Latest / Spiritual Sense: Practical wisdom to quiet an overthinking mind and recharge your soul / How to Stop Overthinking

Transcript

How to Stop Overthinking · Spiritual Sense: Practical wisdom to quiet an overthinking mind and recharge your soul

• 0:00
  Speaker A: Do you find yourself thinking, thinking, thinking, thinking too much, worrying about this, worrying about this. What about this? What if this. What if this thing happens and have you had enough of it and you'd like to break the habit from overthinking? Well, you're in the right place. Welcome to this podcast where we're going to get into how to crack this monstrous thing, clear out all that and crazy thoughts and experience peace, happiness, and get more joy and success in your life. Welcome, welcome, welcome.
• 0:34
  Speaker B: Hello, brother Michael. Welcome to you, too.
• 0:38
  Speaker A: Thank you. Yeah, well, this was your topic, Shireen, what inspired you to. To talk about this particular thing?
• 0:47
  Speaker B: Because I see a lot of people struggling it. Struggling with it these days. It's almost like it's a runaway train, right? They don't have any control over it. It's just gone. You know, it's really important to take stock and see what is happening actually, when we are overthinking, what is happening, if at all possible, Right. Either during the podcast or after you listen to the podcast, I want you to write a few things down. Like overthinking. You know, overthinking really is like rumination, right? Like you see a cow, it keeps chewing. The same thing, same thing, same thing, same thing, right? That is overthinking. Like you're thinking about the same thing again and again and again and again. Thinking itself is not bad, right? You do need to think. Or you can, you know, in small quantities. It's important, right? Like if you want to do something. Yes. But if you keep thinking about the same thing again and again and again, then you need to really start thinking. So I feel. And you can add a category if you feel there is one. So I want you to take a piece of paper and maybe after the podcast, or even while you're listening to the podcast, write down most of your overthinking. Is it a replay, which is that you. Whatever has happened in the past, you're replaying in your mind, right. I feel even 10 seconds of replay is too much thinking. But anyway, let's say you're thinking about a particular situation over and over again, that something has happened, the replay, then that is one category. The next category is preview. Is you are thinking about something in the future, worrying about something that might happen in the future. And if you keep. So write that down, right? What are your worries, right? About the future? Or the third category is like you feel paralyzed about a decision you have to make. And so you don't know what to do. You just this or that, this or that you keep, you know, you keep being all the options, you keep going through all the options, you keep doing all of those things. So that is the third category. So in your overthinking, which category are. Is your overthinking under what about.
• 3:29
  Speaker A: People and like random things going on in the world? You know, like, let's say someone's thinking about a movie that they want to watch or a. Something.
• 3:44
  Speaker B: It might not be overthinking. No, it could be. I mean, it could be, but it's like wasteful thinking. But it's not necessarily overthinking. Yeah, it's not overthinking, but we could add that. We could add that.
• 3:58
  Speaker A: Yeah. I mean, there's bound to be overthinking and then there's just random wasteful nonsense. Might as well add it to the. Add it to the.
• 4:07
  Speaker B: And I feel wasteful. Oh, my God. Wasteful. Getting over wasteful thinking is a very big, very, very high destination. I wouldn't even attempt to talk. I mean, we can talk about it, but I would feel in integrity if I'm able to overcome it and then talk to other people about it. Right, fair enough.
• 4:27
  Speaker A: Fair. Let's just start with overthinking. So, like, overthinking.
• 4:31
  Speaker B: I can tell you, I can tell you about overthinking because I o. I'm overthinking. Wasteful thinking.
• 4:39
  Speaker A: Let's give it six months and see if we can talk about it then. So, but, but. So we're talking about overthinking is what exactly should we just define overthinking? Very clear.
• 4:51
  Speaker B: So overthinking is you're thinking about something again and again and again. Right. The image that comes to mind is a cow that keeps chewing on the same blade of grass again and again and again and again. Right, right. You're thinking, it goes on and on. Yeah, yeah. That is record.
• 5:10
  Speaker A: It's just going round, around and around actually getting anywhere. It's not getting anywhere. Yes. Like, we all know people who. You talk to them and they're just talking about the same thing over. And you're just like, how many conversations we need to have about the same thing? Like, it's not getting anywhere. It's not resolving itself. It's not. Not getting cleared up. There's no progress. There's no shifting happening. It's just, just round around ruminating and there's nothing being done to change the actual situation or to release the situation. It's just.
• 5:43
  Speaker B: Right.
• 5:44
  Speaker A: Radio nonsense, Mr. Monkey, the Monkey man, and then.
• 5:48
  Speaker B: And on those three categories right. Past, replay, future, preview, present. The present one really is about decisions, right? The decisions you have to make. It's a lot of paralysis around that, A lot of analysis, a lot of paralysis, the decisions.
• 6:11
  Speaker A: So is there a different, A different method for each, each one of these three?
• 6:15
  Speaker B: There is a different. I mean, you could use the same method, I guess, for each one of those categories. But it really helps to see what is tripping you, right? Because in reality, overthinking is like the biggest stealer of our present. I could have a beautiful present right now, right? Right this moment. I have everything. I'm safe. I have breath, I have food, I have water. I have everything right now. This moment, it can be a beautiful moment if I allow it to be a beautiful moment. But the thing that is stealing this beautiful moment is overthinking. So we recently in a podcast, we spoke about fear, right? So fear sometimes is really about preview, right? Something in the future that is bothering us really fear. Or it could be a past fear that's coming up. It could be that too. But how is it this overthinking is really taking over my life where I'm not able to enjoy the current moment.
• 7:42
  Speaker A: Can you tell us the story, Shreen, of what? When you had overthinking, what were you actually thinking, Will?
• 7:48
  Speaker B: Okay, I want to tell you a story about. It's not exactly a story about a scenario. I want to tell you a scenario. Let's say science has magically created a time machine, right? And you get into that time machine and you go into thousand years into the future, where will you come? Where will you arrive in the present moment, right? You have to live with yourself. You have to be comfortable with yourself in that moment. And let's. The same thing happens. That magical time machine takes you a thousand years into the past. You're still in the present moment. And so you could say, like my overthinking many times happened around money where I thought I made bad financial decisions or, you know, with work or things like that, right? And I always now tell myself those were the best decisions I could make given the circumstances I was in. And just by me thinking about it is not changing anything. And I need to really be in this moment right now.
• 9:12
  Speaker A: You know, I don't think any thoughts at all. I'm totally out of all this situation nowadays. I've had enough. No, no. But no, I've. It's. It's normally in my opinion, my experience, overthinking. Yeah, all three categories. I, I've thought about. Oh, if I could replay that scene again and again. What would I have done differently? Like, in fact, it happened the other day. Like I did something, some event, and I thought, could I have shared a bit better, a bit differently, a bit blah, blah, blah. But like, end of the day there's nothing I can do about it, you know, like, I did the best I could in the moment, so. So I just let it go. Often thinking too much about the what's going to happen? Is it going to work out? Is this thing how? And imagining bad situations in the future, like visualizing horrible possible outcomes is a complete recipe for bringing on a panic attack, really, isn't it? If you think long enough about, oh my God, these terrible things are going to happen, oh my God, you know, then we start frothing at the mouth and kind of driving on the floor. So it's not a good idea. And then what about this? What about this? Should I do it like this? Should I do like this? Should I do this thing? Should I not do this thing? If I did this thing, what's going to happen? If enough I do that thing, what's going to happen? And this thing could lead to this and this thing. It's like, it's so disturbing. And a lot of the time our first instinct to do something is often the right one actually. Like, there's normally some sort. If we're spiritual people and we have meditation and we connect with God and we just open to like guidance, we often get a good idea. But then there's this overthinking is second guessing. Second, what about this? What about this? What about this? And trying to think about all these possible scenarios to such a degree that it becomes paralyzing and. Yeah, and then it's like ultimately then nothing happens because it's like, yeah, but this thing has these side effects and this thing has these side effects and there's no thing that doesn't have any possible downsides. And so it's like, well, I'm just going to see him not do anything. And then that has loads of side effects.
• 11:29
  Speaker B: Right, right. That's the paralysis part.
• 11:32
  Speaker A: Yeah, Analysis paralysis. And then it's like, and then if I don't do something, what's going to happen? So for me, I think it all comes back to fear ultimately. Because why are we. The cause of overthinking is something is going to go wrong. We're worried about something going horribly wrong or it already has gone wrong and we're trying to like correct the past by thinking about it, which is really ridiculous. If I think long enough about my past, then I'll make it better again. It's like, that's not how it works. And if I think about my future long enough, then but no. So nothing's going to get resolved through overthinking. It just makes us an emotional wreck really. So if you want to have a meltdown, keep up the good work. But there are other options, thank goodness. So what are these other options?
• 12:24
  Speaker B: What can they do instead of, you know, different aspects? No, like let's say you are going too much into the past, right? I feel you have to look at the blessing in the situation. There was a past, that something happened in the past and you keep thinking about it, oh, I could have done it differently. I could have this, done this. That's not happening. You can't change it. But you can look at the blessing that came. Or if you can't find the blessing in that particular situation, find all the blessings that all the mistakes you made or all the things you have done and the blessings that happened because of that, Right? Find the blessing. And the second one is like, let's say the future, right. Somehow there's no healing. Your heart hasn't healed yet. That's why this whole scenarios of 100 million things that could go wrong in the future is you have to heal your heart, you know, and that for me can only happen with a connection with God that you really feel like you, you have to feel seen and held by God. And then that feeling of being seen and held by God makes the heart heal. And then you feel, then you don't, you know, stress so much about the future. That's my experience anyway. And the paralysis, right? The paralysis about decisions that one, you have to make one small decision right now, you know, one small decision. What is one small act that I can do right now? And do it right? You don't have to make a big decision, but one small act. We can all make one small decision right now.
• 14:32
  Speaker A: Something has to shift, doesn't it? There needs to be some, some change because doing, doing nothing still counts as an action, doesn't it? Which is quite strange, isn't it?
• 14:44
  Speaker B: Right, right. And it's a really bad, bad action.
• 14:49
  Speaker A: Yeah. Because in court cases I've heard from like something I watched some I can't remember, but like if someone could have done something to protect someone or tell the police about something that happened or whatever and they didn't do it, they end up getting arrested for not doing anything. Which is interesting, isn't it? Like not doing Anything can put you in jail, funnily enough. And not to freak anyone out, but I mean that's just so not doing something is an action and that's so taking, taking what's the most sensible decision. And frankly, sometimes we need to talk to somebody else who's a bit more clear headed. If we can't figure this out on our own. And then just if you trust them and you feel good about it, that might make it easier because this overthinking can, can tie the mind in knots. And then from that place, it looks like there's no solution at all actually. So yeah, this is a serious problem. It really is.
• 15:53
  Speaker B: No, yeah, it's not as that's why I said we start keeping a diary of things, right? Because sometimes even naming it, that is one of the strategy, just naming it. What are your different patterns of overthinking? Just naming it really helps. That's strategy number one. Just name it. You know what they say, right? Name it to tame it.
• 16:21
  Speaker A: So just heal it.
• 16:23
  Speaker B: Name it, name it, right? Name the thing. And then the healing part though, right, the healing part, that is why it is such a big problem with people these days is if it could have happened just like that, right? Just like you listening to something or you know, just like that. If it could have happened or reading a book or whatever, listening to something, it would have happened. But it's not that easy. You have to put certain things into practice, certain drills into practice. And the drill that I always feel that really works is I'm a soul. I'm luminous. I'm safe right now. I'm safe and I'm connected with the supreme source. Whatever source, whatever you need, I'm connected with that source. Right? That drill really helps.
• 17:28
  Speaker A: That's true if. Because at the end of the day, this whole overthinking is trying to fix a problem by thinking about it in indefinitely. You know, like if I think about it enough, it'll go away. But really we are needing to heal our heart and soul. And connecting with the source of healing is what actually heals us. And then when we feel energetically feel healed and safe and relaxed, then the mind can calm down. But the mind can't really calm down unless we feel different because the feeling of stress and anxiety is actually causing the thinking. And so there's no amount of trying to undo thinking with more thinking. That's really going to work. It has to be shift a shift on an emotional level, on a spiritual level for the thoughts to finally relax, you know, so because fundamentally Right. I mean, how I think about the mind is the mind is actually trying to help us, right? Like, most the time there's a reason we're thinking things and it's trying to do something useful. But if we're fundamentally in an emotional, spiritual state of panic and disconnection from. From God and from ourselves, then it's nothing the mind does is going to really work at that point. So we have to heal, that, soothe. The soul needs to be soothed and relaxed so we can go, ah, yes, right. And then, and then the mind is like, ah, there it is. Is.
• 19:10
  Speaker B: You know, initially it. Overthinking, I feel, is it starts off with a good intention, but something actually went horribly wrong.
• 19:23
  Speaker A: Right?
• 19:23
  Speaker B: Right. It's like a car that is stuck in mud, you know, Or a car that you're revving up the engine with the brakes on, right? Like it's like totally spinning, spinning in place and it's not going anywhere, right? That is what's happening with the mind, right? It's spinning, spinning, spinning, and it's not going anywhere. And that is one of the mistakes. I feel that people feel that thinking is somehow I'm in control. You're not in control because you're thinking like that's the. The least amount of control you have is thinking so much. And so that false belief has to be addressed, right. You have to deeply accept from your heart, right from here, it has to come here. Hey, this kind of thinking is not good for me. I'm not in control. It's not helping me. Right. Overthinking about this is not going to make it any better or any different. And somehow I think, because if I think about it, like, let's say I'm thinking about something in the future and all these hundred million scenarios, somehow I'm controlling it. But you're not. It's totally taken control over you. And so you have to really remember that, right? I'm not in control. I have to stop this. And for me, the only way that I can stop those kinds of thoughts really is remember who I am. Remember, I am peace. I am eternal. I am light. And remember the Supreme Source. I am safe. I am safe with the Supreme Source. Right? There are blessings in my life. And remember all the blessings you've ever had. And it'll be fine. Everything will be fine. It's not that. You're just saying it, right. Change is inevitable. It will change. Right? You know, one time a few months back, someone was telling me someone very close to them was dying. And I said, oh, but it'll all be all right, you know, and they got really upset. I said, no, how can it be all right? They are going to die. This and that. Yes. You can't prevent that. Right? They will die, but they will be in a better place. You will be fine. Yes, it will be change and yes, it is very hard, but take solace from God and you will feel fine. Because life is change. We need to accept that things are not going to go the way I want it to go. Right. Life is changed, but with God, things really feel much lighter. You walk with ease. You walk. You. You stand up. When you are not able to, you know, stand up, you are able to look at the silver lining, the blessing in things. You're able to do all of those things because for some reason we are stuck in. In this feeling that only this outcome will make me happy. Actually, any outcome will make me happy. Any outcome will make all of us happy. Any outcome in any situation will make all of us happy.
• 23:04
  Speaker A: It's quite an extreme statement, Shireen. Should we quote you on that one? Any outcome in any situation will make you happy.
• 23:12
  Speaker B: Yeah, right. It's been proven by science, actually. You know, people who have done. People who have done a lot of research on happiness, right, they have said that. That, you know, initially, right. Like, let's say someone. There's this. This particular research is very, very telling, is they interviewed people who won the lottery a year later, how they're feeling, and people who unexpectedly became paralyzed. Right? Like, that's the. One of the worst things that can happen to you is paralyzed, right? Let's say if you're dying, you don't know you're dead, you're gone. Right? You're not experiencing it. But paralysis, you're definitely experiencing it. And so people who are paralyzed a year later and people who won the lottery a year later, guess who's happier? Actually, both of them are equally happy. So what is that telling you? Any situation, any outcome will make me happy or it will keep.
• 24:26
  Speaker A: You'll be the same potentially, like, depending on your mindset. Like, it. It doesn't change much. In other words, like, we think, oh, I'll be so happy when this thing happens, but realistically.
• 24:37
  Speaker B: Oh, that is such an illusion. Yeah. It won't make any difference.
• 24:42
  Speaker A: It doesn't make any difference. It's like. It's such a bizarre thing. How so? This whole. The underpinning behind this whole overthinking is that if I think my way out of this, I'll get what I want. If I think hard enough I'll get what I want, and then when I get what I want, then I'll be happy. Happy. But realistically, it doesn't really make that much difference either way in most cases, does it, in the long run? It's like someone's like, oh, when I get my new car, then I'll be so happy. I remember someone recently was like, had all these problems with a car, right? And I was getting all these messages about, oh, my God, oh, my God. And then she got a new car and it's like, just incredible new car, right? But, like, immediately there's another problem. And no mention about how grateful the car has made her or anything. Do you know? I mean, like, after, like two days or something, because, do you know, I mean, it's like, it doesn't make any difference, you know? Oh, wouldn't it be wonderful when I finally get all this massive box of chocolate or whatever it is, then you have it and you're like, actually, this is a bit of a problem having all this chocolate. So.
• 25:49
  Speaker B: Yeah, depends on which chocolate.
• 25:52
  Speaker A: It depends on which chocolate. Yeah, yeah, yeah. That happened to me recently. I was like, I want my children because I have a chocolate company. And this huge box came and I was like, great. And then I had to put it somewhere and I'm like, where's it gonna fit? Because, you know, and then I'm like, this is actually a problematic situation because I don't want to have too much sugar. And now I've got this massive temptation of this enormous amount of chocolates just sitting there all the time. So, like, there's side effects to all these things, and it's. It's much more complicated than we like to admit.
• 26:25
  Speaker B: You know, this is interesting, right? So let's say 10 years ago you had certain desires. I want this to happen, this to happen, this to happen. And let's say many times, right, let's take your life. Ten years ago, you had this desire, this desire, this desire. And a lot of those things are happening now, right? Whatever desires you had, there they are.
• 26:51
  Speaker A: You're good at manifesting stuff.
• 26:53
  Speaker B: Yeah, yeah. They're in full swing.
• 26:56
  Speaker A: Yeah.
• 26:56
  Speaker B: Am I happier? No. I have 10 more desires.
• 27:01
  Speaker A: Yeah. I mean, I think what's made me happier, in all honesty, is actually contemplating eternity and death so that I can appreciate just being alive. That actually has made me happier. But it's not because of specific details, because frankly, it's always going to change. So the details haven't made any difference. It's like, oh, wouldn't it be great when I get, you know, whatever, whatever what? And it just doesn't make any difference because we bring up, I remember going to like on a road trip right up into Monument Valley, which is an epic place. And it's like this mystical place, these crazy like there's like the western movies are shot in that area, right? Monument Valley. And I remember going there and it's totally quiet, eerie and. And I was noticing that we go away somewhere, right? We bring our bags and as soon as we arrive out of the bag pops all of our madness. It just comes straight out of the back and it's just like, well, nothing's changed at all. If anything, it might got worse because you're now in a situation where you can see it more clearly. So it doesn't make any difference at all really. The only thing that really makes any difference is Manmadhabhav, which is like. The reason I'm bringing this up is because we're talking about the mind and manmadha bhav means offer your mind to God or offer your mind to me. Just hand the whole thing up to God because the mind itself has become sick and it's, it's become unmanageable and it's full of random stuff. So we can just say, here you go God, you take this away because frankly I can't handle this because if, if I could then I wouldn't be having this problem. So obviously I need help. And I think honestly if someone's overthinking, they might as well just think in their mind over and over, over again. Man, man above man, man above man, man above all day long. Cuz if you overthink the word man above and what it means, that would be enormous upgrade compared to.
• 29:08
  Speaker B: And we'll put the spelling of the word down there so you know exactly what to say.
• 29:13
  Speaker A: Man. Yeah. So if you think so, this is just a little, a little magic mantra. If you think man, man above a thousand times a day instead of what you're currently thinking, I imagine it will do you the world of good.
• 29:29
  Speaker B: Yes, yes, it would do you the world of good. But along with Manmanabhav, my accent is slightly different.
• 29:39
  Speaker A: You can say shree say how it's supposed to be said. See, it's the h is a bit difficult for people on the west to get, get quite right, you know, but do the best we can.
• 29:53
  Speaker B: No, you said it wonderful. You said it wonderful. Thank you for bringing up the word. So Manmanabhav. Right? So in Manmanabhav the Whole point of Manmanabhav is to fix your mind on God, that your mind should be on God, focused on God. And I mean, to be honest, right. I don't know any other way to stop overthinking. I don't know any other way. I have to give it to God. I have to feel healed from God. I have to be connected. I have to watch as a detached observer. And even when I'm watching as a detached observer, any situation that is happening, even when I'm watching as a detective detached observer, I always have God by my side and watch it, right? Because it gives me that solace. It gives me that feeling of companionship that I can't do this. And human companionships, of course they can help and do these things, but they can't really take away your overthinking. They don't have the power to do that.
• 31:07
  Speaker A: Yeah, it's true. So ultimately, like, what we talk about in this podcast is, like, really comes down to it. We need help from the source of all divine power to heal the soul. Because the whole problem we have at the root of it is a warped perception of reality and a sense of insecurity about being alive and thinking we're gonna die and worrying about everything. And the only way out of it, really, on a deeper level, is to come into that infinite light and feel soothed by God's peace and a sense of security and grace. And there's. That's. That's the healing energy that allows the mind to say, ah, yes, actually, everything's fine. There's nothing to worry about. But unless we experience that, it's just going to keep clinging to something to try and fix itself and goes round and round and round until some terrible thing happens. Because if we think too much about stuff over and over again, we will end up creating the thing we're worried about a lot of the time.
• 32:16
  Speaker B: There's no terrible thing, Angel. That's what I feel these days. There's no nothing called terrible. It's all good.
• 32:24
  Speaker A: There's no terrible things anymore, apparently. So I take that there is a.
• 32:28
  Speaker B: Blessing in everything that happens to you. There's always a blessing. We shouldn't come into this feeling, oh, there's this terrible thing going to happen. I. I don't mean to contradict you. I'm sorry if I did, if I.
• 32:45
  Speaker A: Am what I mean to say, I'll just share what I meant and you can then contradict me if you want. But when we think obsessively about something we don't want it often creates the thing we don't want and that might be benefit in that happening even if we did create it. But it's, it's not solving the problem, thinking about it indefinitely. It might, it's most likely going to cause problems rather than solve them.
• 33:17
  Speaker B: This is a wonderful way to conclude if you don't have anything else to share, is about being solution oriented. It's a very important, very important element of overthinking. You have to find solutions right away. Right. You know, recently I was talking to someone and they had a problem and I was telling them, oh, this is a solution, this is. And they had a problem for every solution, right? So you can either have a solution for every problem or you can have a problem for every solution. Solution, you can decide that. And the decision is in your is with you. And if you really want a joyful life, it's possible. This moment, this life is joyful. It can be a joyful life. And if you want to be able to do that, then solutions, solutions, solutions, solutions. Find a solution right away.
• 34:21
  Speaker A: Yeah. And one way of doing that that can help is that you say, can you write down, this is why I like to say here's the problem, write down what it is. Right? The mind, mind is very good about create, clarifying what the problem is. Okay, here's the problem, this is the problem, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, right? So you've at least got it down on paper and then write down 20 possible solutions to the problem. 20, right. And your mind will come up with obvious ones at the beginning. But chances are the ones towards the bottom of the list are actually the best solutions that you haven't thought about before. And if you still don't feel you found the problem, then you can run it through AI and AI will probably give you another hundred, right? You could just say, just keep going until you end up like, give me a thousand solutions to this problem and it'll just not knock them out for you. Right. If you can't be bothered to think about this yourself, and I guarantee somewhere in that list, if you say give me 10,000 solutions to AI, you'll get 10,000 solutions and somewhere in there is going to be a solution. And then it, once you take action on one of those things, then it'll start resolving itself. So yay, 10,000 solutions above 10,000 solutions. Emotions. Yeah, you can either. There's a nice quote, let's finish on this. You can either have results or you can have excuses. You can't have both. And that's what it comes down to, you know, we can either have problems and justify why we have them, or we can have solutions and results, but we can't have both. And which one are you going to choose? It's completely up to you. Let's have a blessing.
• 36:05
  Speaker B: Blessing. We pick a random blessing.
• 36:09
  Speaker A: Yeah. Random blessing.
• 36:11
  Speaker B: Random blessing. Carefree.
• 36:15
  Speaker A: Carefree. Isn't that perfect?
• 36:20
  Speaker B: Your responsibility is made lighter. I keep forgetting to say this. This is really God's blessing for you. God's blessing for you. Carefree, your responsibility is made lighter because you deeply trust in God and strive to live out the values and principles you've learned. Knowing they'll guide you toward the greater good fills you with comfort and peace.
• 37:00
  Speaker A: Ah. So thank you, Shireen. We'd love to hear everyone's comments below. We love reading comments. What did you learn? What fears do you have? What are you going to do about it? And if anyone else is overthinking in your life, share it with them. And also, we have loads of free meditations and courses to help you feel better and more liberated. So check it all out. Lots of love. Talk to you soon.