Are you addicted to overthinking?

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1:42Welcome to today's episode of the Mindset Mentor Podcast. I'm your host, Rob Dial. If you have not you done so hit that subscribe button so you never miss another podcast episode if you're out there and you love this podcast you'll probably love the live event that I'm doing later on this year if you want to join the waitlist to be the first to learn about it and to get massive discounts for my in-person event in Austin Texas later on this year go to freedomwaitlist.com once again freedomwaitlist.com today I'm going to be explaining why some people are addicted to overthinking and imagining fake scenarios in their mind.

2:18And if you don't understand this, you will probably continue creating anxiety and worry, even though nothing is currently wrong in your life. And what you will end up doing is sabotaging your peace. And most people listening to this might think like, I might be addicted to overthinking. I'm overthinking all of the time. I want you to realize you're not. What people tend to get quote unquote addicted to is the emotional state that overthinking creates inside of us. Think about it. Why would someone spend hours imagining fake arguments that never actually happened? Why would someone replay conversations from three months ago?

3:01Why would someone create worst case scenarios while they're just laying in their bed at night completely safe and warm under their covers. If it feels terrible, why would we keep doing it? The answer is because your mind is not just producing thoughts. Your thoughts are producing chemistry and chemicals inside of your body. Every thought that you think creates some sort of corresponding emotional and physiological response inside of your body. It doesn't just stay in your head. So imagining an argument with your spouse and you have that imagination, if I say this, she's going to say this and this will happen and that'll happen, your body will actually start to change as you imagine this.

3:49Your heart rate will start to change. Your muscles might tense up in some sort of way. Stress hormones might be released in your body and your body begins preparing for a threat that doesn't even exist, but your mind is just vividly imagining. And so from your nervous system's perspective, the threat is actually real. And neuroscience often talk about this and how the body becomes conditioned to emotional states through repetition. And so the core principle of it is this, repeated thoughts strengthen neural pathways, making certain emotional responses more automatic over time. And so the phrase that's often used in neuroscience, which you probably heard me say a hundred times, is neurons that fire together, wire together.

4:35So the more frequently that you think a certain way, the easier it becomes for your brain to continue thinking that way. And over time, anxiety that you have inside of your body becomes normal. Anxiety feels like home. It also depends on your childhood too. Like if you grew up in a household that was unpredictable and had a lot of chaos in it, your brain and body might have learned to associate like close relationships or love with anxiety. And so going back to the example I gave just a minute ago with like the fake scenario of you and your spouse getting into an argument, that actually puts your body into a familiar state with someone that you love.

5:15And so if your parents were like that and you felt like, oh my gosh, there was chaos inside the house. It feels natural for you to create chaos in your relationship, even if there's no reason to have chaos in the relationship. Another example is like, I hear a lot of people that I coach and work with are in just so much fear. And it's like, they could be a very successful person, super successful CEO, but they still, their life is run by fear. A lot of people who are very successful are run by fear and they usually get it from their parents. So if like one of your parents was full of fear and the way that they like quote unquote controlled you was through fear, which a lot of parents do instead of explaining, Hey, this is why you don't want to do this.

5:59This is actually what you should do instead. A lot of parents just take the easy way out and they just scare the shit out of their kids so that they don't have to explain to them. And it takes, it's just easier to scare the kid than it is to explain to them over and over again, why they shouldn't do it. And so they scare them so that they do what they want, right? I see it all the time. And if that's the case and you were raised that way or your parents are really full of fear and still to this day, you're still full of fear and your mom texts you all of these fearful things. If your childhood had fear, it will make you create thoughts and false futures right now that are fearful so that you feel the same feelings.

6:35You kind of almost get addicted to those feelings, those chemicals in your body the same way that like a drug addict or an alcoholic would be addicted to a chemical that is then put into their body. And once again, it might not be what you want. You might not want to feel fear. You might not want to feel anxiety, but it's what feels normal to you. And so a lot of times it's not like necessarily your fault. A lot of times it's our conditioning and we just repeat patterns and we go back to what feels normal. It's not our fault, but it is our responsibility to change it if it's not what we want. Otherwise, we'll just continue to repeat the same patterns over and over and over again.

7:12And by doing that, we're gonna create fake scenarios in our brains over and over and over again to feel anxious or to feel fear because that's what we're used to, right? This is where it really starts to get interesting. Many people, like I'm sure if you're listening to this podcast, you want peace in your life, like you want peace. But when peace arrives in your life, you might not trust it. Like, have you ever noticed that before? Like, nothing's wrong. Everything is okay. It might not be amazing. It might not be terrible. Everything is just pretty okay. Yet your mind starts searching for problems.

7:46So you start wondering, like, what could go wrong? What am I not noticing? What am I forgetting? Like, what if something bad happens? What if this doesn't last? Or like, you can get into a relationship and there's no chaos in the relationship. And the person's like, kind of boring. And you're like, well, boring doesn't feel right. It could be too good of a relationship. It's too calm though. Like a lot of people freak out because that's not what they know about relationships from childhood. And so they search for why that's wrong and what is wrong and create problems in a relationship where there's nothing that's wrong.

8:20In psychology, psychologists call this hypervigilance. It's usually developed through stressful childhood environments and trauma and unpredictable relationships and like years of chronic stress. And so your nervous system becomes trained to scan for danger when danger isn't present. And we will be right back. IXL is an award-winning online learning platform that helps kids truly understand what they're learning, whether they're building math confidence, strengthening reading and writing skills, or reviewing science concepts. IXL is used in 96 of the top 100 school districts in the U.S. And studies show kids who use IXL score higher on tests, proven in all 50 states.

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11:34And so your brain feels like uncertain when danger isn't present. And when danger isn't present and it's a little bit peaceful, so many people feel wrong in peace even though nothing is wrong and calm can feel more uncomfortable than anxiety itself like the anxious state is at least familiar calm uh-uh dude that is unfamiliar and the brain generally prefers familiar over unfamiliar even if that familiar is painful or chaotic or anxious or full of fear and so you know as you know from from listeners podcast neuroscience proves that your brain is constantly trying to predict what happens next. So it's a protection mechanism, you know, and in neuroscience, this is called predictive processing model, right?

12:20The brain isn't simply reacting to reality. It is constantly generating models of reality. It's asking like, what's most likely to happen? How can I prepare myself? What patterns have I seen before? And so for someone who's been expecting criticism or rejection or harassment or like failure or conditional love or abandonment for years, if that's what you've been used to, the brain becomes extremely tuned to those and extremely efficient at generating predictions around that as a protection mechanism. Which is why like some people don't just imagine scenarios, they compulsively simulate them. And the brain is basically attempting to gain certainty about the future, which is always going to be uncertain.

13:09And so the problem is that certainty never arrives. So the simulation just continues. And I've said this before on the podcast, but one of my favorite quotes around this is that your mind can make heaven out of hell or hell out of heaven. And so many people are living in like a pretty good life and it's kind of peaceful and it's kind of great. And many people in this world would want that life, but they're making hell out of heaven. Like so many people have nothing wrong. and they're sitting in the present moment and everything is just pretty okay. And they just can't feel content with that. So they freak out because content feels foreign and foreign feels wrong.

13:47Anxiety, that feels normal. Fear, that feels normal. So they make up these fake scenarios when nothing is wrong because that's what they're used to. They're basically addicted to the chaos. They're addicted to the overthinking. They're addicted to those feelings of fear and worry and anxiety, the chemicals that those come up in your body when you think that way. Many listeners will recognize this. Like you could be in the shower or driving your car or lying in bed. And suddenly like you're having a conversation with someone who isn't even there in your head. Like you're explaining yourself or you're defending yourself or trying to win an argument or like preparing for confrontation.

14:21And, you know, psychologists refer to this as anticipatory processing. Your brain believes that it can rehearse all of the possible outcomes. and if it can do that, then it can prevent pain. That's what our brain thinks it's doing but research has shown consistently that the opposite is actually what's happening. The more people mentally rehearsed all of these feared or anxious situations, the more that their anxiety increases. So instead of preventing the pain, it creates anxiety and once again, nothing is wrong. Like, do you get that? Nothing's wrong. We make a calm, content, peaceful day a shit show because nothing's wrong and nothing's wrong feels, well, frankly, wrong, right?

15:07And so there's a deeper layer. You know, when you dive into this, after years of overthinking, anxiety stops feeling like an emotion and starts feeling like an identity. And it starts to feel like who you are. You don't just feel anxious. You believe that you are anxious. I'm just a person who's anxious. I worry. I'm full of fear. I overthink everything, right? That's what you start thinking about yourself. And that identity becomes psychologically rewarding because it gives you like this kind of like illusion of control. And the mind starts believing if I stop worrying, something bad is going to happen.

15:45But worry has never prevented reality. It's only prevented your peace. And that's a super important distinction. Worrying does not stop the thing that you're worrying about from happening. You get that? It only prevents you from feeling peace in this moment. And I've said this before on the podcast, but psychologists have done studies around worrying and they found out that what people worry about, 85 % of what they worry about never happens. 12 % of it happens better than they thought that it would. Only 3 % of what you worry about happens the way that you think that it will. 3%. And so how do we actually change this?

16:23Like, let's talk about how to change this. How do you stop imagining fake scenarios all day? How do you stop creating anxiety and overthinking when nothing is wrong? The first step among everything, the first step is awareness. You need to create awareness around it because most people don't even realize that they're doing it. They're halfway through an imagined argument before they even realize that they're arguing with someone who isn't even there. So the number one thing that you can do is catch yourself. Like ask yourself, is this happening right now? Not tomorrow, not next week, not six months from now, not even later on today.

16:56Is it happening right now? Because you'll notice that most of the things that you're stressing out about aren't right now in this very second. They're in your imagination. So you need to become more attuned to your patterns and realize that you can't change something that you're unaware of. So if we're trying to change I need to start noticing my patterns and noticing where my thoughts are creating my anxiety or fear or worry. So that's number one. Number two, the second step is recognize what you're feeling. Not what you're thinking, what you're feeling. Most people stay stuck because they try to argue with the thought.

17:32Instead, like ask yourself, what emotion am I creating right now? Am I creating fear or anxiety or anger or worry or resentment? Because once you recognize the emotion, then you can start recognizing that you're generating it and try to chase the thought that is creating it. You have to realize that the scenario is not creating the feeling. Your mind is creating the thought that's creating the feeling. And it's based off of what might happen in the future, right? So that's number two. Number three, the third step is to interrupt the pattern. When you catch yourself creating a fake scenario, bring it back to reality the way you bring yourself back to reality and in this moment is your body is always here your body is always in the present moment your mind is almost always somewhere else it's always in the past it's always in the present so what you do is you try to bring yourself back to your body and you notice you are five senses right like what do you feel what do you smell what can you taste what can you touch what do you what do you see like bring in all of your senses, right?

18:39Take a deep breath, feel your feet on the floor, take a look around the room, start noticing your senses and bring yourself back to your present moment by using your body. Your body is basically the portal back to this present moment and out of your head. Notice what's happening around you. And then ask yourself the question, once you're present, what problem do I have in this exact moment? Most of the time you'll realize that the problem is not right now. People are like, yeah, yeah, yeah, but Rob, you don't understand. Like I'm stressing out because I have to pay my bills next week. Okay. Is that today?

19:08No. So you're ruining this moment with thoughts of next week. And I'm not saying like, don't pay attention to paying your bills. I'm saying this, when you feel better and you can bring yourself back to the present moment and calm yourself down, you can then think better. And when you think better, you can take better action. And when you don't feel like shit, it's easier to take action. When you feel like crap, it's harder to take action. Like it makes you, if you do bring yourself back to the present moment, start seeing more clearly and get yourself out of worry and get yourself out of fear and get yourself out of anxiety, you're more likely to figure out how to make the money to pay your bills, right?

19:45So that's number three. The fourth step is teach your nervous system that peace is safe. This is where most people struggle because when you've been anxious for years, when you've overthinked for years, when you're taught to fear, calm feels weird. It feels unfamiliar. It feels wrong. Calm for a lot of people, believe it or not, is fucking terrifying. Like they're terrified of calm. They're terrified of peace, of content. And so a lot of people like want to unconsciously create a problem because it's like, that's not what they're used to. So when that happens, don't run from the calm. When you notice it, like just sit with it for a second.

20:26You sitting for the next 10 minutes is not going to make your entire world crumble. Let yourself feel the calm. Remind yourself nothing is wrong right now. This is what peace feels like. I want to be more okay with peace. This is what safety feels like. I might not have felt safety in my childhood. I want to train myself to be okay with moments of calm and quiet and peace and content. And the more time that you spend there, the more familiar it becomes and makes it less weird to sit there, right? Let's be honest though. No matter what you're worried about or feared or any of those types of things, if we're being honest, every difficult thing that you've ever faced in your life, you've already gotten through.

21:05Like you figured it out somehow. You adapted and you survived, right? You'll do the same with whatever comes next. You don't need to overthink every possible future. You only need to trust yourself enough to handle reality when it arrives. Because the goal is to not stop thinking. You'll never do that. The goal is to stop suffering. And the way that you stop suffering is stop making yourself suffer with your thoughts of things that aren't even happening right now. The goal is to stop tuning your imagination into some fake futures and tune it into reality. The goal is to stop creating fear when there's nothing to fear in this moment.

21:46And finally realize that peace is not dangerous. Peace isn't boring. Peace isn't something to be suspicious of. Peace is what you've been looking for the entire time. And so next time you catch yourself imagining a fake scenario, ask yourself, is this reality or is this the movie that my mind is creating? Because your life is happening right now in this present moment, not in the future, not in that future that your anxiety keeps trying to predict. Your life is happening right now. Bring yourself back to the present moment. Stop overthinking. Stop creating fake futures that don't exist. And when you're here and you're present and your mind can work properly, you can take better steps to change your life.

22:28So that's what I got for today's episode. If you love this episode, please share it on your Instagram stories. Tag me in at Rob Dial Jr., R-O-B-D-I-A-L-J-R. And if you want to learn more about the waitlist to come to my in-person event in Austin, Texas later this year, once again, go to freedomwaitlist.com. Once again, freedomwaitlist.com. And I'm going to leave you the same way I leave you every single episode. Make it your mission to make somebody else's day better. I appreciate you and I hope that you have an amazing day. Guys, let's face it. As we get older, we can't just skip sleep and eat whatever we want and still feel great the next day.

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