Overthinking as a Gift

What if it’s okay to overthink?

this is the sixth story from the emotional support series.

previous story: Let’s Welcome Emotional Freedom

at age twenty-eight when i began to gobble up spiritual wisdom by the clock, i began to see better how i swam sprints in the pool of gazillions of thoughts day n’ night.

when i had nothing to do, even then, i won golden medals on the tracks of unlimited outcome on how things could be.

in my reality, i patented my worries:

• what would she think…
• what would she say…
• what would she do…

… when i say what’s on my mind?
… when i do me, be me, honest and raw?

and how would she feel?
what would be her response?

no doubt that uncertainty colored my act.

early on, i had learned, i didn’t want to upset my mom. and i had zero interest to build an army of people who would hate my guts. i wanted to be the good girl on the block. i wanted to get along with everyone i met.

so unknowingly i decided…

• to partly silence my truth
• to be someone who i am not
• to please another to get what i want

like god, i created another human being. but no-no, i didn’t give birth to a baby girl. instead, within, i split myself into separate parts with unsaid words, with overthinking, and by twisting my truth.

but turned out, i chose my words and actions like donald trump. unskilled. unpracticed. i demolished my mental and emotional health in the pursuit of my idealistic-personalised agenda to get more of what i want, to feel better in my skin.

in time, i went manic-depressive. i erupt unexpected. my moods turned into a netflix show that aired in public and in private space with episodes of extreme highs and infinite lows.

gosh, i couldn’t press breaks. i had no wire to unplug. i had no buttons to pause or stop.

i lived bipolar.

i could have opened a box office to sell tickets to heavy metal concerts located deep in my head. rammstein. metallica. nine inch nails. name your preference. i had a deal for a dirt-cheap price.

over the years, the noise got louder in my head. it burst flames with scattered thoughts in the chain of my repetitive crowded worries.

• what will she think?
• what will she say?
• what will she do?
• how will she feel?

no-no, i can’t say that. no, i can’t do that. she wouldn’t like it. she would get hurt.

so i tiptoed for months. for years. for decades. until i didn’t know who i was. until i had become an alien to myself.

i didn’t know what i want.
i didn’t know what i need.
i didn’t know what to say.
i didn’t know what to do.

clarity was on holiday.

i knew nothing about my feelings, except the fact that my emotions took off with an equal amount of force, smoke, and bang like spacecrafts do. launch heard up to a hundred meters.

slowly i began to loop around the orbit of regrets.

why me?
why now?
how come?

i hated the unknown.
i couldn’t handle any degree of change.
i wanted satisfying answers to escape discomfort.

but the opposite happened. every drop of change in my jam-packed cup flooded my mind and heart and body with blood of insecurity.

i lived bipolar in the loop of my uncertain future.

people began to say, “elsa, don’t overthink.”

how? i asked in silence. how not to overthink?

it’s so damn easy to say, don’t do it. for years, even i said don’ts to myself but whenever i heard or said don’ts, my obsessive thinking accelerated by 10x.

the more i analysed, the more choices i had.
the more choices i had, the more i overthought.
the more i overthought, the more shallow i breathed.

time went by.

at twenty-eight i read a scientific book breaking the habit of being yourself. it shaped my ways. it read…

by repeatedly thinking and feeling the same way you did the day before, and the day before that, you will continue to create the same circumstances in your life, which will cause you to experience the same emotions, which will influence you to think “equal to” those emotions.
— by dr. joe dispenza

i realised…
as a toddler, i looped in feelings.
as a child, i looped in thinking to feeling.
since adolescence, i looped in feeling to thinking.

and as an adult, i was stuck in hurtful patterns.

i had programmed myself in the programmed world. i was a developer with an unseen power to influence the scripts written about me.

if your thoughts determine your reality, and you keep thinking the same thoughts (which are a product and reflection of the environment), then you will continue to produce the same reality day after day. thus, your internal thoughts and feelings exactly match your external life, because it is your outer reality — with all of its problems, conditions, and circumstances — that is influencing how you’re thinking and feeling in your inner reality.
— by dr. joe dispenza

bang-dang.

i became hungry to know, how can i change.

dr. joe dispenza’s words instructed me to focus on a location in my body in space. i had to sense and become aware of the space that each part occupied in space. i had to move from part to part within spaces.

he then instructed me to take my attention off my body by sensing the space around my body, in order to become less body and more mind.

when you are truly in the elegant state of creation, you are no body, no thing, no time — you forget about yourself. you become pure consciousness, free from the chains of the identity that needs the outer reality to remember who it thinks it is.
— by dr. joe dispenza

this was my download to reprogram myself.

i practiced visualisation to think less.
i practiced meditation to find myself.

i loved the science on how i got to where i was but i tumbled in my space-land practice. embarrassed to say, i fell asleep more than often. if sleep didn’t knock me down, i stood at the highway of frequent thoughts.

only when i pedaled the world from place to place for 1.5 years, my head was empty-ish on the wheels of change.

two-years flew by.

i was thirty-one by then, a bit more relaxed with less episodes of extreme highs and infinite lows. but overthinking was still a bitch.

i lived bipolar in awareness of thoughts.

it hurt to hear and see every single thought that crossed my mind. i recorded them all. some were unpleasant. some unreal.

i wanted top-level clearance to unravel foreign blame and judgement within myself. i wanted top-notch wisdom to unravel my spiritual ego and selfish agendas.

but i didn’t get what i wanted.

instead, i became an fbi spy of my own mind. i ran a thorough investigation. and i shot the unknown.

i refused to admit the unwanted things that happened in me. i agreed to deny the corridors of hell to only embrace the heavenly perfection. but fuck it, i couldn’t make my unmasked thoughts to become unheard. i couldn’t make them to become unseen.

all my thoughts were right in my face.

i wished to turn off some parts of myself, to shun my mind. so i tried to shift my focus, but those seen unsaid words knocked on the door of my consciousness.

i lived bipolar in war with my mind.

your thoughts create your reality.
— by someone

i had a list of allowed and forbidden topics which were less linked with my previous worries of what others might think, say, do, or feel when they would see my hidden parts.

i realised, i was never afraid of someone else’s response. instead, i have been afraid of what someone else’s response might initiate in me.

i realised, i disliked the traces of uncertainty in me because i didn’t know how to support my overactive mind in unexpected change.

then, one day, i heard about matt kahn. he said…

befriend your thoughts. don’t fight with the things that are fighting with you.
— by matt kahn

by then i had heard from books and from spiritual circles — when your mind is too busy, you loose the connection with your heart. matt confirmed…

your mind is only as preoccupied and noisy as your heart is closed.
— by matt kahn

matt’s teachings didn’t treat the mind as an enemy of mine. from matt kahn, i learned about honor and respect; about how to reunite my mind and heart as one in the gut.

i know now…

it’s okay to (over)think.
my thoughts are okay.
there’s nothing wrong with me.
whatever happened, happened,
i have done nothing wrong.

nowadays, overthinking serves as a reminder…

if the mind can’t relax, we go to the body. just like, when the body is balled up in fear, we go to the mind. we always work with the opposites.
— by matt kahn

after reading whatever arises love that, and listening to emotional oneness by matt kahn from his youtube channel all for love, i knew that for the first time ever in my short-lived life i had been gifted a practice on how to befriend my mind and cure myself from overthinking.

matt suggested…

• love your heart with one i love you at a time.
• be the parent to your mind whom you never had but always wanted and needed
• give compliments and encouragements to yourself that you waited and wanted to hear from others

i learned, i don’t have to wait for the world to change in order to change my own ways.

my overthinking felt heard in this…

it doesn’t matter how i feel. it matters what i say to myself when life falls apart.
— by matt kahn

i now talk with my mind and body and heart like i would talk with a 5-year-old child of mine.

daily…
i practice to love my unloved parts.
i practice to be gentle and kind.
i practice to be patient in worry.
i practice to breathe deeper.

i have learned to give a voice to my thoughts and to thank them for the gifts they carry day n’ night.

when i overthink, i say to my mind…

thank you for thinking what i am clearing for the world.
— by matt kahn

i stay with my mental tape. i do my best to not run away. in time, less n’ less, i deny or shun my own mind.

i have learned to work with the opposites. in heightened states, i switch my focus from mind to body, or from body to mind.

but truth being said, when i first heard of matt kahn, i still craved for some scientific proof. then, not long after i learned, it’s okay to not know the things i don’t know.

understanding doesn’t take you where you need to be, faith does.
— by matt kahn

in this remembrance, my mind feels relaxed. i feel heard and seen.

it’s okay to not know.
it’s okay to (over)think.
my thoughts are okay.

after my three-year practice of matt’s wisdom, i can say, my mind is healthier than i ever believed it could be.

maybe it’s the parent-child communication i have practice since then. whatever it is, it’s a gift of change.

i have learned though…
when overthinking or heightened emotions visit, i don’t feel heard and seen in the space-land practice where i am instructed to take my attention off myself.

currently, i do no space-land meditation.

no matter what…
i am okay to face my conditioned self with honesty.

i live non-bipolar in awareness of thoughts.

ps. here are today’s questions to your heart.

what if it’s okay to overthink?

what if overthinking is my invitation to not fight with the things that are fighting with me?

what if when my mind can’t relax, i go to my body, and if my body can’t relax, i go to my mind, and if my mind and body can’t relax, i say i love youse to my own innocent heart?

next story: delegating work (coming soon)

it’s okay to overthink,
— elsa