How a Therapist’s Advice Helped Me Overcome My Issues with Overthinking
Overthinking sucks, but one piece of advice from a therapist about how to treat thoughts changed everything for me
I used to have a terrible problem with overthinking, no matter how hard I tried I could never get my mind to shut up.
Then I went to see a therapist about it. I had spoken to therapists before and got nowhere. This guy was different. He gave me a thought process that literally changed everything, a thought process that made my overthinking a thing of the past.
In this post I’m going to share that thought process by recounting a portion of the therapy session.
It started with him asking me about the thoughts that I was having, along with how many times I acted upon any of those thoughts. Rarely was my reply.
He then asked me how many times I turned any of my negative thoughts into actions. Pretty much never was my reply.
He then asked me how many times any of the negative outcomes that my thoughts were full of had come to fruition. Pretty much never was my reply.
He then nodded, rubbed his chin, and said:
“Then why do you have such a problem with your thoughts?”
To say the least, I was flabbergasted by this response. Was he belittling my problem, trying to underplay it?
I went off on a rant about how my thoughts were so draining, how they were bringing me down, how they were hindering my life, and on and on I went. All the while he just kept nodding and rubbing his chin.
When I was finished, he said:
“That’s interesting. But I’m curious, what do you think a thought is?”
Again, I was totally thrown by this question. What did I think a thought was? I mean how was I supposed to even answer that question, a thought was a thought?
I was starting to get frustrated here and was beginning to think to myself that this guy was clearly not very good at his job. His next words made me feel certain that he was not very good at his job:
“If a thought is just a thought,” he said, “and nothing ever comes of these thoughts, why are you spending so much time fretting about them?”
“What?” I said, the only thought in my mind, how can this guy who is supposed to be helping me downplay my problems. I mean what else could he be saying other than that overthinking is not a big deal?
“Think of it like this,” he continued, “if you are standing in a street and a car passes you by, would you remember that car?”
“Well, no,” I said.
“Why?” he said.
“Well, why would I?” I said.
“Exactly,” he said, “thoughts are like cars passing you by on the street, just things that are there sometimes and the only time they become relevant is when you interact with them. The reason your thoughts are giving you such trouble is that you are interacting with them, permanently. You are allowing them to affect you emotionally because you are treating them as real like they matter. But they don’t.”
“I don’t understand,” I said.
“If while walking along the street a car passes you by,” he said, “and you stepped in front of that car, would you remember it?”
“Well, yes?” I said.
“Of course you will,” he said. “Because it will have hit you, and getting hit by a car hurts, and if you choose to step in front of every single car that passes you by, you’re going to remember every single one of those cars and you’re going to be affected by every single one of those cars because you are going to get hit by every single one of those cars.”
At this moment it suddenly dawned on me, this guy wasn’t downplaying my issues, he was giving me the exact type of thought process that I needed to defeat my overthinking issues.
I had already told him previously that I had talked with a different therapist about the type of thoughts I would have while overthinking and that it had gotten me nowhere, he was offering a different approach than talking about it.
“Thoughts are just like cars passing you by in the street,” he continued, “you can either choose to step in front of every single one of them, or you can choose to just let each one pass you by. If you choose to let them pass you by it will be like they never were, if you choose to step out in front of them you will remember every one of them, and getting hit by an endless line of cars is a very tiring and painful experience.”
He was not wrong. It really was, and it really is.
And at this moment he taught me how to stop getting hit by cars, I didn’t fully realize it at the time, but he had.
Literally, all my life I’d always been obsessed with my thoughts, what was the meaning of them, why did I think these things, why could I not shut them up, et cetera et cetera.
But at this moment I realized that the answer was because that is what thoughts are supposed to do, they throw up options, an endless array of options, this could happen, you could do that, you could do this, you are this, you are that this is right, this is wrong, on and on they go. The more you interact with them the more of them you have, and that’s a good thing because that’s what thoughts are supposed to do.
Thoughts are not supposed to shut up, it is just you are not supposed to spend your life fighting against them, you’re supposed to just let them pass you by until one pops up that is actually relevant to you and helpful to you.
The moment I figured this out, I had the tools to win the battle with my mind, and I used those tools, I stopped trying to stop interacting with my thoughts, I stopped trying to silence them, I stopped resisting them, I just let them be.
Literally any time my mind went to that place where I would be consumed by thoughts, I just let it, the reason being I told myself it was no big deal.
At first, I used music to try to do this, I would put on some music and let the thoughts run wild, all the while saying to myself, they are just thoughts, and we are supposed to have thoughts. It’s okay to have thoughts, even thoughts you don’t want to have, it’s okay to have them because they are just thoughts.
Over time, the craziest thing happened, slowly but gradually my problems with overthinking passed me by like those cars in a street.
It was then I grasped what my therapist had truly been saying to me: thoughts only become relevant when we interact with them. Or rather they are like an endless stream of cars passing through our minds, fleeting moments that are forgotten before they are remembered unless that is we choose to step in front of one.
Before this, my entire life I had been stepping in front of every thought and so had been getting hit by every one of them which was unbelievably draining.
Thanks to this one explanation suddenly everything clicked, and I stopped stepping in front of them.
That’s all from me for today, thanks for reading!
If you liked this story, you may also enjoy the following:
Why the Reason We Exist Proves We Are All Infinitely Something
How to Stop People Taking Advantage of You
The Three Most Important Traits You Need to Be Positive
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