm afraid I'm going to be looked at and judged,

Or I'm afraid I'm going to be not validated as skilled at this work that I do.

Or fear of failure,

Maybe?

Fear of failure,

Fear of looking bad,

Fear of my weaknesses showing.

But in this case,

This time,

I looked at this whole endeavor as completely unattached.

I looked at it and said,

Okay,

I don't know how many people are going to show up.

It doesn't really matter.

And I'm doing this as a gift and I enjoy doing it.

And hopefully it makes a difference,

Right?

So that's the attitude that I took.

And so last night,

No one showed up.

Not a single soul,

Not a single individual.

Not even the drunk guy from across the street.

I even walked out into the,

I did it at the Phoenix library.

I actually walked out and said,

Hey,

I'm doing a free class.

Anybody want to join?

No.

They thought I was crazy.

Those desert dwellers,

They're not interested in having.

.

.

Not to offend any listeners from the Phoenix metro area.

Well,

They got all that sunshine,

Right?

If you'd done it here in Seattle,

It would have been different.

They're like,

Yes,

Please help me.

I need some happiness in my life.

And the funny part about it is,

Is the days leading up to the workshop,

I was prepared.

I had everything I needed.

There was no desperation.

There was no checking the roads or making sure that I knew where the library was or I had all the right slides and everything functioning correctly.

I didn't do any of that stuff.

Right.

So can I jump in?

Yeah.

Okay.

Please do.

James and I are both fire signs.

So we both like to talk.

So as we said,

Over-analyzing these things that you're talking about that you could have done,

All this pre-prep and all the over-analyzing things that you could have done is fear.

And when we are in fear,

We're not in the present moment.

And when we're not in the present moment,

We're not in joy.

So because you didn't over-analyze,

You had a nice past couple of days.

They weren't bad.

Where like it could have been,

You could have been nervous about it and worried about it and checking the website on the library to see if anybody signed up or whatever.

You could have spent all this time and energy and instead you felt joy.

You probably took your dogs for a walk or spent your time on something that you enjoyed.

Like recording this podcast?

Yeah.

Like recording the podcast.

Exactly.

Yeah.

So that's one way to think of it is when you're in fear,

You're not in joy.

It's not,

They can't coexist.

There's no way.

Well,

I tell my clients,

Fear and faith cannot exist together.

That's one or the other.

Yeah.

So if you're in fear,

Then you're being a hundred percent human.

You are.

You are.

And you're not being a hundred percent spiritual.

No,

You're not.

But no judgment.

No judgment.

No judgment.

No,

I mean,

It's really not judgment.

It's truly like it's discernment.

I mean,

It's like you,

You know,

That's part of our experience is we fear and it's not ever ever going to go away.

Right.

And that's what I meant by no judgment was you're a hundred percent human.

You're fearful because you're human.

So don't judge yourself.

Don't,

You know,

Don't judge yourself for that because it's,

You're human.

It's natural.

You're going to you're going to feel the pull to overanalyze.

So let's talk about that a little bit about when you feel yourself overanalyzing.

OK.

You catch yourself when you're doing it.

Do you say,

Oh,

Yeah,

I'm I'm going in deep here.

I probably don't need to.

I do now.

Just because it's in my awareness now,

For sure,

I just like I was talking about the boondocking thing.

After a couple of days,

I was like checking the weather and I was like,

OK.

And I could feel it.

For me,

The feeling is in my gut.

It tightens my gut up.

Yeah.

And my shoulders come up and I start feeling sore in my shoulders.

Yeah.

A lot of people can probably relate to that.

And so that for me is the clue.

It's like I'm spending a little bit too much time overanalyzing and sometimes it's in a decision too.

Right.

I'll way overanalyze the decision.

And so that's for me when I notice it coming.

And then what I guess my my my little technique is I'll actually that's when I all the listeners know I love to journal.

I'll sit down and I'll write out what it is that I am worried about.

What is it?

Right.

What is it?

What's going on?

That's a really good tool,

Journaling,

Because it just kind of gets it on out of your head and on paper.

Yeah.

If I can't do that,

Sometimes I'm auditory.

I love to hear talking.

And so sometimes I'll just talk to myself.

I literally talk to myself.

What am I doing?

And that gets it.

That allows me to process as well.

That's like,

Why am I so worried about?

What am I so worked up about here?

So you just reminded me of a really good tool that sometimes I teach my students is to do that,

To allow yourself,

Allow your ego to say,

Oh,

The fear to come out and say all the things.

I'm afraid of this.

I'm afraid of that.

And just keep going until you become exhausted of like,

You know,

Basically go down your analysis list.

You know,

I'm afraid that that the RV park isn't going to have any spots for me.

I'm afraid that it's going to be so crowded.

I'm not going to be able to get my RV in there.

I'm afraid that the weather's going to be bad and it's going to be muddy and I'm going to get it.

Just keep going.

Go,

Go,

Go all the way to the end,

All the way to the,

Until you're exhausted.

Well,

And you get to the root.

Yeah.

But then put your hands on your heart and take a couple of deep breaths and just get really quiet and then say,

But my heart says,

Oh,

And see what comes.

Because probably what you'll hear is it's,

Everything's going to be fine,

But you gotta,

You know,

Take some deep breaths and get quiet.

Yeah.

So start off with my fear says,

Or my ego says,

And list all that stuff and then put your hands on your heart and say,

But my heart says,

I love that.

And see what comes up.

Well,

You're opening it up to different possibilities,

Right?

Yeah.

I love that.

Yeah.

Um,

You can even take that even further.

I'm thinking this kind of on the fly right now.

Check your heart and check your gut.

Yeah.

Well,

Wherever you feel,

Wherever you feel things too is the best place to go to,

Right?

Because everybody feels from a different part.

You were talking about how you really feel that tightening in your gut when you're over-analyzing and worrying.

Other people will feel it maybe in their head or around their shoulders,

Kind of like you said,

Or in the chest.

Well,

I'm thinking,

I'm thinking of checking with the gut because it's like,

That's my instinct,

Right?

That's my gut instinct.

Oh,

Gotcha.

So in the case of like the boondocking,

I probably would have landed with,

Yeah,

All those things could happen.

They might.

And you'll be fine.

You know what to do.

You have all this experience.

Yeah.

Yeah.

You have everything you need.

You're fine.

Yeah.

And it's like,

That would be my gut talking,

Not my heart.

I don't think.

My heart would probably say,

Don't worry about it.

Don't borrow worry.

Don't borrow worry.

It doesn't help you.

Okay.

I have another tip I'd like to share because you know me,

I got all the tips.

I love it.

Got my direct bag of tricks here.

So I tend to worry when I'm in the car.

That's when things will start to like,

Cause I have time,

Right?

I'm just,

All I'm doing is driving.

And if I'm not being in the present moment,

I'm worried.

I'm starting off down a path of worrying about something.

Used to be,

I worried about my daughter a lot.

I don't so much anymore because I have all these practices that I do now,

But I would be worrying about something like,

You know,

She's got to go to,

She's going to travel on her own for the first time,

Let's say.

And I would start worrying about that.

And when I,

So when I catch myself,

Then I play a game called the naming game.

You've heard of this game before.

I've maybe experienced it a couple of times.

Yes.

Yeah.

So what I do is I,

To,

To kind of shift my focus and get myself into the present moment and really just to stop that talk track of worry,

Worry,

Worry,

Worry,

Worry.

Cause worry is fear.

Right.

I play the naming game and I just start naming all the things I see around me.

There's this,

There's the green,

There's the green light.

There's the yield sign.

There's a yellow car.

There's and I,

I just keep going and then I'll stop and get quiet.

See what happens.

If the worry comes back,

I keep playing the game.

It's you know,

A simple game.

It works.

It really works.

Sometimes you have to check in like five times and play the game again,

But eventually it does work.

It'll just quiet.

It'll just quiet you down and get,

It's really just getting into the present moment.

Yeah.

Because by naming all the things that you see,

You know,

You're being present,

You're paying attention to what's around you.

But when I'm worrying and driving down the road,

I'm not seeing much,

I'm not noticing the trees and the signs and you know,

I'm just like,

I'm pretty much on autopilot.

Yeah.

You're distracted.

Yeah.

I'm distracted.

That catabolic energy distracts.

Yes.

And then you don't see,

You don't see opportunities.

You don't see,

Um,

Better experiences.

Like you said,

The joy of the moment or whatever.

Yeah.

Um,

I love it.

That's,

I've done that myself.

You've taught me that in the past and,

Um,

It's a great,

Right?

Yeah,

It really does.

Especially for me,

That technique,

I know it's not related to over analyzing and being that,

But when I get in that mode of being consumed by a fear,

Whatever it is,

Whether it's anxiety or whatever,

Um,

When I'm,

When I'm,

I call it getting on the,

These trains of thought,

Right?

I love that analogy,

The train of thought.

Um,

Because once you hop on the train,

That train's headed somewhere.

Usually,

Usually did that fear.

Yeah.

And you're on it and you're gonna,

You're gonna go where that train's going.

Yeah.

If you stay on it.

And so your technique helps me hop off the train.

Yeah.

That's great.

Um,

I sometimes get,

You know,

Scratched up and some scabs falling off the train.

Yeah.

But I,

I can then consciously choose what train of thought I get on.

Yeah.

And like you said,

Maybe that train of thought is about,

You know,

The fun we're going to have,

Boondocking,

Um,

The shaking out and the testing of all these things we haven't been able to test yet.

Yeah.

Um,

That's a much better train to be on.

Sure.

Yeah.

So I love it.

I will,

I will say you,

Cause you said your,

Your exercise or whatever practice.

I did get this from somebody,

Sonia show cat.

It's her,

The naming game is her.

She came up with that.

Huh?

I learned it from her and I've been practicing it ever since I learned it.

So I learned it from this wonderful muse,

Lisa Mueller.

All right.

So are we wrapping it up?

We,

I think we've covered everything.

We've given some good tips.

Yeah.

You had a good conversation about it.

Yeah.

It's a great reminder.

Cause I haven't been doing it lately.

So I appreciate that.

Good.

Yeah.

So awareness is the first step.

Just start noticing it,

Noticing when you're over analyzing,

Notice the feeling in your body when you feel it,

Try a couple of these tips maybe to make the shift.

Yeah.

Hopefully our listeners can,

Can utilize that and make those shifts they need to make.

Yeah.

So I guess that's a wrap.

That's a wrap.

Thanks for joining us everyone.

Goodbye.

Bye.

Seeing you on the next one.