By in Mindfulness, Other Therapies

Overthinkers – Here Is What You Really Need To Know

Do you know this? 

When you feel unwell, stressed or experience a problem a sense of urgency and desperation creeps in and your brain goes into overdrive, thinking up worst-case scenarios, desperately trying to figure out how to solve the problem or improve things. Thoughts start to run in circles, and stress and tiredness increase. The remaining bit of energy is used up either by thinking harder or it is thrown into yet another desperate rescue mission, which never is happening quickly enough or successful enough. Soon thoughts dawn again that whatever you are doing is not enough or won’t work and you start again.

I imagine that pretty much everyone has had a flavour of this at some point in their lives. After all, life at times is really challenging and society has taught us that the answers to our problems can be whipped up in our heads if we only think hard enough. 

I certainly have spent plenty of time, and still do at times, with that rattly rollercoaster of thoughts in my head, going round and round. 

But I also know that when our problems are more long-term, this cycle can become unsustainable. Not only do we go round and round in our heads without ever finding the answers we need there, we also exhaust ourselves and deplete the bit of energy we still have that we really need to move forward. 

Before you get me wrong, a smart, analytical brain is a huge gift and humanity got very far with the power of those prefrontal cortexes. But not everything can be solved there alone. We, as a society, put so much emphasis on this part of our brain, that we often forget everything else that we are. There are other parts of our brain that we do not tend to value as much, such as the limbic system and the brain stem. These much older and earlier developed parts of our brain carry a lot of wisdom. All our experiences in life influence these areas of our brain and cause us to learn intuitively. 

Gut instinct is a word we all have heard or used, however, few of us really understand that it is a real thing, not just some kind of made-up belief idea. Gut instinct is what we experience when we have a feeling towards something without cognitively quite knowing why. It is not an illusion. It is a felt sense that is induced by those older areas of the brain automatically, based on past experience and also our innate truth and knowing. 

If I pass someone in the street and I feel uneasy about that person, I may not know why I feel uneasy. It may be that my brainstem and nervous system is noticing something very subtle about that person, that reminds me of another person that did me harm. In this case, my gut instinct may not be exactly correct in identifying this stranger as a threat. However we do not know this stranger and their intentions, so either way, it is helpful to acknowledge our internal instinctive warning signs. Our cognition can then make a final judgement on the matter. Is it just that I am reminded of someone else, or could this subtle correlation mean this person may also be dangerous? This is for my prefrontal cortex to determine. 

On the other hand, I may have this unexplainable, really good feeling about going trampolining. My brother, his wife and children had told me about a new trampoline park they wanted to take me to when I visited them. From the moment they told me I was really looking forward to going there. I know not everyone would have this reaction. My mother, who is in her late 70ies instantly said “I do not have to come, do I?” Of course, to her, the idea of trampolining was rather off-putting. We can say that she had a cognitive thought that her body would not take well to such activities at her age. I believe however that her body was already communicating this to her before she had the conscious thought. She did not have to think about whether she would enjoy it or not. She just knew that it was not a good idea and also that she did not want to. It’s not her cup of tea. 

I, on the other hand, knew right away that trampolining is for me, even though I had never done it before. In fact, when I arrived there I had to slow myself down and acknowledge that my body was rather freaked out about it as it was very new and unfamiliar. And yet there was just no doubt at any point that I would love it. 

One could argue that I knew this cognitively because I know I have enjoyed fun physical activities like that before. But I also just knew that it was for me, deep inside. I had a gut instinct about it. 

One of the things I do a lot with people in Somatic Experiencing sessions is to bring more awareness to the subtle communication from the brainstem and limbic system. We also just call it “the felt sense”. People often get stuck in Psychotherapy because they keep analysing and thinking with their cognitive brain and do not drop deeper into the wisdom of the body. So in Somatic Experiencing this is a key factor that can open up new possibilities to us. When we circle around with our thoughts and try to will things to change in this way, we have the option to pause and check what the communication is from our body. 

Acknowledging the deeper wisdom in relation to an issue is only the first step though. We can learn to follow the body’s wisdom and allow it to feed information to our cognitive brain too. It always is a magic moment when a client tracks their felt sense without really knowing what all this is about, and all of a sudden they look at me and say: “Oh, I know what it is!” 

The different parts of their brain are linking up and working together.

However, it is not easy to make this shift from frantic, exhausted problem analyses to calm, embodied wisdom. As I remind many of my clients, when we are in a particularly terrible place the impulse to leave the wisdom of the body behind in order to figure it all out in our cognition is the greatest. I personally experience this and see it in others again and again. 

When the pressure rises we abandon whatever we really know deep inside and jump to quick fixes and clever solutions, perhaps because the sense of urgency makes us believe we do not have the time for the body to speak to us. We have to be quicker and smarter than that. Communication with the body can take a little time and also requires a little bit of calm. When we have neither it can actually feel almost dangerous to slow down and sense the body. 

So, if you remember one thing from this article, let it be this: If you are in a particularly bad place physically or emotionally, that is not the time to try to solve all your problems. It may feel like it is, because we are in a state of stress and the body reads negative stress as a direct threat.  

Instead of trying to figure it all out, know that this is not the time and instead orient towards something that makes you feel calmer and safer in the short term. Your objective is to support the body in settling back down a bit so that you can regain communication with all areas of your brain and nervous system. When you feel a little more resourced and settled your problems may not look quite as bad, or you see your options with more hope.

Perhaps you have experienced this before, where you felt like all is doomed and after you went for a walk in the sun things looked a little more possible. That is exactly the idea. 

Rather than stressing yourself out further and further, resource yourself and allow all of you to help you figure out a way forward. When you really drop into all that you are and allow your inner wisdom to speak to you and your thinking brain, it is amazing what becomes possible.

If you would like support with accessing your inner body wisdom to help you move forward, you can contact Kristin at The Body Matters on 01702 714968 for more information.

Kristin Loeer
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