How To Stop Overthinking?

It is common for people to focus on learning or testing various methods to control their thoughts.

You might have heard people saying that they wish to control their thoughts. And, probably you must have read books on ‘How to Control Thoughts’, ‘How to Have Positive Thoughts’ or ‘How to Avoid Negative Thoughts’.

Understand that your emotions precede your thoughts.

But, if you think about it closely, you’ll realize that thoughts come later and emotions come first. Hence, the first thing you must remember is that emotions precede thoughts and emotions trigger all thoughts.

In order to disengage from thoughts, you have to experience emotions. Because if you do not experience emotions, you will never be able to escape the network of thoughts that come across your mind one after the other.

Hence, if you handle emotions, you can get out of your thoughts.

Take a moment and analyze five impactful situations you’ve faced in your life and analyze whether the experience triggered an emotion or a thought first?

It is certain that every situation triggers an emotion before a thought. To read how emotions precede thoughts, read our blog on The Interrelationship Between Thoughts and Emotions.

Since we don’t realize this that our emotions trigger our thoughts, we keep focusing on controlling our thoughts. This results in physical or mental suffering. But what we must understand is that if we try to control our thoughts, they will never be controlled, and we will be bombarded with more thoughts.

Consequently, our emotional anguish will accumulate in our bodies as energy and pull us downward.

You must experience your emotions rather than controlling your thoughts.

To avoid being burdened with excessive thoughts, we must handle our emotions.  If we manage our emotions correctly, the thoughts will naturally disappear, and we won’t need to handle or examine them.

It’s important to remember that we shouldn’t even attempt to analyze or manage thoughts.

Also, you must keep in mind that whenever you find yourself saying: My mood isn’t great today. I’ve been moody or in a bad mood, it refers to the emotion you are feeling at the time.

To find the right answer to your problems and stop overthinking, develop the ability to get answers from your natural instinct.

To deal with our emotions and feelings, we all try to find immediate and readymade responses. This is because we live in a society saturated with knowledge and replete with directions on what to do and what not to do. In an attempt to deal with our emotions, we overload ourselves with exploring answers and gaining knowledge from as many sources as possible. And in desperation, we start accepting responses from any source, and everyone else around us appears wiser than ourselves. Everyone has a different perspective and suggests a different solution, many of which are contradictory but still, everyone thinks that they have the perfect information. And we start accepting what others suggest us to do.

This to me is pretty mind-boggling.

We must understand that these ready-made solutions do not help us understand our emotions. We must develop the ability to trust our instincts.

To get an appropriate answer from your natural instinct, you must achieve a peaceful state of mind.

We will receive a response to our hardship if we maintain our composure and await an answer. But when we trust the solutions others suggest us, we ignore the fundamental instinct and knowledge with which we have been blessed and which we may master through observation and faith.

Anytime I need an answer, I just sit down and connect with myself. Just like plants and animals, who do not read or discuss with each other because they know by instinct, relying on ourselves is a part of living naturally.

It is important to recognize that your challenges are unique.  And for those unique challenges, you must devise your strategies and answers.

Once you have received the answer, don’t hold on to it.

In regards to emotions and the responses to the experiences that cause those emotions, I believe that the same response is not acceptable for every occasion. Every situation in life has to be dealt with a different strategy and has a different solution. In my sessions, I show my clients the path they should follow and the milestones they have to cross, but not the destination they will arrive at. In other words, I allow them to explore their strategies and answers and then devote themselves to it. This ensures that I do not deprive them of their eureka moment.

If you want to develop the ability to receive answers from your instincts, you can read our blog on ‘AAO: Arrive at Origin’. It is a process that allows people to resolve the complexities of their life and achieve a peaceful state of mind by observing silence. When we observe silence, we our instincts respond more quickly to us.

You must keep in mind that if you feel agitated, you will obtain numerous responses, of which none will be appropriate. So, to develop your instincts, you must first achieve a peaceful state of mind.

However, it is essential to keep in mind that once your problem is solved, the solution cannot be applied to any other case. It would be best to not hold on to the answer.

And, hence, as many times as you need an answer to the problems you face, observe silence and get the intuitive solution to your problem.