What does it mean?

In my experience, overthinking is a life disrupting, debilitating beast of a maladaptive coping mechanism. So, today we are talking about a tool I use to interrupt my overthinking. I have discovered that when I can stop my mind from creating narratives, stories and judgments about something that has happened or may happen, I can avoid creating the intense emotions generated by my speculative thoughts. I am better able to stay grounded, present and make choices to more easily navigate my life.

For me, overthinking can be initiated by just about anything. A frequent starting point is when I think I don’t know what something means. The thought will cross my mind, “What does that mean?” For whatever reason, my brain wired to start generating ideas and scenarios to determine the meaning when I am faced with uncertainty. Because uncertainty is a near constant in life, overthinking became near constant.

Once the thought “what does it mean” occurs, the pace of my thinking becomes rapid, my mind spins out scenario after scenario, assigning values, judgements, blame, planning potential conversations and actions. My mind quickly advances into successively more dramatic envisioning. Typically, overthinking leads me into catastrophic thinking. My mind causes me to feel intense, painful emotions in the process. The longer I stay in the over thinking, the more emotions I subject myself to, the worse I feel. This dynamic then leads to me feeling I need to take the edge off or shut myself down, typically with another maladaptive coping mechanism.

This situation all occurs because I have a single thought such as “What does that mean?” 

So, a tool I rely on when that thought crops up is to focus on direct meaning.

I recently shared with a colleague that an old account was subject to a data leak. I let my colleague know, via text, what happened and what I did to address the matter. 

I received the following response: “You know you can call me when crap like this happens- no?”

I immediately had a physical, tightening reaction. What does that mean? My instincts were telling me something was off. Was I wrong for texting and not calling? Uh oh. I was headed down the road of over thinking because I perceived I did not know what that message meant. 

So, I used my tool. What does it mean that my colleague said “You know you can call me when crap like this happens- no?” It means that my partner said “You know you can call me when crap like this happens- no?” That is all. That is the direct meaning. My tool is to rely on the direct meaning and not to expand it, not to create additional meaning, not to assign motives, not to make assumptions, not to envision potential conversations or actions I might take. My tool is designed to break my pattern of coping with uncertainty by overthinking, which allows me to avoid intense, painful self-generated emotional states.

In relying on the direct meaning, I could then see how I wanted respond to the text message. “Yes. I do know I can call if crap like that happens.” I did not have to explain my decision to text, I did not have to justify or defend myself because I had not created a narrative that I had done something wrong. I did not make assumptions about someone else’s motives. My mind stayed quiet and I went on with my day without expending tremendous amounts of energy on the message.

Another way this tool helps me is when I start comparing myself to others and doubting mw. We get a lot of messages from the world around us about what we should look like or what we should have in life that we have attached a lot of meaning to. For example, the car we drive, the house we live in, where we live are measures of our success or make statements of the type of people we are.

So, what does it mean if someone drives a Mercedes, it means they drive a Mercedes. What does it mean if someone drives a Prius? It means they drive a Prius. What does it mean if someone lives in an apartment? It means they live in an apartment. What does it mean if someone lives near the beach? It means they live near the beach. 

I can’t remember exactly when I learned this tool, though I can say that I was strongly resistant to the idea of “direct meaning”. I was wrapped up in the meanings that I assigned to things. I believed the meanings I assigned to things and did not understand that my overthinking was problematic and causing me harm. I did not see that it was a maladaptive coping mechanism. As I practiced using the tool, I found it more and more helpful.

If I stay focused on the direct meaning, I can stay out of the narratives that I have, or society has made and I feel a greater sense of ease in how I interact with myself, others and the world around me. I am not obligated to give energy to all the thoughts that used to plague me. I can actually change the way my mind works. That has been a very powerful lesson for me.