Tornado thoughts - Overthinkers

I'm an overthinker. An overanalyzer. Anyone else?

Thoughts spin around in my head ALL THE TIME.

When I was in high school and couldn't control my thoughts, I would draw tornardoes. There was something calming about just circling around and around with the pencil. As I looked back and thought "why tornadoes?" something became clear to me. My thoughts spin like tornadoes in my mind, and as I drew the tornado it calmed the one happening in my head.

Recently in therapy, we talked about calming my thoughts. My therapist asked if I'd ever really sat and let my thoughts just exist. Not act on them, not chase them, not let them spin into a spiral, just exist. I couldn't think of too many times in my life that I'd done that. And I could think of very few activities I did that quieted my thoughts. The list was basically watching my dogs play or swimming.

That's a problem. Non stop thoughts. I.e. overthinking. Overthinking has always been my biggest blessing and biggest curse. Overthinking/analyzing has allowed me to extremely self-aware and learn all the things I write about in this blog. But yet, I'm not letting my brain shut down easily or often because of it.

Over the years, I've come up with active strategies that calm my thoughts like meditaiton, calming breathes, etc. But my thoughts are still active even in those at times because I'm focusing on something. I'm never just at total rest in my brain.

You know how they say everyone has an addicition? Well thinking non-stop is my addiction. Constantly analyzing every situation and every thing is my addition.

I had never considered it an addiction before. I considered it just doing the work to make myself better. I work really hard to constantly better who I am, dive deper, and face the battles within in order to help me be the best I can be. While that’s an incredible trait and skill to have because it has helped me tremendously, too much of a good thing can be a bad thing. Because with that trait comes the attempt to fight future battles that don’t exist yet, so while the addiction may benefit me at times. It still is a way to distract myself from the present. Isn't that the core of most addictions? Not wanting to face the present or hurt from the past so find an unhealthy method to distract from it?

Where it all began. I think I started it in my teen years when I was diagnossed with major depression. I believed that if I could “overcome” depression by gaining all the right tools and knowledge, that I could essentially become this super wise, knows everything, version of myself to never have depression again.

Let me tell you that is far from the truth and far from reality. First of all you don't just "overcome" depression, you learn to cope with it. It actually is a damaging thought process to believe that.

Beyond that, I distracted myself from real issues at the time, including depression, my identity, my parents divorce, and I replaced them with futuristic thoughts, turned my focused all on bettering myself for the future. Truly in hopes so that I would never feel that way again. As if that was something in my control.

Thoughts that ultimately brought me out of the present and pushed me into the future. The future felt better. It was illusive and therefore felt "controllable." Plus, it didn’t fell as emotionally tough as the present. But what I didn’t realize it was doing, it was engraining a pattern of discontentment in my life. Discontentment with the present and lost in future-focused thoughts.

This continued into my traumatic marriage. Where it was easier to focus on future possibilities or distract myself with myself versus face the issues in front of me. They were too much and so I used thinking to distract me.

Same when I got a divorce, I distracted myself from the loss and grief by always thinking. Spinning on thoughts and thoughts. Obviously, I can't say enough that it did help me process and handle the situation. Process releasing the trauma and the person I was in the marriage. However, life's a balancing act. I never rested. I never stopped. I never knew when to let things go and stop constantly working on myself. So I repeat too much of a good thing can be a bad thing.

I also learned that it spoke to my idea of “control." I thought if I can do this or that in the present, I could control future events. Which couldn’t be farther from the truth. I can only control myself, I’m not God. I can’t control the future or even possibly know what exists in it.

All these distractions took me out of the present and in turn I lost a lot of memories. See what people don’t tell you is when you aren’t content, when you are letting your thoughts spin like tornadoes, you aren't present in your mind and in your body.

You aren't soaking in those moments and memories at present.There have been major moments in my life, that I really don’t remember how I was feeling or what was happening. I remember pictures of those moments, but because my mind was caught in the future or in the past, I don’t remember the moments.

Those damaging thoughts of control. That damaging habit of being future focused, overanalyzing robbed me of those present moments.

Next steps. Learn how to quiet your thoughts. Learn how to stop them from spinning in order to be content and in the present is extremely valuable. It's something I've been working hard at over the years.

I started by doing the tasks I knew calmed me, like walking or watching my dogs. Now, I'm working on just sitting and letting thoughts pass. Not do anything with them or engage in them. Just let them exist and pass. It doesn't have to be for very long. Start small and build up each day. And of course, give yourself grace and encouragement along the way.

Then each time important moments come up and many times throughout the day, remind yourself to be present. To not let the future thoughts rob you of present moments.

Takeaway. It's an incredible skill to analyze and better yourself. But it's an incredible skill to know when to stop. To know when to stop the spinning thoughts. To know when to rest that beautiful mind. To let yourself be in the present. As that is and always will be the most important place to be.