← Take Out Therapy: End Overthinking & Overwhelm for Empathic High Achievers
Take Out Therapy: End Overthinking & Overwhelm for Empathic High Achievers
3 Life Changing Ways You Can Improve Your Overthinking Problem and Be More Present
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Rebecca Hunter
In today's Takeout Therapy episode, you'll discover three really simple shifts that you can make to start changing the entire dynamic of your life. As usual, you get to learn a little something from your favorite therapist, Rebecca as I recount some of my personal growth work over the past year of life. Welcome to Takeout Therapy, the podcast for empathic high achievers who are done overworking, overthinking and feeling overwhelmed. I'm Rebecca Hunter. I'm an anxiety expert and a therap, helping busy, big hearted people like you learn practical skills to quiet your racing mind, overcome self doubt, and actually be present in your life and maybe even happy. If that sounds good to you, you're in the right place. Visit takeouttherapy.com for helpful resources, a free class that I've recently revamped on overthinking. And if you're interested in working with me, you can find me there too. Thanks for listening. Let's get to work. Well hello there friend. I'm so happy that you popped in for today's podcast, which is a much overdue birthday episode. Every year on my birthday I basically think about the last year of life, what has happened, how I've been feeling, what kind of personal growth work I've been up to, and then I just sort of talk it through and I come up with some takeaways to put in my pocket and truck along through life with. I like to live a very, I guess you would say, intentional life where I'm aware of what is going on and whether that's something that I want to be happening and resonates for me or perhaps it's more of a challenge for me. I just like to acknowledge what's going on and how I feel about it. And I always out of every experience, every period of time, every season of life, I like to reflect and bring something forward. So today I'm just sharing with you my process for doing that. I'm 52. I turned 52 while laying flat on my back in my bed. Actually I cried three times on my birthday because I was so sick. So I'm just getting to this episode now because I was dying before and now I'm not. I'm good to go guys. I'm back and we'll be seeing you twice a week from here on out. But as I was laying in my bed with whatever virus I got, I was thinking about the past year and I realized that one of my themes this year that was kind of intentional but really actually worked out swimmingly to be non intentional was just to slow down even more than I already had. Isn't it interesting how it's like, there's always this background voice, and for each of us it says something different. But for me, the background voice is very consistent. It is very kind, but it is very persistent about slow down. And I realized on my birthday, while I was connecting with myself and having this moment of reflection, I've slowed down a lot. And I don't mean, like, I've given up a bunch of duties and I've stopped being social and I don't do as much physical activity anymore. No, actually, I'm more social than I was before. I'm way more physically active than I've ever been in my life. And still there's a slowness to things. I don't ever hurry anymore. Like, if I don't have time to go to the grocery store and get the groceries and wait in a line and check out like a regular person, I don't go. I go when I do have time and I read the labels and I look at all the new brands and I fart around in the store. I talk with people, I make connections in my community. It's a really slow process. I used to hate grocery shopping because it took forever and I had a list and I always had to stand in line and it really pissed me off. Like, the world was in my way. And now I never, ever hurry through anything. I enjoy the activities that are part of my life. Even, like, vacuuming. I'm with the vacuuming. I don't rush. I move the vacuum slow over the carpet. I'm not hurrying up to vacuum so that I can do the next thing. Nope. All I'm doing is vacuuming. And so the urgency and the hurry and the keeping up with all the things on the list, it's done. I don't think I'll ever go back to living like that because now I'm just, like, in my life, doing what I do, having fun. Sometimes it's kind of boring. But I'm not in a hurry and I'm not rushing and I'm not trying to get some award for the most freaking activity I could possibly do in one day. So now life looks like presence. It's. I'm just in what I'm in, I'm doing. I made a choice to do what I'm doing, and I do it slowly or I do it with patience. It looks like presence. I'm just right where I am. I'm not busy anywhere else. I'm just present in My life. If I'm at the grocery store and I'm standing in line, that's what I'm doing. I'm being present with that experience and with myself within that experience. Experience. Holy moly. This has helped me with my patience. You know, I am one of the most impatient people ever and I have worked so hard on this and the root of it is slowing down, just being willing to live a slower life. I have a lot more peace now than I've ever had before. So if you're one of these people that has been running around, as they say, like a chicken with its head cut off is. It's such a gross saying. Let's not say that anymore, okay? If you're one of these people that stuffs ten pounds in a five pound bag, I'm talking to you. Just try to slow down a little bit. And to this I can hear your reply and it's Rebecca, I have so much stuff to do. And I guess what I have to say to that is, is sometimes having that much stuff to do is not sustainable for your mental health. And so basically what tends to happen is you gotta make choices around that your brain and your body will do better if you run slower. That is some evidence based information right there. Hopefully that helps you if you're feeling overwhelmed or overworked. Slowing everything down just really gives you an opportunity to also just change your perspective about things. But we're always in such a hurry, we have to solve the problem right away. It's been incredibly helpful for me to just live a little slower. To unrank yourself as so darn important at a certain level. You know, like what's important is it being sane or being early or on time or the best prepared person in the room. Your body and your brain can only do so much. Okay, so my second takeaway from this past year of my life is interesting. And it's basically feel your way through. And I'll tell you what I mean by this. I've been a really cognitive based person my entire life. I grew up in a chaotic, unhealthy environment where the adults weren't really adulting. And I thought deeply about everything. And remember, your brain does most of its growth between the ages of 0 and 7. So my early life experience formed a brain that learned at an early age that there was going to be a lot more strategy required to navigating life. And that became a lot of thinking for me. So I am a thinker that thinks and I would say absolutely it's brought me success because Thinking thinkers. We think right and we come up with resonant and smart ideas. And yes, that can lead to success, but also it can make life so much more dramatic to be so thinking oriented. Like everything is something. So I know all of you overthinkers are nodding, nodding because you know what I mean. We just think everything. What I've learned in the past year and really honed is that feeling your way through life is a much more resonant and less complicated way to exist. It's the thinking that gets us into trouble. It's not our resonance or feeling our way through life that gets us into trouble. And some would argue with that. They would say, well, yes, it is because I fell in love with somebody and he was an asshole or whatever. And yep, that's true. That doesn't mean it wasn't an experience that you weren't supposed to have so that you could learn what you wanted and needed in relationship and the next one would have been super healthy and a really good fit. Right? So instead of thinking my way through the past year, I have learned to just feel my way into things. Instead of thinking like, this is what I want to do with my business and I'm going to, I would just be like, no, no, no, no, let's just let that lie and see what becomes so resonant and so, yes, that I cannot wait to have it happen. It's a slower way to go about things for sure. Thinking, analyzing, comparing and worrying about our decisions gives us anxiety. It ruins our relationship with ourself because hello, self doubt around every flipping corner. Whereas learning to feel in my body the way that yes feels and the way that no feels, getting information about what resonates and is like the. The I want to say right, I want to say proper right. And neither one of those is correct because we go on paths that like quote unquote don't work out all the time. It's more of this deeper trust in my ability to navigate what happens next. They talk in mindfulness and Buddhism about the next right choice. Does it mean it's quote unquote right? Nope, it's just the next right choice for me. Right. We don't know how things will turn out, but if we're willing to go on the adventure, you can bet your butt it's going to be interesting. So learning to feel into my body over the past year, even deeper than I already knew how to do, has served me so well. It's lifted the frantic element of things, the time constraints of things. It's lifted my dialogue with myself about what I'm capable of and what I'm not capable of. What I have been doing is sort of just feeling my way through and figuring out along the way what I need to get help with. It's been really fun and really amazing, and I've had to be a lot less bossy and controlling, which is, I think, serving me. And so if you're over there and you're like, rebecca, what are you talking about? Feel my way through. What I'm talking about is what we call somatic work. And I wish I could teach it to you really quickly in this podcast, but I can teach it to you. There's a free class on my website that you can listen to. You'll learn a little bit about what it means, but really it's about being more body oriented with how you experience life than being so mind oriented and thinking oriented about how you experience life. Total game changer. And it brings me to the last thing that I just realized is completely cemented. It's a rewiring that I've been working on for a really long time. And again, I'm 52, so remember that sometimes your growth work takes a lifetime and it's okay. Are you working on it? Great. That's good enough. My third takeaway for you is be kind, not nice. I think at my age, I've just gotten so I'm just over niceties. I'm over people saying what they think I want to hear. And I'm really into like, can we just be honest? If I said something that hurt your feelings, if I did something that was out of line, like, I am a grown woman, I can handle some feedback. I think nice is like, when we try to protect other people from having negative feelings about us, when we try to protect ourself from conflict. Nice is fake. It's over functioning. It's people pleasing. It's doing a bunch of stuff that it's not your business and you shouldn't be doing in the first place, but you are because you're so nice. Kind. Kind is not like that. Kind is the most authentic version of you that exists. It is filled with empathy and understanding for others. But you hold your relationship with yourself and your own well being far ahead of you holding comfort for yourself or for other people. We go a long ways, my friend, every single day to avoid conflict. And I've just decided, like, I just want people to know me as I am. So no more nice. And this year I've just been honest. I've just like reached out to people when I felt like it, not when I thought I had to or should. And I have great relationships and I appreciate that. I've just said no thank you to things that don't seem like fun or that I don't want to do. I don't want to spend time or money doing. I just say no thank you. And people might have feelings about that and I will leave that to them because it's not my business anyways. My goal is just to be authentic, to say what I think and feel and be kind when I say it. I learned this phrase a long time ago in community mental health, and it was say what you mean, mean what you say, but don't be mean when you say it. And I love that I'm going back to that because this year I'm going to let go of faults and be kind to myself by being honest, asking for help when I need it. Don't surround myself with negative, unpleasant people. I'm not comparing myself anymore, ever to anyone, because I'm just me. I'm practicing grace with myself and others. And this year I have a new mantra that I'm going to use for a while until I get the hang of it. And the mantra is that my opinion about life matters way less than my ability to be present. And what I mean by that is that we get lost in our opinion about everything that's happening around us rather than just showing up, seeing what happens and having faith in our ability to just deal with it. So maybe this will be helpful for you as well. That's me, 52 years old. Off we go into another adventurous year. I'm stoked about the year ahead. The podcast is all of a sudden getting out to a shit ton more people than have ever seen it before. If you like this podcast, will you leave a review? Will you forward an episode to a friend? There are 225 sessions of takeout therapy on everything from how to fight with your partner to how to be assertive to leaving a friendship, how to communicate more effectively, how to set good boundaries. I could go on, scroll on down friend and find another episode that will resonate for you and help you on your path. And if you haven't visited my newly revamped takeout therapy website, come on, check it out. Let me know what you think. I'm giving away a class that I have done for years on how to stop overthinking, because that is pretty much the number one ailment that people come to see me with and that, my friend, is why I'm standing here talking to you today. I'll see you again on Monday for a mini session. Thank you so much for spending your time with me today. I really appreciate you being here to do this work. And if you like the podcast, please feel free to give me a quick review or forward it along to a friend. And if you haven't taken my free, newly revamped class that will help you stop overthinking things to death, just grab it@takeouttherapy.com I'm always happy to teach you what I know and remember. While takeout therapy is a great educational resource, always get the level of support that you need for your situation. Head to takeouttherapy.com to stay in the loop and until next time, take really good care of yourself.