Overthinking on a Morning Walk

Life is…

Photo by Lon Casler Bixby

Usually on my morning walks I’m quite lost — deep within my thoughts.

Yes, I’m an overthinker. Everything is subject to the process of overthinking it to death. If something isn’t clear, or doesn’t feel right, even the tiniest thing, then it gets stuck in my brain. And I go over it and over it and over it, ad nauseum, until it makes sense, or I figure it out, find a solution, or, as is usually the case, I shove it further into a dark recess of my cranium until such time that it worms its way back to the forefront of my thoughts, again and again.

It’s a vicious cycle that I don’t wish on anybody. It’s very annoying — forcing me to finally listen to my inner feelings, or, making me realize that I really should have listened to my inner feelings, or simply put — I should have listened to my gut. And knowing that I should have listened, but didn’t, is detrimental and doesn’t help the situation. It just compounds the never-ending thoughts even further.

You know when you get a song stuck in your head and no matter what you do it just keeps playing over and over and it’s usually just one little snippet of the song? It drives you nuts. Well, that’s what overthinking is like — except a hundred times worse. Yes, you might get little reprieves from it, but as long as there’s an issue in your life that you’re not addressing, it comes back, and no matter how many times you swallow it, it still comes back. And you’ll overthink it continuously.

Well, that’s my life. I have a lot of concerns, issues, and things that are not clear, that are bothering me, that are not adding up, and my subconscious is working overtime overthinking my overthinking.

Thus, on my morning walks when I’m supposed to be clearing my mind and reenergizing my well-being, I’m not. I’m stuck in the same pattern of overthinking the same issues over and over again with no solutions in sight.

Quite frustrating, and this morning was no different. My brain was screaming the same problems to me non-stop. It was a cacophony of loud, jumbled noise racing faster and faster around the inside of my skull and looking for a way out.

“Stop it! Get out of my head.”