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Priya | The Pretend Poet's avatar

So relatable! Unfortunately I fall into all 3, I feel like a lot of people do!

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Delaney Langdon's avatar

I definitiely do!!! You're not alone

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Andrew Lynch's avatar

we all do. worry is the past, anxiety is the future. there's an infinite number of ways to overthink. that's how it works. Martha Beck calls it the anxiety spiral. luckily, there's also the creativity spiral - see end of Delaney's essay.

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Brittany Morazan's avatar

I’m obsessed with the practical tools your shared. “Cope ahead” is going to change my life. Thank you for sharing your beautiful words and wisdom and for including a quote from my essay. 💗

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Delaney Langdon's avatar

Of course! Cope ahead has already calmed me down and out of sooo many stressful spirals.

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Zoe McManus's avatar

Amazing! I think I’m guilty of all three… oops! I’ll have to give these tips a try next time I feel myself going down the rabbit hole.

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Delaney Langdon's avatar

Me too girl me too 😭🥲 yes give them a try & let me know if they work for you!!

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ACP's avatar

What a great piece! Totally relatable. I used to be a chronic future tripper and immediate ping responder. Now, I try to remember that my time is my own and that I'd rather spend it in *this* real moment than a make-believe, might-not-happen future one.

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Delaney Langdon's avatar

Thank you girl and yess! 👏 so important in a time when so many things are demanding our attention at once.

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Andrew Lynch's avatar

I'm glad you're talking about this. For a fun rabbit hole (or maybe not so fun? depends on where you are...), read some Heidegger. That's the root of overthinking - anxiety.

I think reading Eckhart Tolle is a better idea if overthinking is the thing. Or Byron Katie, or Oliver Burkeman, or Brené Brown, or Martin Schwartz, or Jiddu Krishnamurti, or Ramana Maharshi, or Glennon Doyle, or Anne Lamott, or Martha Beck, or Steven Pressfield, or Michael Hinton, or Jack Kornfield, or Ram Dass, or Pema Chodron, or Gabor Mate, or Jill Bolte Taylor, or Lao Tzu, etc., etc., etc..... Give Heidegger a rest!

Thinking is the problem. Dostoyevsky was right, thinking is a disease, a disease of doing too much. We are all doing too much and not being enough (not that we need to be more, just to be). And I love what you said about "doing", about making art, about movement, connection, music, etc. However, thinking is doing. Therefore, not doing so much means not thinking so much.

I'm 100% with you on this - think less.

PS Martha Beck and Gabor Mate are right, anxiety is a normal reaction to an abnormal society.

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Delaney Langdon's avatar

Thank you for this thoughtful note & for the amazing list of names. Yes - we often forget that thinking is a form of doing, and sometimes the most radical move is to just be.

I need to read more Heidegger! I remember reading him in school and resonating but would be really impactful to return to his work

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Andrew Lynch's avatar

Delaney, I hear the resonance in your words, and if you don’t mind, I’d like to underscore and highlight what you’re saying because of the importance. I hope this doesn’t sound pedantic. Overthinking, as I see it, not just in the past 4-5 decades (family, culture, trouble) and over the past several years, is moving and growing at an alarming rate. It’s at the heart of unconsciousness. The more you think, the less you are ‘you’ BECAUSE thinking is doing - overthinking is not being you, it’s becoming something other than you. It’s so important that people see how damaging this can be.

You say people often forget that thinking is doing, I don’t think most people actually ever thought about it. I commend you for recognizing that fact and reminding yourself of it.

I understand the urge to read Heidegger, and I really don’t think it’s worth it - you know anxiety and the impacts of overthinking. I hear it in your posts. Your readers do too. Reading about anxiety when you have excess anxiety is like thinking about how to stop overthinking. I don’t recommend it.

I think just being is actually the most radical thing we can do. Not just sometimes. Yet anxiety leads us to believe we don’t have time for it. There are no 7 minute abs and there’s no 8 minute meditation. That’s a fallacy. We need 30-45 minutes to workout and you need to do it multiple times a week. Meditating for 8 minutes and stopping doesn’t do anything but show you the door. We hamstring ourselves when we see our time as limited and when we don’t ’do’ the things that benefit us most. The brain needs 8-9 minutes in meditation to get ready for meditation.

At the risk of sounding fanatical, we’ve been conditioned to over use our brains and we’ve forgotten our minds. We’ve neglected our hearts. We’ve disconnected ourselves from our bodies with overthinking. We cannot know who we are unless we can be with ourselves, and that means not thinking, often. Most of us are so busy that we never stop doing, which is to say we never stop thinking, and it’s absolutely exhausting.

Forget Heidegger, read Martha Beck’s Beyond Anxiety, or better yet, we should all go and practice our creativity and then go for a hike. Then take a nap!

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Sam Rondeau's avatar

Wow I didn’t know I fell into the 2nd until I read what it meant and I was liiikkkeee ooooo yes that’s the one. I appreciate you putting words and reasoning behind the things we do so we can look inward and try to manage it. Also a nice reminder that over thinking is not always a good fun silly thing to do and can be damaging the already overcrowded brain. Thanks for the thoughts :)

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Delaney Langdon's avatar

Aw i'm so glad this resonated <3 It's cool. Lots of times we can fall into all 3 types at one time - but the reasoning behind each & strategies to get out of each differ. Love you!

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