Essential Discourse With Bruce Smith
Essential Discourse With Bruce Smith
Stop OverThinking: Break Free
Ever catch yourself spiraling into a black hole of 'what ifs' and endless doubt? Trust me, you're not alone. Today, we're diving headfirst into the all-too-common struggle of overthinking!
Hey everyone! Welcome back to The Essential Discourse Podcast. I am your host, Bruce Smith!
Overthinking causes many people to fail in various aspects of life. Relationships suffer or, worse, are destroyed because of it. Overthinking causes some to have severe battles with depression, self-confidence, and more.
In this short, relevant, powerful, and enlightening episode, I dive deep into the pervasive issue of overthinking, a mental habit that can cripple our minds and hinder our everyday lives. From personal anecdotes to societal influences, I explore the roots and repercussions of overthinking, discussing how it manifests in relationships and everyday scenarios.
I emphasize how overthinking can stem from fear and recount its detrimental effects—from missed opportunities to isolation and self-sabotage. I also highlight the importance of managing this condition, advocating for professional help when necessary, and offering practical advice for building self-confidence and fostering a healthy mindset.
We've all been there—lying awake at night, dissecting every little detail, and letting our minds run wild with anxiety. This sets the stage for our most significant critic to reign supreme without proper perspective or logic.
Are you ready to break free from the paralyzing clutches of overthinking? Tune in, and let’s tackle this mental monster together. Let's discover ways to break free from overthinking and transform your mental landscape.
And hey, don’t forget to visit edpshow.com and join our growing community. Follow us on Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, and YouTube so you never miss an update. Let’s turn those chaotic thoughts into constructive actions, right here on The Essential Discourse Podcast!
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Sincerely,
Bruce S.
bruce@edpshow.com
@BruceDaTruth2 [Instagram, Facebook, and TikTok]
@EssentialDiscoursePodcastMedia [YouTube]
You're listening to Essential Discourse with Bruce Smith. This is the podcast that examines the perplexities of real life from a holistic perspective. Bruce is committed to delivering honest and crucial dialogue that is transformative. And with his guests, will not only identify problems, but also bring forward solutions that are relevant, restorative, reasonable and reliable. Thanks for listening. Let's return to the podcast. Here's your host, Bruce Smith. What's happening, peoples? How y'all doing? This is Bruce Smith with the Essential Discourse podcast. Look, if you've been following me at all on, Instagram, Facebook, or TikTok, you know that I've been talking about, overthinking. Overthinking. Overthinking. Say it with me, over thinking. And today we just wanna talk about, that in greater detail on this episode of essential discourse podcast. Overthinking. Man, it can be a crutch. It can be a, cast. It can be a ball and chain, on your body, mentally, which can cause you to be, a quadriplegic, paralyzed, because you're constantly overthinking, overthinking, Overthinking. It has a negative effect on many people. There are people in the scientific community that believe that too much thinking is a disease. Overthinking is now, one of the criterias that mental health professionals use to recognize early signs of mental illness. And you just think about it. Just think about it. All the times that you've had conversations, or you may have said this yourself, I'm in a bad headspace. Or say your spouse, your boyfriend, girlfriend says something, and they mean absolutely nothing about it, but in your mind, you're trying to analyze the hidden meaning and the hidden motives for what they said or didn't say. Overthinking. And a lot of overthinking this is just me. I'm not a medical professional, but this is just me. I think that a lot of overthinking is a result of what we let into our eye gates, into our ear gates from the things that we view and see on television and social media. Many of us believe that if, it's just relationship from a relationship standpoint. As an example, many of us believe that if he ain't opening the car doors, if he ain't constantly telling me I'm beautiful, if he ain't constantly up onto me, well, he must be thinking about something else. Or she she doesn't get dressed around the house the way that she gets dressed when we're when we're talking about going somewhere. She doesn't she doesn't greet me with a with a big old hug when I walk in the door. She must be thinking about somebody else. These are all, all, all images and scenarios that have been played out over and over and over on social media and on TV. Just think about many of the, great love stories that we have, right? Pretty Woman, Cheater, Promiscuous Lifestyle on both parts. The notebook, right? A cheater and, a heartbreaker. And these are the things that we romanticize in our minds, right? And you get to overthinking, well, if they can have that life, I should be able to have that life, or it should be the exact same way with me. And then you put in social media, man, where you have these people who are basically acting. These are amateur actors who have a platform whose whose job is to influence the way that you think. Now that's already a problem if you are a over thinker, and now you have you've letting people who don't know anything about you affect the way that you think. They influence the way that you think. So let's talk about it. Let's talk about it real quick. Over over overthinking. Overthinking is to think much about something, to put too much time into thinking about or analyzing something in a way that is more harmful than helpful. It's more harmful than helpful. Overthink a situation or a problem. You know, we make the problem bigger than what it is. We we make a mountain out of a molehill. I know that we've all heard that statement. Right? Someone who overthinks and worries too much overthinks leads to worrying, and now you're worrying and now you're you're harming yourself. You are constantly imagining the most negative things that could happen, the most awful things that could happen, the most non advantageous things that could happen. I was a terrible actor when I went to New York. So I'm going to be a terrible actor in Chicago, in Austin, in Arizona because it happened to me once and I had a negative experience. It's it's it's gonna happen again. And, I just keep thinking. I keep thinking about it. And, I put too much thought into that instead of just having a bad evening, which brings us to, you know, current events, which brings us to current events. President debate, the presidential debate not too long ago. Joe Biden had a poor performance. He had a poor performance, but Joe isn't overthinking it. The media and potential supporters are overthinking that. No. He had a bad performance. It happens. No athlete, no athlete anywhere on earth, whether it be soccer, tennis, basketball, football, baseball, cricket, crocheting, badminton, pickleball, no athlete has a a plus game every time out. Mark Michael Jordan missed, you know, Kobe missed and and and laid some eggs, you know. Shaquille O'Neal, he missed. Charles Barkley, he missed. This this kid now Anthony Edwards, he didn't have a good series. He didn't have a good night, most nights against Dallas in the playoffs. But does that make him any less of an effective or or or bet or a great basketball player? No. But you know what? If he overthinks it, now his confidence is shot. And, that's what we do as individuals. We give too much attention to the negative stuff. We give too much attention to the things that we can't control versus the things that we can control. And it's sad. It's sad. So what causes this this this this action of overthinking? I think it's fear. It's fear. It's fear failure. It's fear not being accepted. The fear of being rejected. It's fear. It is fear. Plain and simple. I think we are afraid of not being appreciated, not being valued because of, like I said, in the illustration that I gave you earlier about the debate one bad performance, one mistake, one misstep And now, we think that we're being judged by that for the rest of our existence. In the military, we used to have a saying that was that I used to think was true. You can do 99 things well and do one thing bad, and that's what they're gonna slam you against the wall for. Now, that was true that was true amongst poor leadership, but I can't control poor leadership, you know, I can't control poor leadership, but I can control me. I can learn from that mistake and not let the and not make the same mistake again. Right? So the results of overthinking the results of overthinking are you miss opportunities because you're so you're so you're so stuck up here. You miss opportunities. You miss opportunities to do things that, you know, everyday people would probably kill to do but because you're overthinking you're overthinking that opportunity passes you by And who's to say that opportunity will come back into the arena of your life? But you're overthinking. You're overthinking. Another thing, you miss out on experiences. You miss out on what could be advantageous, positive experiences. Why? Because you're a prisoner of your own mind. You're self sabotaging yourself. You're saying I'm not good enough. You're you that's this is essentially what you're doing when you're overthinking. You you're you're you're you run the risk of of of projecting your fears on other people, which will cause you to be isolated from others because you're overthinking and you're so negative. You're so, the opposite of a of a of a positive person, a a person who who who believes the best is gonna happen. You're a person who believes the worst is going to happen, and you end up isolating yourself because nobody wants to be around a Nancy, a a a a a a downer, Debbie. Nobody wants to be around a person who has absolutely nothing positive to say, nothing positive, to contribute to the conversations. You're walking around like you drank pickle juice and and and, 18 month old apple cider vinegar. Nobody wants to be around that. And you do it to yourself by overthinking. You you kill your own confidence. You kill your confidence. You kill your self esteem and you replace all that with anxiety and depression which can lead to other horrible things. These are the results of overthinking. These are the results. These are some of the few results of overthinking. And overthinking, man, like I said earlier, it's dangerous. It is a dangerous, dangerous, dangerous game that has very real consequences. And one of those real consequences, I talked about it briefly early, is isolation. Human beings are not designed to be alone. We we need we need affection. We need people that we can be around and and and and who will stimulate us and who will encourage us. But if you're so negative and you're so you're so wrapped up into trying to analyze everything that someone says to you, positive or negative, you isolate your self. And that is a bad, bad state to be in. So how do we how do we fix it? Well, if if you're if you're far gone in in in this overthinking, you know, overthinking scenario, you've tried to you've tried to stop on your own, seek some professional help. You know, there's nothing wrong with speaking to a therapist. There's nothing wrong with speaking to a a trained and licensed therapist to help you get out of the practice that you got into. And I and I would imagine that sometimes overthinking is a result of, fear, like we mentioned earlier, but it can also be the results of a bad experience. You know, a negative experience that caused you pain. And so now this has become your self defense mechanism to overthink. And self defense mechanisms just don't happen overnight. You know, this is years, years of practice of building this habit, and it's gonna take some time with some help with someone to guide you through the process to break this habit. So first and foremost, if you are at that point, you need to seek professional medical help. A therapist. Therapist. Let me say it again. Therapist. Therapist is not a dirty word. It's not a curse word. Everybody needs a pastor, and everybody needs a therapist. That is my personal opinion. That is how I live my life. There is nothing wrong with having a therapist. You gotta have somebody that you can talk to and who can help you talk it out so that you can get to a better spot in life. And if that's not you at this point, but you you you do realize that you are overthinker, Trust the foundation. Trust the foundation that that that you have. Trust that foundation. You know, I I hope that your parents did a great job in trying to raise you to know the difference between right and wrong and to be a not only a analytical thinker, but a critical thinker. Right? But not to the point to where you just sabotage your own self because you can't stop analyzing and being critical in your thinking of everyday small or medium sized issues, problems, situations. We can't continue. You can't continue to make to magnify the small things into mountains. You know? You got a you got a small little crawfish, you know, little mound that you've turned into Mount Everest. Trust your instincts. And when you start trusting those instincts, build upon those instincts. Build upon that foundation. Build upon it. You know, learn from your mistakes. Learn from learn from the things that that that cause you pain, that cause you embarrassment. Learn from your failure. Don't don't fear failure. Learn from the failure. Now nobody wants to fail. Now, not even me. I wanna win at everything I do. But is that probable? No. It's not very probable. It's not very probable that I'm gonna win. Like, right now, I I wish I wish I wish I had 5,000,000 subscribers to this podcast, but I don't. I only have, like, 50. You dig what I'm saying? I don't I don't even have 50, but I'm learning every day with every episode, with every strategy that I use to market this podcast. Right, I fail at a lot more than I'm successful with. But you know what? When I succeed, it's because I learned from the failures. And you got to learn to control what you can control. Learn to control what you can control. And those things you can't control, be aware of them, but don't overthink them because you can't control it. You can't control whether it rains today, but you can be prepared for the rain. You can't control if June Bug get out here in his 2024 Camaro LT and drives a 150 miles per hour on the back road going to Austin, you can't control if he's doing he if he's doing it and you're not in the car. So you can't be worried about Junebug. Junebug knows the difference between right and wrong. You know that you taught Junebug the proper way to drive. Right? But every time Junebug leaves your pre your your your presence, you're just overthinking. You're thinking about the worst things that can happen. Oh, god. Stop. Because you ain't you Junebug ain't thinking about you. Junebug doing what Junebug doing. And you over here overthinking, raising your blood pressure, raising your stress level about something you can't control. Control what you can control. Control what you can control. Overthinking is a killer, guys. It's a killer. It's a killer of dreams. It's a killer of self confidence. It's a killer of motivation. It is a killer. It is a killer. It is a killer of everything that makes human beings the dominant species on earth. It kills your desire. It kills your aspirations. It kills. It kills the very thing that we were blessed with, that we have been granted to help us to achieve higher and higher and higher levels of success. But you can't do that overthinking because overthinking, you become a prisoner. You become a prisoner of your own mind. And as a prisoner, you can't go where you wanna go. As a prisoner, you can't do what you wanna do. As a prisoner, you don't have liberty. As a prisoner, you are restricted to what the, what the jailer, what the correctional officer will allow you to do. And your correctional officer is your mind. So free yourself from that prison. If you need professional help, get professional help. If you're not at that point and you recognize that some of the things that I'm talking about applies to you, use some of these techniques, and and you may need to link up with someone who has experienced this and and figure out, with them what might be your best course to rid yourself of the disease of overthinking. Hey. I'm Bruce Smith. This is the Essential Discourse podcast. I wanna thank you guys for tuning in. I wanna encourage you to visit edpshowdot com. That's wwwedpshow.com. Subscribe to our community and follow our, social medias. We're on Facebook. We're on Instagram, TikTok, and you Tube. We have a YouTube channel where you can view most of the content that you're listening to on the podcast, and we have shorts, that we we we discuss little things like this and and others. We're encouraging you to just join the community, guys. Join the community. I was real serious about I want 5,000,000 subscribers and 5,000,000 people downloading my episodes. I'm serious about that. But we can't get that. I can't get that if you won't join me in this quest. So thank you for listening. Thank you for joining. Thank you for your continued support, and we'll see you next time on the Essential Discourse Podcast. Peace.