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Hey Reader! Last week I felt a shift. Did you? It was the shift from the big, chaotic energy of summer into the bit more grounded, settled energy of late summer. There’s still a buzz of energy about with school starting, but it’s as though a sense of order has been restored… even if you don’t have kids in school anymore. There’s a more mellow feeling hanging about. But even with more space to breathe and settling into a bit more organization once again, you might find yourself feeling the pressure from the number of things on your to-do list that didn’t get done over the summer like you might have intended. Enter: overthinking.
Eeek! But it’s OK, it happens to all of us naturally- {or artificially}caffeinated people sometimes. So take a full, easy breath in through your nose, and exhale…. it….. out….. slowly. Then pause at the bottom and just hold your breath for 5-10 seconds. Now take another breath in, and slow this moment down. You’ve got this. Overthinking is real. I have so many events and so much going on this Fall at the studio that I’m already catching myself getting in my own way with the overthinking. The first step is always awareness, right? I wasn’t in the overthinking mindset yesterday when I started the day, but then even after my own yoga and breath work practices tailored to coming back to my body and being out of my head, then teaching the same message in my group class yesterday morning, when I sat down at my desk and started “thinking” about all that I needed to do, I was flooded with unproductive thoughts that were trying to keep me stuck rather than moving forward. There are a lot of factors playing a role here that I know were contributing to the tendency toward overthinking a that moment for me– like the current phase of the moon, what’s happening energetically in nature right now with moving into late summer out of the full expansiveness of earlier in the summer, and biologically what my hormones are currently doing. So I know there are times when overthinking is more likely to slip in through the side door. And sure enough, it did. I needed a pattern interrupt. So I took my work home yesterday afternoon to sit on my back porch (one of the places that brings me the most happiness) to use nature and a different atmosphere to my benefit. Your body and your breath can do this for you as well. ⬆️⬆️⬆️⬆️⬆️ (See what I did up above with that breath thing?) Now I realize I already shared with you that I had done yoga and breath work earlier in the day, so you’re probably thinking… “What the heck… you basically just told us it didn’t work for you because you still fell prey to overthinking when you sat down at your desk!” I know, I know. And yes, there are times when overthinking can still creep in, even when you’ve done all the typical things that keep you from overthinking. We’ve had years to create the habit of overthinking, and, sometimes factors outside of our control give us more of a propensity to fall into this unhelpful habit. And that’s OK. We’re human. So if you’re finding yourself in a space today when overthinking is pushing it’s way into your life, just know that you’re not alone. Even when you’ve been undoing years of overthinking for years, it’s still a habit that lurks. Keep on being you and keep being awesome. Cheers, Cathy |
