OVERTHINKERS ANONYMOUS
This podcast is for any and everyone who struggles with overthinking or “getting out of their own head” . It is a no judgement, anonymous, and open platform that we can collectively discuss what is causing us inner turmoil. It will also be a space of encouragement and positive affirmation that you can use to propel your life forward.
OVERTHINKERS ANONYMOUS
Harnessing Positivity: The Journey From Overthinking to Peaceful Living
Have you ever found yourself canceling plans over a chain of worrisome thoughts that just wouldn't stop? I certainly have. My name is Pam Gonsolin, and in a candid heart-to-heart, I share the intimate details of how anticipating a beautiful anniversary in Cabo devolved into a storm of paralyzing 'what-ifs.' It's an honest exploration of how overthinking can take a dreamy vacation idea and twist it into a horror reel of imaginary disasters, ultimately robbing you of joy. Join me as we dissect the very real trap of catastrophic thinking, and how to snap the threads before they entangle our peace of mind.
In our latest episode, we don't just unpack the problem; we arm ourselves with the tools to fight back. I discuss the power we all possess to halt negative thoughts in their tracks and pivot towards positivity. Whether it's through counseling, therapy, or even medication, there's a pathway to breaking free from the cycle of overthinking. We'll spotlight the wealth of resources at your disposal for supporting mental health and the simple yet profound practice of thought replacement. It's time to recalibrate our mindsets, and I'm here to guide you towards a more serene, balanced existence. So, let's turn the tide on overthinking together and start living fully in the now.
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If you need a Life Coach or Mentor to support you on your journey to freedom reach out to me @pamelagonsoulin@att.net
I've been up and down for so long. Crazy how right can become so wrong. The thoughts in my head Keep me on a constant rollercoaster and I just want some peace. Tonight Feels like my heart done, left me stranded, just floating away on a melody, leaving me to all my tears. I just hope somebody here's landed Sides to come and rescue me, cause I've been through so many and the only way to get past the pain Are the prayers that pray to keep my sanity. Tell me, have you ever been caught up in your mind, so unaware of time, cause you can't stop thinking, oh, and it feels like you're breaking down inside. You wanna let it ride, but you can't, cause you're overthinking it all.
Speaker 1:Hi and welcome to the Overthinkers Anonymous Podcast. Let me be the first to say that I am Pam Gonsolin and I am an Overthinker, and I welcome all of you Overthinkers to join me as we get into some really, really good tips and things that will help us to break the cycle of overthinking. Listen, I want you to go and hit the subscribe button. You can find the link to subscribe to this podcast in the description box. I want you to subscribe, I want you to like, I want you to share this podcast. I want you to tell all of your friends about it, I want you to tell anyone that you know that may be suffering from the Overthinkers Anonymous Syndrome, and so I'm so thankful for you all that have joined me and that have continued to join me and continue to follow me. It has been quite a journey thus far, but, as I said, I've got some more to get into with us on today concerning our overthinking, and so what I want to talk to you about today is the word that we term spiraling.
Speaker 1:How many of you ever heard of that word spiraling? In the context of mental health? That word spiraling refers to a cycle of negative thought patterns that can escalate and become what? Overwhelming, and so it starts now with a negative thought, and then that negative thought progresses and it escalates to a point of where it becomes overwhelming Instead of now it's simply just being a negative thought. Now you've moved all the way into overthinking the thing, and from overthinking you've moved into catastrophic thinking. Where was catastrophic thinking? Catastrophic thinking is when we envision the worst case scenarios, the worst case scenarios, and this is often linked to spiraling. Have you ever done that? Have you ever been in that situation where you began to think about some things negatively and then you begin to think of and begin to envision the worst case scenarios about what could possibly happen, how this could possibly just the worst way that it could go wrong. Well, let me tell you that is called catastrophic thinking and that is a part of that is linked to what we call spiraling, spiraling. Spiraling, as I said, it begins with the overthinking and then our thinking patterns. They move from negative thoughts to troubling thoughts, to overwhelming thoughts, to catastrophic thoughts. You start thinking of worst case scenarios.
Speaker 1:I remember I told you all about the trip that I wanted to take to Kabul, but I started going down a rabbit hole, because that's what spiraling essentially is. Spiraling is essentially, in essence, when we begin to go down a rabbit hole and when one thing leads to what Another, one thing leads to another, and then we end up lost, we end up confused, we end up disoriented, we end up unsure. A lot of times we go down the rabbit hole and we end up depressed, we end up anxious, despondent, we end up not being able to get out of bed, don't wanna go out, don't wanna be around people thinking that we're worthless. And guess what All of that started with a thought, and so, as I said, if you remember, when I talked about wanting to take the trip to Kabul and it was a positive thought, it was something positive that I wanted to do I wanted to celebrate my anniversary. My husband and I have been married a number of years. Next week, as a matter of fact, it will have been 36 years that I've been married. 36 years telling on myself, but that begins.
Speaker 1:I begin to go down a rabbit hole with that thing. My thinking began to spiral. I started out thinking well, I wonder what the crime is in that area. And so I just started looking at some crime statistics. And then I was like well, it says the crime sometimes is kind of bad, but not on the resort area but off the resort. Well, I wonder what's the crime like off of the resort? And so I started looking at those things. I thought I was like well, let me see what kind of articles they got. And so I start pulling up articles, I start looking at different things, and so pretty soon I began to have catastrophic thoughts.
Speaker 1:Well, what if we go and then we get kidnapped, because you know, this is Mexico? What if we go and we get shot or we get, you know, in between some type of cartel battle or what have you? Worst case scenarios, worst case scenarios. I began to think about worst case scenarios and I began to have catastrophic thoughts. And then those things, those thoughts, began to trouble me and overwhelm me so much to the point where I canceled the trip. I canceled the whole trip out of fear of what could happen, not knowing for sure what would happen, but just based on the thought of what could happen. What could happen. Now there's many people, thousands of people, that have gone to Cabo and back and nothing has ever happened to them. I've never seen any national news reports about anything happening to anybody in Cabo. But that was my thinking, that was my thoughts.
Speaker 1:A simple thought of well, I wonder what the crime is in that area, led me to the catastrophic thinking of I might get killed, I might get in the middle of a cartel battle, I might get kidnapped, what have you? It was so much uncertainty, it left me so unsure, it left me so confused that I simply decided to back out. I just backed out what could have been a wonderful, a lovely trip to celebrate my anniversary. Mind you that there was a couple here in the same city that went to Cabo at the exact same time and they went and did everything that I wanted to do, everything that I was supposed to do. Remember, I told you that she even had, on the exact same dress, renewed her vows on the beach, just like I wanted to do.
Speaker 1:And guess what? Not a thing happened to them. They went, enjoyed it. It was very memorable for them. They will remember it for the rest of their lives.
Speaker 1:And so they got to enjoy it. Why? Because they didn't get caught up in the overthinking process and overthink the situation. They just went with what was in their heart to do. They went with and focused on the positivity of it and didn't worry about the negative side, trusting and believing that they will be okay. Now, do I think they just went into it blindly? Of course not. I don't think so. I think that they took necessary precautions to make sure that they were secure, to make sure that they were safe, but they didn't allow that to make them, you know, forfeit on the trip, like I did.
Speaker 1:And so a lot of times I was spiraling. I was spiraling. It will cause you to be depressed. You just going around a rabbit hole. You're going around and around in a circle and it's like the circle and the cycle never ends. You go from one thing to the other, to the other, and it's just a constant circle, a constant spiral. You just going, you're going, matter of fact, you're moving into being out of control. Your thoughts are becoming out of control. Out of control. When you have out of control thoughts, then guess what Out of control thoughts produces? An out of control life, an out of control life, cause if you can't control your thoughts, then you're going to have a hard time controlling your life.
Speaker 1:And so, because now we can't control our thoughts, because we feel like we can't control our lives, we end up depressed, we end up anxious, we end up despondent. We end up, you know, thinking that you know we're no good and nothing good is in us and we can't do anything and we can't be anything cause our thoughts are out of control. Our thoughts are out of control. But let me tell you this that your thoughts are your responsibility, your thoughts are your responsibility. I need you to say that out loud. Say my thoughts are my responsibility. They're not anybody else's responsibility. They're your responsibility because they're your thoughts, just like nobody can tell you how you should feel about a certain thing. Those feelings are not anybody else's responsibility. No one can make you feel a certain way. No one can make you think a certain way if you don't want to. You can always refuse. You can always refuse. So they can't make you think anything if you don't want to. They can't make you, and nobody can make you feel a certain way if you don't want to. This is all under your periphery. It's all under your control. Your thoughts are your responsibility, and so it's time now for us to begin to take responsibility for our thought life. It's gotta take responsibility for our thought life, some of us. Our thought life it just runs out of control. It's just a mess. Our thought life and thought processes are simply a mess, and so we need to begin to take control over those thought processes, over our thought life.
Speaker 1:You are a better person when you can practice self-control, mm-hmm. You're a better person when you can practice self-control, when you are in control of your emotions. You're in control of your thoughts, your attitudes, when you are in control of your predilections, your tempers. It makes you a much more grounded and wholesome person. You are just better for you, but you're also better for everyone else that's around you. Mm-hmm, you're also a much better person to be around.
Speaker 1:Who wants to be around somebody all the time that can't control themselves, can't control their temper, can't control their emotions? Their emotions are always all over the place. Their thoughts are always all over the place. They move from one thing to the other. There's no constancy with them. There's no. You can't control your temper. The least little thing somebody says sends you off. You can't. It's no control. Who wants to be around somebody like that on a consistent basis? The only people that wanna be around those type of people are people who are just like that, and so what you do is feed off of one another. See, you feed off of one another, but you are a much a better person, a much more grounded and wholesome person, when you can learn how to practice self-control.
Speaker 1:Self-control, you can control yourself. I might've said this before, but you can control yourself. Yes, you can. You are responsible for you. You are responsible for you. Nobody else is responsible for you. Your husband is not responsible for you. Your wife is not responsible. Your children, your friends, your boss, your pastor they are not responsible, ultimately, for you. You are responsible for you. And so if you are responsible for you, then you are responsible for controlling yourself. You are responsible for controlling yourself, cause guess, I'm gonna play it out, playing for you. It's gonna be either somebody or something else is gonna control you, or you gonna control you. The choice is yours. The choice is yours Either you're gonna let somebody else control you or you're gonna let something else control you, or you're gonna step up to the plate and control yourself. The choice is yours. The choice is yours.
Speaker 1:See, too many times, especially with an overthinker, we're letting all kinds of other things control how we think. We're letting all kinds of other, we're letting what people say, we're letting what people do. We're letting what others think and do control us and how we think, instead of us controlling how we think. See, you can't take me off on a tangent. If I don't let you, you can't cause me to start thinking negatively and then run the risk of spiraling, overthinking and spiraling.
Speaker 1:If I don't let you, if I don't give you that power, see, we've got to begin to take back our power. Each of us has power over ourselves. You got power over yourself. You don't have power over nobody else. You cannot change anybody else. But you got power over yourself and you can change yourself. Yes, you can.
Speaker 1:So it's time for you to take back your power. Stop giving other people and other things your power. Stop giving other people and other things the power to control you as to control how you think. But it's time for you to take back your power. Take back your power. It's time for you to watch.
Speaker 1:Harness your power. Harness it. Don't let it just be wow and just out there and out of control, but harness it. That's what harness means to be under control, under submission. Take back your power. Take back your control and control yourself. Control your temper, control those attitudes. Control that smart mouth.
Speaker 1:Control that I always gotta say a piece of your mind. Control it. Control those runaway thoughts. Control that overthinking, that process that goes on in your head. Control it so that it doesn't progress and move to spiraling. You gotta stop it before it gets there. You gotta stop yourself before you start spiraling.
Speaker 1:You don't wait to start spiraling and then try and stop it, because it's going to be harder then, because you're already in the throes of the spiral. You're already in the process of spiraling, but you stop it before it gets there. You stop it at the simple negative thought, mm-hmm, you don't even stop it at the overthinking. Stop it before it gets to the overthinking. Stop it at the negative thought, at the negative thought. How can I stop it at the negative thought? You can choose to not think negatively. You can choose to not let the negativity that you see to stop you to sway you. You can choose, along with see the negativity, to see the positive too, mm-hmm, because everything has its pros and cons. Everything has its negative side and its positive side, but you've got to learn how to balance them. And when you can learn how to balance them, to negative with the positive, it'll keep you from going to that first step of overthinking, which will lead you down a rabbit hole to spiraling.
Speaker 1:Mm-hmm. And I can hear some of y'all screaming loud right now I can't control myself. I just can't do it. I can't control myself. Yes, you can. Yes, you can, yes, you can.
Speaker 1:When we lose control, it is because something has drawn us away from our set prescriptives that we have determined for our lives, mm-hmm, our set prescriptives. We lose control because something has drawn us away from our set prescriptives. In other words, something has drawn you away to cause you to act out of character, mm-hmm. Now I know we say we use those words, that phrase acting out of character when somebody just completely goes off and they just completely, you know, they get rude, they get belligerent, they want to fight and what have you. And then we come back with a term. Well, you know, I'm sorry that I acted out of character and it's true those things are out of character for how you normally are.
Speaker 1:But anything that varies from the way that you normally conduct yourself is out of character. Anything Mm-hmm and so out of character can also be overthinking because it's moving away from the norm that you set for yourself. If you set the norm for your life that I want to see the negative, but I want to balance the negative out with the positive, I want to be also to also see the positive and circumstances take place, and you only see the negative side of things and then you start reacting and corresponding with the negative side of things and not seeing the positive side. My friend, you are acting out of character for you, mm-hmm, you're acting outside of the set prescriptives that you have designated for your life, mm-hmm. So when we sit back and begin to discover what those things are that causes us to venture away from our set prescriptives, when we sit back and begin to discover what causes us now to act out of character or act out of the character that we would like to portray, mm-hmm. In other words, when we discover what those triggers are, mm-hmm, what is triggering you to act outside of your character, to move outside of the guidelines that you have set for yourself.
Speaker 1:When we begin to discover what those triggers are, then we can employ different methods that will help us to combat them, mm-hmm. We can employ different methods to help us combat them, mm-hmm. But it's going to take you getting to know yourself on a greater and deeper level. It's going to take you modifying some of your behaviors that lead you to begin to overthink, that lead you to begin to focus on just the negative, that lead you to begin to act out of character, act beyond the boundaries that you set and your set prescriptives Mm-hmm. When it's going to take some work so that you can find out what your triggers are, what triggers you to do this, what triggers your overthinking, mm-hmm. And then, when you can begin to discover what your triggers are, guess what? You can employ some different methods to help you combat them. You can seek out counseling. You can seek out therapy.
Speaker 1:You can tune in to podcasts like this self-help podcasts that will be able to help you to be able to navigate yourself in dealing with the triggers, the stressors. There's medications that will help you. There's a whole gamut of different things out there that will help you. We've made so many advances in this modern day in the area of self-help and mental help. We've made so many advances over the years that is virtually impossible to not be able to find something that will help you, that will assist you on your journey. The only way that you will not find something is if you don't want to, because there's so much out there it's so much out there that you can avail yourself to that can help you. There's a gamut of ways these days that can assist you in your process.
Speaker 1:So you can either continue to be in a spiral or you can choose to change and find a better way. Find a better way to deal with your overthinking, find a better way to deal with your negative thoughts. It could simply be whenever I have a negative thought, I make a conscious effort to replace it with a positive thought. You'll be amazed how just doing that simple thing will help you. You'll be amazed. Sometimes we think it has to be this whole big old, grand gamut of things that we have to do and it's gonna take a, you know, it's gonna be hard, it's gonna be drawn, and sometimes it's just some simple things, just some simple course corrections that need to be taken. That will help you, that will go a long way in assisting you in making a change, making a difference in your life.
Speaker 1:So, ladies and gentlemen, there's no reason that you should stay stuck because you can change your situation. It's no reason to stay stuck, no reason you can change your situation and listen. You might say well, you know, I tried, I've tried to change, I've tried to control my thoughts. I've tried to, you know, control my overthinking. I've tried to, you know, control myself. And you know I messed up. Well, even if you mess up, even if you blow it, even if you fail, keep trying, keep trying. You know there's a saying that Rome wasn't built in a day. Sometimes, guess what Change doesn't take place overnight, but over time. Sometimes, I'm gonna say it again, sometimes change does not take place overnight, but it takes place over time.
Speaker 1:Give yourself some time, keep trying, keep trying at it, keep working at it, keep moving, even though you mess up. You might have messed up today. Tomorrow is a brand new day. Start over again. Keep trying, but don't ever give up. Don't ever give up, because when you start giving up, then you start settling for the place that you're in and then you find out that you're what Stuck. You don't want to be stuck. You don't want to be stuck. Being stuck is not a pleasant feeling. Feeling stuck is not a good feeling. It's not good. Everyone wants to feel like they're moving and doing and growing. You don't want to feel like you're stuck and staying stuck. So keep moving, keep trying, keep reaching, keep doing the best that you can at controlling yourself, controlling your thoughts.
Speaker 1:Seek out help. Seek out assistance. If you don't feel like you can do it by yourself, seek out help. Find someone to help you. These days, you don't even have to go into a therapist's office. You can go online and you could click on and find somebody that will counsel you via online. You don't even have to go in the office. They don't even have to see your face. Find out a friend that you can talk to, that can understand what you're going through and be able to help and work with you, be able to keep you accountable. You know that'll keep you accountable when you mess up and help you get back on track. That's important. That's important I might talk about that on the next one, because that's very important to have a good support system so you can do it, you can change.
Speaker 1:You don't have to stay stuck in the spiral. You don't have to continue to be have a life that with thoughts out of control, life out of control, just everything is out of control. But you can control yourself, you can control your thoughts. It can be done and I know that you can do it. Listen, I'm Pam Gonsolin and I'm an overthinker and, just like you, struggled. I've struggled and, just like you, I've had to learn how to control myself, how to control my thoughts, and I've had to begin to take my power back. I've taken my power back. I've taken it back from all of those others that wanted to try and control me and I decided that I'm going to be in control of me, nobody else. And that's my prayer, my thought for you today as we close. Join me back here on next week and we'll continue on this journey of overcoming our overthinking. Bye, bye.