Stop Overthinking Get Out of Your Head
Dr. Dawn-Elise Snipes teaches behavioral strategies to stop overthinking: write your thoughts down, set time limits for worrying, break tasks into chunks, and practice tentative action. She covers why we overthink (fear, exhaustion, critical environments) and how it wrecks sleep and focus.
Chapters
But welcome, everybody. I'm glad to have you here on this Thursday. Today we're going to be talking about get out of your head and stop overthinking. And this was an interesting presentation for me to do as a cognitive behavioral person because a lot of the techniques that I use are cognitive in nature. And I started working on them and I'm like, you know what? That's keeping people in their head. So there's a lot of behavioral stuff here. But anyhow, I'm your host, Dr. Donnelly Snipes. So let's talk about why we overthink. And for the individual. There are certain temperaments that tend to really like thinking. People who are intuitive tend to be broad strokes people. We tend to like to think about meta concepts and think about thinking, and that's just kind of how we're wired. Sometimes it's hard for us to get started. We can envision, we can plan, but actually doing something can require a little bit of a push. People who are perceiving tend to be more spontaneous and often think there's going to be plenty of time. So they may just keep getting more information. They don't put a lid on it to say, okay, I have as much information as I'm going to have to make this decision. So if you are in one of those two camps, it's important to know your temperament and work with it. Intuiters. We need to set a goal, you know, once we've thought about it, set time parameters for, okay, how long can I ponder this? And then create a schedule for starting it. That can be helpful. Same thing basically for perceiving people. They want to. It's important for them to set a deadline for when they're going to stop thinking or gathering information and get started. Some people overthink because they have a fear of failure or a fear of success or a fear of rejection. And. And those fears can keep us from stepping outside of our comfort zone. It feels anxiety, provoking to actually start doing something. If we're thinking about it, then we haven't failed, we haven't succeeded. There's no judgment. And it's really important to evaluate your beliefs about failure and rejection and what that means, and we're going to talk about that more. Exhaustion is another reason people may overthink. They start thinking about what they've got to do and then they're like, oh my gosh, I just. That's overwhelming. There's. That takes so much energy. I wonder how I could do that easier. I wonder. And start pondering Ways to try to take shortcuts. And before they know it, they've spent hours potentially thinking about how to get it done quicker when they probably could have had it done already. Which takes us to lack of time. Some people overthink because they don't plan, they don't have good time management. It's not because it's their temperament. It's just they have too many things going on, too many proverbial irons in the fire, and so they start thinking about doing something and then it goes to the wayside and then they start thinking about it again, but, but they never actually move into action. Your environment can also prompt overthinking. If you are surrounded by models of people who overthink, then you might have learned that behavior, you know, that makes perfect sense. If you are surrounded by people who like to pontificate, you may get stuck in your own head. And it's important to step back and recognize is this behavior, is this staying in my head, helping me achieve what I want to? Your environment can also keep you from starting and keep you overthinking if it is highly critical or if there are conditions of worth. So if there is fear that if you start something that somebody is going to criticize it, you may spend a lot of time trying to figure out, okay, how can I make sure I do this right the first time? When we overthink, and we're going to talk about how to address those in a minute, but when we overthink, it has a ripple effect. When we overthink, we're keeping our mind going. We have thoughts, you know, jumping around in our head. We start thinking about all the possible outcomes and it can get overwhelming. That can add stress. When we add stress, we have that cascade that we've talked about so many times where it keeps our HPA axis revved. It can prevent us from being able to relax to get to sleep, because as soon as you lay down, you start thinking about it again. When our sleep is disrupted, our circadian rhythms are disrupted, our energy is disrupted, our immune system becomes weaker, our mood tends to become less happy. We have foggy headedness because we're not getting that quality sleep, which, you know, all those things combined tend to mean we often have a lot less energy to devote to the task and to devote to other things in our life that we need to get done, including relationships. So there's a very insidious ripple effect of spiraling thoughts, especially if they're toxic. So the first thing that I would say is tame your monkey Mind. And what I mean by that is recognize when you've got. When you're thinking and you're pondering and you've got all these things going around in your head. Sometimes your brain is saying, I can't keep track of all that. Write it down. I can't tell you how many people have found that this is helpful. I never kept a journal, never kept a diary, probably never will. But if you give me a whiteboard and a dry erase marker, I can make lists until kingdom come because I need to get it out so I can see it. And a lot of people find that, you know, it's not the same as journaling, but if they get those thoughts out on paper, their concerns, their, you know, hypotheses that could go this way, that way, or six ways till Sunday, then they can better conceptualize it and do something with it. They're not trying to hold on to it and juggle it and think at the same time. So that can be helpful. So get the facts in the present. What are the facts about this situation, this job that needs to be done? What have you, what do you have that. What resources do you have at your disposal? What, you know, tools, skills, whatever. What can you do? What are your options? You may think of 17 solutions, but five of them, you just don't have the funding to accomplish or you don't have the skills to accomplish. Okay, well, we're going to mark those off, but of the rest of them, that's your menu of options. Evaluating which one, you know, looking at it and going, all right, which one am I going to choose? And it's important to set a time limit. And then you want to look at the probability that things will go right. A lot of times we overthink because we're concerned that if we make the wrong decision that we're forever committed and that if we, whatever decision we're going to make, we're afraid it's going to be the wrong one. Well, it could be. There is a possibility that you could make the wrong decision. But what is the probability? Probability that the decision you make, taking action, will lead to catastrophe. And I usually say focus on the probability that things will go right, because I like to say, well, there's a 90% chance that this will go off without a hitch. That sounds really encouraging, as opposed to a 10% chance that it'll flop. You know, I like to look at the positive, but that's just me. However you want to look at your probabilities is your perspective. Then beta test It Breathe. You know, when you start overthinking, you start noticing that you're stuck in your own head. All right, let's just breathe it out. So breathe in for four, hold for four, exhale for four, do that a couple times. Get your HPA axis to calm down. Tamp down that fight or flight response so you can get into your wise mind. Evaluate the facts of the situation. Think for a set time about the possible solutions. So instead of saying, well, I need to think about this for a while, think for a set time. My old boss used to like to ponder and he was one that would get stuck in his own head some and you know, amazing supervisor. And I remember, I learned kind of the hard way over several years that it took him a while to answer because he wanted to ponder all the possible outcomes. So it was important. Sorry, it was important for me to ask him something that I wanted a response on, on Friday and then I would get an answer on Monday. That would give him time over the weekend to ponder it. I knew he needed that 48, 72 hour window. That's a lot of time. You may choose to give yourself an hour or sometimes a weekend. Like if you're deciding what you're going to major in in college, you probably want to take the weekend or maybe a week to think about it. But at some point you need to have a deadline where you decide, okay, I'm going to act, but act tentatively. Be willing to, you know, drop back and try something different if what you do isn't working. If you decide on a major and you get in there and after the first semester you're really hating it, you start the second semester and it's not getting any better, then you might need to rethink. But most things, not everything, but most things that we make decisions on, we are not committed to forever and ever and always just that's the way it is. So there most things we can back out of and try a different option. I am tend to be on the judging side. You know, I like structure and I don't handle unplanned events very well. So I always consider a backup plan. You know, if we're going, driving to the conference and the car gets a flat, you know, how is it that we're going to get the rest of the way to the conference? And I know in the back of my mind, you know, we can call the aaa, we can call an Uber, there there are options. If this job, if I take this job and it doesn't work out, what can I Do look for another job. You know, anywhere you go, even if you take a job and it moves you across the country, if you get into that job and it's very unhealthy, it's toxic for some reason, you have options. Pretty much anywhere you go, there are going to be options for work and there's always options for online work. Develop a growth mindset. Focus on progress, not perfection. When you start doing something, you may make a mistake, you may trip over your own two feet. However, recognizing it and learning from it will help you move towards being an expert at whatever it is or making the decision or doing it 100% correctly or whatever. Develop distress tolerant thoughts. And I know that's in your head, but if you put these thoughts in your head, then all the other thoughts don't have room. So remind yourself, I am willing, I am capable, I can embrace uncertainty. I hate uncertainty, but I can embrace it. I can say, all right, you know, I can do this, I am what I do, not my thoughts. So I can think about doing something amazing, but if all I do is sit on the couch and think about it, then I am somebody sitting on the couch. I'm, I haven't done anything. So if it's important to me to do something, then I need to make sure that my actions bear it out. I will keep going, I'll endure, and I can learn from everything, even my mistakes. And I need to remind myself of those things because you're not going to be perfect. I remember before I went in to defend my dissertation, I was scared to death. And my husband pointed out to me, he's like, you do realize that you've been at this university for like a million years and they're kind of invested in you succeeding, right? And I was like, oh, well, that makes sense. And you've done the work, you know your stuff, you did your, you did your ex, your study, and so you're ready. And I had another friend of mine who was a cheerleader. Thank you. Who reminded me that in that dissertation defense, one of the things they were going to look for was for me to actually say, I don't know the answer. For me to know the limits of my own confidence and my own knowledge and ideally to know where to find the answers. And, and so I went in prepared for that, recognizing that they weren't expecting me to be the next Carl Rogers. They were expecting me to know my stuff and know the limits of my knowledge. Practice, time management and chunking. When you're stuck in your own head, sometimes it can feel onerous. To get started, chunk it. What can you do in 15 minutes? What can you do in 30 minutes? Whatever your time tolerance is, and then give yourself a pat on the back, a reward for doing that if you need to. For a lot of people, chunking it can help spring cleaning. And obviously we don't usually get stuck in our head too much over spring cleaning, but it's a good example. When you're spring cleaning, plan on doing one room a day. That way it doesn't feel so overwhelming. If you're writing a report or a grant, you know, set it so you do the introduction one day, you do the executive summary one day you do and you chunk it. So it feels a lot more manageable. You're not thinking, oh my gosh, I've got to sit down and write an 87 page document tonight that can help you get out of your own head. But until you get started, that is going to be weighing on you. You don't want to be stuck with it weighing on you, dreading it because it's sucking your energy. You're carrying it around like an albatross. Once you get started, a lot of times you find that it's not as bad as you thought. You may not love it, you know, you may not love it, but once you get started, it's not as bad as you thought. So just get started and do it. Whenever you have something that you're stuck in your head about, maybe it's trying to figure out what you're going to write your report on or something. Again, set a deadline and then force yourself to start. You don't have to necessarily submit that first one, but once you start getting the juices flowing, a lot of times you can get going and finally ask for help. Sometimes it's just emotional support, somebody to help you see some of those objective facts that are like, can help you recognize that this is not. If something bad happens, this is not the end of the world. Or sometimes you need help, you actually need assistance doing something. If you have never written a grant before and you're supposed to start writing a grant. And SAMHSA grants are usually 80 to 150 pages, for example. And for a lot of people, they'd see that and they'd go, oops, no, there's no way I can do that. So it was important to have a mentor, have a guide that could help them figure out how to chunk it, understand what the reviewers were looking for and in each section, and then walk through it and get feedback on the way. So it's, you know, you don't have to do something completely on your own. You can seek assistance, you can seek mentorship, you can seek, you know, camaraderie that can help you get going and get moving and even give you some good advice about what worked for them. So those are a few tips for helping you get out of your head. You notice I didn't focus a lot on changing your cognition so much and really addressing those core thoughts because this was really about stopping thinking and starting acting. So the behavioral part of cognitive behavioral. And again, it can feel, feel very overwhelming, very intimidating. But it's important to or so it's important to make sure that you've got support, you've got a cheering squad that's there for you and they can say, you know what, try it. If it doesn't work out or if it starts going south, we can work on it together. And a lot of times that can help people feel a little bit more at ease. All right, so turning to the questions, what is some advice for clients on managing cravings? Cravings are like urges and so urge surfing can be very helpful. Recognizing that like you may have an urge, if a bee lands on your arm, you may have an urge to swat it off. Recognizing that if you do that, you're probably going to get stung. If you are patient and let it fly off on its own, then neither one of you will get hurt. And it happens. Recognizing that urges dissipate, envisioning it like a wave coming in and cresting and going out. Recognizing that if we don't feed our urges, if we don't keep dwelling on them, that they will generally dissipate in, you know, 10 to 20 minutes. It's also important to have distress tolerance skills to be able to sit with the emotion while you're experiencing, to sit with the urge and feel competent that and confident that that urge is not going to overpower you. So distress tolerance skills can really come in handy especially for urges because distracting yourself can give that urge time to dissipate so you can get into your wise mind and make better decisions. Hello muhammad. Hello kinder. I am not familiar with school like teacher programming, so I don't even know what body supervises that. So I'm not sure where I would give you recommendations for that. But congratulations. We do need good teachers and you know, it is a big step going from the two year college to the four year college. Hello, Ethan and Tanya from Australia. Vishal. Hi Gary, welcome from Alaska. And Darlene from Norway. Andy, Lois from Jamaica, you are quite welcome for these presentations. I, you know, try to do things that are. That are on point. So if there. Again, if there are questions you have, please feel free to bring them or you can submit them on the community tab and I will add them to the script or whatever you want to call it for the upcoming live presentation. Your sweet friar. What is my suggestion about working from home? Oh, that's such a toughie. Working from home. It can be really hard to get motivated. One of the things that I have found is helpful is when I work from home or I homeschooled my kids, so when it was time for them to work, you know, every morning they got up, they had a routine, they got up, they ate breakfast, they got dressed, and then they went into their workspace and we had a classroom set up where they had their computers and their resources and things. When I used to work from home, I would do the same thing. I had a space that was dedicated to work, and it would be as if I was actually going to an office. I would get up, I would put my. My, you know, work clothes on and. And I would go in and do that. One of the There are two challenges, getting started and stopping. So getting out of your head and getting started when you're working from home is part of partly a matter of disciplining yourself to treat it like you were actually going to an office outside of your home. If you've got other people in the house, it's also important to have them treat it like you were working outside of the home. Is this something you would call me for if I were at work in downtown? Those things can be helpful. Another thing that I find when I work from home is I can find 17 things to do when I start getting tired or getting bored with what I'm doing. Which again, is why having a dedicated space, preferably a dedicated room that you can shut the door and you don't see the laundry, you're not seeing what's, you know, on the kitchen counter. None of that stuff is there. You are in your zone, if you will. That can be very helpful recognizing, like, even, like, when you're working at an office. Keeping your circadian rhythms stable is also essential. Make sure you're still going out and getting that sunlight in the morning to wake yourself up, getting that, you know, bright light to let your body know, hey, it's time to be awake, and then starting to wind the light down later. As far as stopping. A lot of people have difficulty leaving work at work when their work is in their home. So again, if you have a dedicated space, if you're lucky enough to have that, shut the door. If you're not, pack up your laptop, put it in your briefcase and put it away so it's not sitting there spread out all over the dining room table because that signifies an end to your day. Try not if at all possible and not everybody can do this because they live in an efficiency or something. But try not to do your work in your bedroom because it makes the bedroom, it associates the bedroom with stressful things and work and gotta do's which can make it much more difficult to get to sleep sleep. So you know, if you have to work from home and you don't have a space you can dedicate, try to do that. Some people, and I think they're called secretary's desks, some people will get a secretary's desk that has a roll down that they can have their laptop on and they can roll it down if they don't want to have to pack it up and unpack it every single day. But those, those are some tips that can be helpful if you are an extrovert like I am. That can be another challenge to working from home. And so it's important to figure out how to get your extrovert needs met. And it may not be through work, you may not be able to video chat with your colleagues or something. So figuring out what it is that you need to do to get those needs met in a meaningful way and maybe even brainstorming with your supervisor if you have one, you know, what can we do? Can we have a get together, even a virtual get together of the team, Have a team meeting once a week where we can, you know, go over business, but then also, you know, be human with each other. Because I'd like to catch up with Sally, I haven't seen her in 18 months, something like that. Unhelpful overthinking is fryer also linked to self limiting beliefs. Because a lot of times, going back to the reasons that we overthink, a lot of times we're afraid of failure or afraid of rejection. And so we get caught up thinking about it, trying to figure out how we can avoid that instead of trying to figure out how can I do it and cope with anything that I encounter. Overthinking can be an anxiety response because again it keeps you safe. If you're thinking about it then nobody can see it, you haven't tried to do it. So there's nothing for anybody to see, to judge, to reject to criticize. So some people get stuck overthinking because of their anxiety about evaluation, rejection, etc. The gift says they're stressed right now because of overthinking, and they're one of the people that are unproductive whenever they're stressing. Not having emotional support can be draining most of the time. And yes it can. And so one thing that you might do again is get whatever you're thinking about, get it out on paper or on a whiteboard where you can see it, and then you can decide how you're going to deal with it. Either write it on index cards so you can move it around and prioritize. Reach out to people if you can. Even there are support groups you can reach out to online for different things. There are, you know, you may have some connections on Instagram or Facebook or whatever that you can connect with and maybe, you know, get some independent support. Thank you, Saskia. And that's one way to get started. You recognize you're unproductive, but until you can resolve whatever you're overthinking about, you're going to stress on it, which is going to keep you unproductive. So you've got to figure out where in there you're going to break that loop. Getting at making sure you're doing as much as you can to get good quality sleep, stay hydrated, eat well, maybe consider asking a friend or a colleague to help you make a plan to get started can also be be helpful. And I know I'm speaking in generalities, because there's so many things you can overthink. You can overthink about what somebody's look meant when they looked at you today. You know, what, did I offend them? What did that mean? You're stuck in your own head thinking about that. And in which case, again, you want to go back to what are the facts? What do you know? And since that tends to be sort of steeped in cognitive distortions, you also might ask yourself what are three alternate explanations for why that person might have had that look on their face? You know, maybe they just bit into something sour. I don't know. You might overthink about the vacation you're going to take or the house you're going to buy or the, you know, we can go on. So there are a lot of different reasons people overthink. And obviously this presentation is not covering all of them. But if you think of your thoughts like balls, and when they're in your head, you're juggling them and you're having to try to keep them from falling on the ground and, you know, overthinking, you're just juggling and you don't feel like you can stop because if you stop, the balls are going to fall. So getting those balls and putting them on the table can sometimes make it easier to clear your mind and brainstorm different solutions. Finding healthy friends can be a challenge, and I'm not laughing at that. I'm laughing at the fact that so many of us are unhealthy right now that it's important to recognize what you're looking for in a friend, but also recognize that most of us have some element of baggage that, that we're carrying with us. And that can also be comforting when you're interacting with other people. Recognizing the Instagram facade, what they present on social media, what they present even in real life, is often their best face, their best presentation, and, and recognizing that most people have stuff going on their lives can be. Can be comforting because we don't feel like we're trying to connect with somebody who's perfect. That can be helpful. I would encourage you. You know, I don't know what your interests are and whether you're interested in online or face to face meetings. There are a lot of different groups on various social media sites that you can join and start texting with people. My son is really into Discord, and some of you may know Discord, others may not. It's basically like. Is it basically like a chat room and I don't understand enough about it? He can get me into it, but, you know, that's one of those I haven't wrapped my head around yet, I'll admit. But Discord has been amazing for him, increasing his social network and his connections and his comfort around people without having to go meet them face to face. Face to face things. You know, I happen to like meetup.com I have joined a couple of clubs on there, a hiking club, a kayaking club that, you know, there are some really nice people that I've met and it gives me options of things that I can go do. Oh, and there's a new app that is available and I'm sure it's on the iPhone, it's on the Android. It's called Friend Zone, just like it sounds. It's for people who are looking to make platonic friendships with people who have similar interests. And it's not overly active right now, but the people I have interacted with have been very nice. It's not a dating app masquerading As a friendship app, it's actually friendship. You know, people haven't been inappropriate at all. So friend zone is another one that you might consider. Like I said, people that I've interacted with have been really nice, and I've had some great conversations so far. How could we treat someone who moves from overthinking to raging in a short space of time? When somebody is overthinking, they're already. Their fight or flight response is already ramped up, and that overthinking is adding heat to their pressure cooker. And. Which tells me a lot of times when people are in that space, they're already basically ready to rage. They just haven't started venting it yet. And recognizing that can be important to encourage the person to figure out how to let it out, whether it's writing it down or even giving them, you know, 15 minutes to basically word vomit and get it out. And then you can, you know, talk in a more mindful way about what's going on. But again, you know, if the person is not willing to seek help, then the biggest thing, the most important thing, is for you to maintain safety. And. And if you recognize that when they start overthinking, you see that you need to do what you need to do in order to keep yourself safe emotionally as well as physically. Moving on after a breakup can be extremely painful. When you break up, it's a loss. It's a something that you've got to grieve. And I recently did a video on dealing with. Dealing with breakups. So you might check that video out. But it's going to be important to be compassionate with yourself and recognize that for whatever reason, at this point in time, that relationship is not working out. And figure out what can you do to improve your next moment. What is it that you can invest your energy in that can help you move toward the life that you want? Letting off steam, ranting, you know, especially if nobody's around, you know, there's definitely not a problem with that. Some people find it very cathartic to just, you know, let it all out. I've been known occasionally on my drive home from work to kind of do that. So, Billy. No, if you're doing it in a way that doesn't infringe or impose on someone's emotional or physical boundaries, you know, you're not yelling at them or you're not yelling around them where it makes them stressed, there's nothing wrong with that. Now, my stepfather used to occasionally do that, and it would trigger my mother because it Reminded her of. Of when her dad used to go fly into a rage. So they needed to have a conversation about that. And my stepfather became much more cognizant of what he was doing, and he tried not to do it around her. But she was also became aware of the fact that what she was feeling was reminiscent. It had to do with her father, not with him, because my stepfather was a great big old teddy bear. So there are a lot of circumstances around venting that can make it unhealthy or damaging to relationships. But there is a time and a place where it can be very cathartic. I had one client that was in residential, and she had finished residential, and she got diagnosed with this aggressive form of breast cancer. And she was like, really? You know, I just went through treatment, and so we were talking, and she had. Hadn't really cried, hadn't really yelled. And not everybody does that right away. Maybe she was still in denial. I wasn't sure. And I asked her, I'm like, do you need to get some stuff out? Because, I mean, there were 85 people on the unit, so it wasn't like she could just vent on the unit. And if she did it in one of our offices, everybody would hear. And she's like, yeah, I really need to get some stuff out. So we went over to another building that had a room that we could go into, and she was able to just let it loose, and she found. Felt like she had let. Let a weight go when she was finished doing that, and it was easier for her to deal with everybody else and all the other shenanigans on the unit once she was able to just get that out. Let's see, What are my thoughts about responding to emotional conversations over text? A friend will not pick up the phone to talk over video chat, which makes it difficult to recognize emotions. It can be really difficult to recognize emotions. So what I do is paraphrase, you know, if I'm trying to identify how they're feeling, I will ask, you know, it sounds like you're feeling trapped, or it sounds like you're feeling overwhelmed right now in order to get the words out there, Because I don't read emojis very well either. I'm just. I'm still not fully into the 21st century, so I would encourage you to do that. Some people do not feel comfortable talking about feelings, and it's important to be respectful there, too. And some people don't like engaging on the phone or on video chat because they feel it's too personal and it's something to consider with that person, what you need as well as what they need in the relationship. John says, I have a strong urge to connect with people, but my past won't let me. How can I overcome this tug of war inside me? Well, on the surface that sounds something like an avoidant attachment style. I don't know that that's for sure. But when people prohibit themselves, they stay aloof, they stay detached from others. It often indicates that they have some core traumas from prior relationships that still need to be processed because their beliefs about the relationships, their beliefs about others and the safety of getting into relationships are beliefs that tell them it's unsafe. And it's important to when you get into a relationship to be able to feel safe, to be able to feel like you're not going to be abandoned. So I would suggest looking at some of the videos on abandonment anxiety and maybe considering ways that you might start addressing the trauma. And last, last week you all requested that I do a video on addressing trauma. So I did do that and it was released a couple of days ago. So those might be a few videos that you, you can start taking a look at. And with past trauma, I am a big believer in emdr. So once you start getting an idea of what those core traumas are, if you want to start processing them and unhooking that memory from the physiological stress response, EMDR can be really helpful. A lot of people fryer have realized how much they actually appreciate face to face communication over the last two years. So yeah, it's kind of interesting. I've become much more of a video chat person myself. Hello, Paper Jawa. Thank you for joining us today. Saskia, you know, I don't have a problem with your texts. I, I really think that if you feel you need to explain yourself, then you take all the time that you need to explain yourself. And the person you're talking to hopefully is sensitive enough to recognize that you're trying to communicate something and communicate it clearly. And text is not easy for a lot of people to actually effectively communicate the dimensions of what they're thinking and feeling. Now you may have some people that are critical, but that seems to be that's going to happen with everything. And Dr. Seuss had a saying, those who mind don't matter and those who matter don't mind. And not to put light on what you're saying because I hear the anxiety about wanting to get things out right out correctly. However, I think it's also important to recognize that the people you're Talking to hopefully are compassionate enough and self aware enough that they can be respectful and listen to everything you have to say. Bill, my son, does the same thing. Bless his little heart. He will rant. And, you know, sometimes I just have to holler up to him because, you know, he's upstairs. I'm like, everything okay up there? He's like, yeah, I'm just ranting about so and so. And I'm like, okay down here if you want to talk. But as long as it's not triggering anybody, you know, like I said, it can be very, very cathartic. Thank you, counselor Guy. Hello, Fedora. What do you do when someone only communicates through the words of songs and sayings? Sometimes people have difficulty finding their own words, and so they find songs and sayings that communicate what they're trying to say, which could mean that they have difficulty with their emotional intelligence, or it could mean that they think somebody else said it better than they did. If it bothers you, it's something to bring up with them and ask them, you know, tell me in your own words what you think is what's going on with you right now. You know, I connect very strongly with music, so a lot of times when I'm thinking about something, certain refrains from songs will reverberate with me. And I may share those with people who listen to the same artists that I do. But, you know, obviously, I have no problem speaking, so they'll get kind of a double whammy. But like I said, if it bothers you, obviously it's something that might be worth bringing up with that person and telling them that you want to know them more intimately and. And you're wondering what they are, what their thoughts are on the situation. Texts can be very impersonal. And if you find that communicating through text is bothersome and you're worried that somebody didn't understand what you said, you can always check in to make sure that they didn't take it wrong. So you can put your mind at ease. What's an effective way to stop ruminating over past failures? A lot of times we feel we put conditions of worth on ourself, and we feel bad about past failures. We're angry at ourself, or we feel guilty that we failed. And it's important to examine, you know, that situation, recognize it's something in the past. It can't be changed. You can learn from it so you don't do it again. You can, and you can address how it's impacting you in the present. And Right now it sounds like it's draining your energy in the present, or so is dwelling on it? Is ruminating on it an effective use of your energy? Or are there other things that you could use your energy on? You can also examine the past failures and ask yourself, you know, what did I learn from that? Look to other people who have failed. You know, Michael Jordan failed a bunch of times. So I remember there was one commercial where he was talking about his failures. But look to famous people, successful people, and you'll find that most of them have failed multiple times. They may have failed in business, they may have failed in relationships. They may have failed, you know, in different things. So also examining why the failure is tagging on why is it so hard to forgive yourself for that failure? Kata says, I do much better writing my feelings, so texting them helps me. I can be slower and choose my words more carefully. So that can be really helpful for some people. And I think part of it depends on whether you're an auditory learner or a visual learner. If you are a visual person, if you have no problem sitting down and tapping out a text or writing a blog posts or something, then text is probably easier. If you're an auditory learner, it probably is more difficult because you pay so much more attention to sounds and phonetics and those things. Is it a bad idea to look for friends or relationships while dealing with trauma? That's a loaded question. Recognizing when you're dealing with trauma, it's exhausting, and you are going to. It's going to require a lot of energy, which means it's going to keep you from being able to give as much energy to relationships. When you are going through trauma, there are periods where you may feel vulnerable, so it's important to evaluate your relationships to make sure they're safe and you're not just finding any old shoulder to grab onto. When you're going through trauma and when you work through the trauma, a lot of times you change some. And it's important in my mind that the person or persons that you're in a relationship with are aware of that and are supportive of that change so they can nurture you while you're going through it and embrace the new, you know, butterfly, if you will, that emerges. So that is the long answer to, I think when you're going through trauma, it's extremely helpful to have friends, to have support groups to have connections with. Whether it's advisable to get into another intimate relationship during that time is going to be an individual decision. But Like I said, it can be. It can get kind of dicey because the other person may not understand or be able. Not that they're trying to be mean, but they may not be able to understand what you need and what you're going through. Likewise, like I said, sometimes when we feel vulnerable, we're more likely to get into a relationship where we're settling instead of one that is, you know, a great fit. So friendships, I think, are great relationships. I would carefully consider it. Giselle says when she doesn't feel like she has a safe space to speak her mind with someone, she plays a song that can express what they can't, what she can't. And that can be, like I said, sometimes. The artists have already said it so incredibly well. There are a couple of songs that I really love that the videos are just so artistically done and so steeped in imagery that, you know, I love watching them and they speak volumes. Could I say all of it? Yeah, probably. But to me, the song is so powerful, so that's not how I communicate about everything. And it's. You know, my husband really does not like heavy metal, so I generally don't share those songs with him. I use my words instead of my songs. But for people who are symbiotic with the. With that song or with that artist, then that. That can be a helpful way to get things. Get things across. When life feels like one big no, how can I learn to accept a yes? That's a difficult one. And I'm guessing here what you're saying is it feels like everything you try, you run into a roadblock. And so when a yes happens, it's scary. It's like, okay, when's the other shoe gonna drop? Use the facts. You know, probability says that if you had a bunch of no's, you were due for a yes. Look at the facts in this situation. Is this a unicorn? Is there a reason? There probably is a reason why you got a yes and then keep a log or keep data on the success. So if you know you've been in. I'll stick with the relationship theme here. If you've been in multiple relationships and you get in them and they fail, and you get in them and they fail, and you're in this one now and it feels great and you're waiting for that other shoe to drop instead of anticipating and waiting and expecting. Expecting this person to do what everybody else has done. Stay mindful in the moment about what is going on and appreciating that this may be the different one. This may be the black swan, the unicorn, whatever imagery you want to use with that. Those are the two things that I generally try to do is focus on facts and stay stay in the present. Not expecting this situation to follow suit of all the other situations that came before it. Thank you Mr. Doom Guy. I do have a couple of videos on working with people who are neuro atypical and helping parents with children who have autism. Is there something special specific about autism that you are interested in? And hang on here, if you go to pubmed, if you just type in pubmed it will come up. You don't need to remember all the other garbage because Google will auto populate it for you and then type in a U T I S M autism and I always click free full text because I don't want to take their word for it and just read the abstract. This can give you some information. You know, it's a lot of information just about autism in general. And again if you have something specific let me know and I will try to research that. T. Lynn I agree with you. Mantras can be very helpful. Going back to like these distress tolerant thoughts, I'm willing, I'm capable, I can embrace uncertainty, I will keep going, I can learn from everything. Whatever it is that you keep telling yourself. Some people just make it simple and they go I got this and keep repeating it to themselves until they get get finished. But that can certainly silence your brain. Can't focus on that and something else at the same time. Try singing thinking about what you've got to do at work tomorrow and singing the ABCs at the same time. My guess is you'll find it extraordinarily challenging if you can do it at all. Because your brain can't focus on two different verbal lines actively at the same time. It can passively notice the television while you're talking to somebody, but it has difficulty actively forming two different verbal trains of thought at the same time. Getting your partner to be emotionally supportive can be very challenging. But one of the things I would say is if that partner wants to be supportive and a lot of times they do, they just don't know how. So communicating to them, you know, going through the love languages, identifying what your love languages are, communicating to them, what you need, what does support look like to you when you get upset, when, what do you need them to do? Tell them not everybody knows what you're needing. Sometimes people, you know, when somebody starts to cry, the other person's like I don't know what to do with that. Just Stop. Please stop crying. Because they don't know how to deal with it. They don't have the skills or their family always responded by saying, get over it. So it is important to not throw the baby out with the bathwater and make sure that you have communicated to that person, okay, this is what I need in terms of support, and this is what it looks like. And then they can decide whether they're going to try or not. Friar says he'd never peg me as a metalhead. Yeah, you know, the 80s all the way up through, you know, five finger death punch, disturbed hailstorm. Yeah, I can rock it loud. Alrighty, everybody. I have hit my bewitching hour, but I really appreciate you all being here and being so interactive today. As always, if you have questions that I didn't get to today or that you want me to do some specific research on, on the community tab on the YouTube, on my YouTube page, you can send me a message that way and I will try to look it up. Otherwise, remember, every Thursday, well, almost every Thursday, I will be doing this live. I do have a conference coming up October 19th through the 23rd. So that week we will not be doing this live because I will be doing an actual face to face. Oh, my gosh. Live presentation. So have a great day, everybody. Stay safe, and I'm sending you thoughts of peace, health and contentment.
