1 – Get OUT of your head and INTO your body

Training your brain to disconnect takes time and practice. I want you to start practicing getting OUT of your head and INTO your body.

You have been giving your mind the power to lead your life for a long time now. Start by feeling gratitude for having the capacity to analyze, to pause and think, to solve problems, … And let it go.

Remember I told you about all the INPUT we put into our brains?

Start focusing on OUTPUT instead of input. Instead of overloading your system with more and more (very interesting, I’m sure) information, what activities can you do that come OUT of you?

Here’s a list of ideas:

• Daydream: stare out the window and just be. Let your mind wander, let your body rest, there’s nothing that needs to happen.
• Yoga: feel your body flowing with each movement and use mindfulness to stay present with your posture.
• Meditation: Do a body scan, and ask yourself: where do I feel pressure in your body? And just be with it. No need to change anything or analyze why you’re feeling tension or pressure. Just feel it.
• Dance, sing, play music, and get fully immersed in the melody
• Draw, paint, use a coloring book for adults
• Turn on 528 Hz music or look for another frequency on YouTube that makes you feel relaxed
• Exercise: move your body, go for a run, take a walk, and make it fun
• Write down 5 things you’re grateful for and WHY - Feel the gratitude in your body with a gentle smile on your face

In summary: focus on anything that comes OUT of you and that assists you in connecting to your body.

2 – Give yourself permission to rant - with a timer!

The moment you notice you’re overthinking and you can’t get out of it, you feel frustrated and stressed.

What would it feel like if you gave yourself permission to rant while putting a timer on it?

This is a 2-step exercise that I want you to try out next time you’re ruminating, overthinking, or worrying:

• Set a timer for 5-10 minutes and rant out loud. Find a room where you’re alone and just rant your ass off. Scream if you’re feeling bold. Just rant about anything that’s bothering you, anything that doesn’t seem to get solved, anything that’s frustrating you.
• Then, set your timer again for 5-10 minutes and say out loud what you’re learning from this experience (or what you will have learned once this problem is solved). Talk about why you’re grateful this is happening, how this will help you create better filters in your life, how this will make you stronger in the end.

Good! 

After doing this, you have 2 options:

• Look for distraction -> move on to suggestion number 3
• Change your perspective -> move on to suggestion number 4

You might want to do both, but you choose the order. You even might feel like leaving it at that, if the rant has left you feeling more calm and satisfied.

3 – Step away & Look for distraction

Have you ever been racking your brain over something for hours, then decided to go out, start cooking, do something else, and all of a sudden the answer comes to you?

That’s because when you’re in a state of stress, your brain has a very narrow focus and it just can’t see the big picture. High cortisol (aka stress) levels activate different areas in the brain that won’t allow you to get creative in problem-solving and find the best solution.

Sometimes the best thing to do is to find something that completely distracts you and relaxes your mind.

Go outside (nature has been proven to lower cortisol levels), chat with a friend, have a laugh over funny dog videos, … Whatever it is, do something that has absolutely nothing to do with the issue at hand.

The right solution might hit you like a flash of inspiration at the right moment.

Or you might feel new creative energy to brainstorm around the issue and come up with new ways to solve it.

4 – Put the problem on a chair

This is a golden trick my psychotherapist taught me when I was 15 and I always apply this one whenever I can’t see the way out, or I’m taking things personally. (I have never shared this one before, and it seems like the perfect place to do so!)

Literally, put a chair in front of you, and imagine putting the problem on that chair.

Now, look at it from all sides. You’re externalizing the issue and you’re looking at it from another person’s perspective. Imagine this was the problem of someone else and you’re just both looking at it from all sides.

Step around the chair and play the best detective in the world:

• What’s another way of looking at this?
• Are you making things more complex than they actually are?
• Which different angles can you come up with? If there was a team of people helping you with this detective case, what might each person say?

You don’t have to play detective, you don’t have to walk around, but you get what I’m saying here.

When you imagine taking the problem out of your head and putting it onto a chair, you’re making it easier for your brain to come up with the right solutions.

Have you ever felt like you’re the best advice giver for someone else, but you don’t know what the *** to do with your own life? Yup, this is why!

5 – Get comfortable with the grey zone

How I love this one! 

I used to think in black and white because I was a super perfectionist. 
I didn’t like unresolved issues, I want to find the answer right away.
I hated feeling like I don’t have control over something.
I felt allergic to uncertainty or unclarity.

It wasn’t until I moved to Peru that I had to learn to get comfortable with the grey zone.

There is no efficiency addiction here, there’s no full clarity over anything, there are lots and lots of blurred lines.

Sounds terrifying, doesn’t it?

Well, newsflash: grey zones are everywhere and you have to learn to get comfortable with the not-knowing.

You can’t always predict or plan everything. You never know how life will go. Unexpected events will show up all the time, things will get in your way or they won’t turn out as expected or wanted.

It’s not the solution that’s most important. It’s not the strategy or the knowing HOW you will pull it off.

What’s most important is asking the question, having the goal, putting the destination into your mental GPS.

Once you know where you’d like to get (of course, always staying flexible because goals can change), your brain will start scanning and filtering to find the best way to get there, and this can take a while.

Your brain works literally like a GPS: even when one way doesn’t work and you bump into a roadblock, your brain will recalculate the best possible road and try a different way. But you will get there.

I feel like this is a topic for a completely different blog post, but I hope the seed is planted for this new way of thinking of embracing the grey zone, and it will get easier over time.

Overthinking Anxiety - A Summary

What do you really need to remember from this blog post?

• You trained your brain to be overly active, and you have the power to train it to stop overthinking.
• Focus on output instead of input: stop stuffing information into your brain and see what can come out of you, how you can focus more on your body, and how you can listen to your intuition.
• You can’t think your way through everything, especially not when you’re in a state of stress.
• Start to embrace the grey zone of uncertainty and not-knowing. Not everything is black and white, the grey zone is part of life.
• You always have The Overthinking Emergency Kit to help you when your mind can’t stop racing.

And last but not least: celebrate your brain’s capacities, just don’t overuse them!

Take care,

Maya

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