Thinking it over vs Overthinking it!

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Growing up, I was constantly told that every aspect of life and choices you should think it over before taking decisions. Of course it was also emphasised that there is an element of faith in God too, but use your brains too! Becoming a doctor and that too a physician, who is trained to logically think through clinical problems and solve it, was great and thinking over things became a natural part of life. Mentored by excellent teachers, who role modelled critical thinking. 

Later in life engaging with “Thought Leadership” (TL) programs and setting up systems for it, enhanced the skills for thinking.  Here is an example from the TL  podcasts if you want to know of this more https://www.podbean.com/ew/pb-rpbxu-f014c2 

 

But the challenge I am facing as I grow older is not thinking it over, but over thinking it! Well this is not word play, but a reality. Thinking it over – is focussed thinking about an issue. But focussed thinking comes with an end, where you either come to a solution or stop focussed thinking and then move it to a diffuse thinking mode to help you to reflect and find potential solutions. 

 

Here is more on focussed vs diffuse thinking.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lJtUg-3DfUk


But overthinking, there is no end to it. The brain keeps thinking on and on and moves from reality to fears and fantasies. You start imaging the worst possible scenarios or grandiose  possibilities which are surreal, at best. 

 

I thought I could blame this pattern on by upbringing and past, but I was not always like this so came to a logical realization that this cannot be nurture issue! I tried explaining this through my learning styles, blame it on how my profession pushed me into this! In one sense blame it on my teachers, again nurture issue.  I thought I could find answers in neurobiology, (Blame it on the brain), but then psychiatry gives me confusing labels which is not what I want in life! See one example below. 

 

“I am an embodied perceiver, but I am not in control of my perception”. We suggest that individuals with depersonalisation may believe that ‘another agent’ is controlling their thoughts, perceptions or actions, while maintaining full insight that the ‘other agent’ is ‘me’ (the self)” https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9130736/


But then I also recognise and realise that there are some labels which I need to receive and accept, which might contribute to overthinking too!

 

In a diffuse thinking mode recently I stumbled on more aspects of my disorder. I have three disorders. 

 

One – a memory (mind) disorder. I forget that, things in the past where I thought over or over thought never led to disastrous or grandiose ends! A forgetfulness of the past leads me to move from thinking it over to over thinking. I thought I could blame it on the aging brain, but in my Mini Mental examination I scored well!

 

Two – an emotions (heart) disorder. Somewhere in the journey there has been a shift from brain to heart, mind to emotions. Truths I know by logic is suppressed by my overacting heart and emotions. I thought I could blame it on the context and culture, as Philip Rieff describes it “the dominant understanding of the  self of this present age as that of psychological man, the successor to the  political man, religious man, and economic man of previous eras.” 1 I am in a culture of “I feel there for I am” than “I think there for I am” anyway! But my soul prevented me in going that blame shifting way.

 

Three - The soul clarified the third disorder, something that is deeper than brain or heart, a disorder of the soul. A faith issue! Somewhere I have allowed the forgetfulness of the mind and the turbulences of the heart to take over my soul’s journey of faith! I need to return 24/7 to the core of the matter. A faith that speaks to my disordered heart and mind! So that I can think things over and not over think things! I cannot find some one to blame for this! 

 

May be this is what the good book tells us too “but be transformed by the renewing of your mind.”

 

1 Carl R. Trueman - The Rise and Triumph of the Modern Self_ Cultural Amnesia, Expressive Individualism, and the Road to Sexual Revolution-Crossway Books (2020) (p. 92). 





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