252. stop overthinking—ask yourself this!

Mar 2

listen to this episode:

are you a chronic emotional over-invester?! in this solo episode, i explain how a simple mental health mantra transformed my mentality around emotional boundaries and even lowered my anxiety!

by the end of this episode, you’ll know how to stop the emotional over-involvement and start prioritizing your mental health.

i talk about:

the mental health mantra that’s changed my life
why stress can actually be good for you?!
3 questions to ask yourself if you’re emotionally over-investing
if you’re problem-solving or just being anxious?
influencing vs. controlling as anxiety responses
times you might be over-involving yourself emotionally
how to lower your anxiety + set emotional boundaries in your relationships

SHOP GUEST RECOMMENDATIONS: https://amzn.to/3A69GOC

About She Persisted

She Persisted is THE Gen Z mental health podcast. In each episode, Sadie brings you authentic, accessible, relatable conversations about every aspect of mental wellness. Expect evidence-based, Gen Z-approved resources, coping skills (lots of DBT), insights, and education in each piece of content you consume. She Persisted offers you a safe space to feel validated and understood in your struggle while encouraging you to take ownership of your journey and build your life worth living.

a note: this is an automated transcription so please ignore any accidental misspellings!

Sadie: For a lot of us, our anxiety comes from trying to control outcomes that we are not even a part of.

Overthinking is not problem solving.

It's just anxiety.

it's so important to be protective of where our stress gets directed

The next time you are anxious or overwhelmed you are going to ask yourself three questions

Hello. Hello and welcome back to She Persisted. Today's episode is for the Overthinkers. We are gonna talk about the mantra mindset hack.

Mental filter, whatever you wanna call it, that keeps me from overthinking and stressing myself out have nothing. no vested interest or engagement in the outcome of a situation,

this is another one of my mental health rules that I come back to on a daily basis. It keeps me aligned. It's the, I'm gonna bring you right back down to Earth for a second way. That I keep myself

Grounded and intentional about where I direct my anxiety and stress. So this is the not my circus, not my monkey's rule. Sometimes I say, not my monkeys, not my circus. Sometimes it's not My monkeys not my [00:01:00] party. The phrase is not important.

The idea here is that not everything deserves your emotional energy.

Beyond that, sometimes it doesn't even make sense to invest your emotional energy, especially when the outcome has absolutely no impact on you, For a lot of us, our anxiety comes from trying to control outcomes that we are not even a part of. and I find myself forgetting this a lot. I find myself anxious and stressed about things that other people are doing or things that are happening in the world.

until I go through this process of checking the facts to see if this has any impact on me, I find myself stressing and overwhelmed and problem solving and trying to comb discomfort that doesn't necessarily need to be there.

So the goal here is not to practice complete non-attachment, to accept every single outcome, no matter what happens, and to never be stressed and anxious about anything. Again, it's to be discerning and strategic. Make sure that your anxiety and stress is well spent.

Because this is the first thing that I want to remind you.

[00:02:00] Stress can also be a signal about what matters to us in life, what we don't wanna lose, what outcomes are important to us. It's a very important tool.

But the way we're wired doesn't necessarily lend itself well to this perspective. As humans, we are designed to predict and prevent threat Uncertainty feels very unsafe, and control gives us the illusion of that safety so when we're trying to predict and prevent something from going wrong and avoid uncertainty because it feels unsafe, we try and grab onto as much control as we can.

And that forced control, that responsibility that our brain convinces us is ours gets confused with our actual proximity to the issue. We can try and control and be responsible and avoid a threat that has no correlation to our lives whatsoever.

when we don't notice this pattern and mistake, our brain is prone to making, we confuse. I'm aware of this thing happening to, I'm responsible for this outcome, [00:03:00] especially when it comes to relationships or situations where we do care about the outcome like school and relationships and work.

That's where I notice this happening most frequently.

So the next time you are anxious or overwhelmed you are going to ask yourself three questions and this has helped me avoid so much stress and overwhelm and burnout by just going through this thought process before I actually expend the anxiety.

So the first question you need to ask yourself is, does this outcome impact me directly? At first glance, you're like, that's a really selfish way to approach a situation. But for me, when I'm anxious about something, I don't just find myself internally spiraling and thinking about things. I try and take action to alleviate the discomfort. Like I try and solve the problem. I try to put a system in place that addresses it. I try to. Face the challenge head on. It's not just limited to like the mental spiral.

And so it's very important for me to understand before I go into like solve it, fix it. Let's see what's wrong in the situation mode. Is that [00:04:00] something that I need to be the one doing?

This is because emotional discomfort does not necessarily equal actual impact on your life. Even if you expend the anxiety, even if you try and solve the situation, even if you do everything in your power to alleviate this distress, it might not change the outcome. You might not even have the power to do so. The other reminder here, which is especially true for me because the anxiety doesn't just stay in my brain, is that discomfort alone doesn't necessarily mean action just because you feel uncomfortable about something. Just because something is making you anxious. Just because there's something potentially overwhelming happening doesn't mean you need to take action to alleviate that discomfort.

We can sit with it. We can ride the wave, we can cope through it. And it's a lot easier to not take action when you understand the outcome doesn't impact you,

and that your action likely won't have that direct impact on the outcome.

So whenever I find myself anxious and worried about something, especially in interpersonal context, I ask myself, [00:05:00] does this outcome change anything about me and my life? if this is a real problem and the thing I'm worried about happens, is there any impact on me? And a lot of the times the answer is no.

Yes, you might've been solving someone else's problem for them. Maybe you made everyone's life a little bit easier and less uncomfortable by removing this thing,

but it's really helpful for me to remember my action will not impact how the situation will naturally pan out, so it's not worth the anxiety and the overwhelm, and the discomfort The second question I like to ask myself is, do I actually have any control here? And I try and differentiate influence versus control and understand that worrying does not mean that I'm influencing the situation. Because if you cannot change the outcome, if you don't have control, overthinking is not problem solving.

It's just anxiety. You might tell yourself it's problem solving and being strategic and planning out the next step. But if you don't have control over the situation, you are not problem solving, you are not helping. You are not overcoming the challenge.

You are [00:06:00] overthinking and spiraling and just anxious, and that sometimes is a hard pill to swallow.

and the other thing that I try and remind myself here with the influence versus control is that a lot of times for me, I know that it is possible to insert myself into a situation to have influence.

I can force the control by making myself the one that's solving this problem. So I try and ask myself without doing that. Because I do like the DBT belief that anything is possible and you can do any outcome as long as you're willing to accept the consequences. So why can't I insert myself into the situation so that I can control it the way I want to alleviate my own discomfort.

Without doing that, do I have control over the situation? And if I don't. I'm not problem solving. I'm just overthinking and having anxiety. So it's not worth the time and it's not worth the energy because what you're doing will truly have no impact. So the only time and emotional energy you're wasting is your own.

The third thing that I ask myself is, are there any eggs in this basket? What is the [00:07:00] personal risk here? Is there a relationship at play? Is there time that you've invested other than your anxiety? Is it your reputation? What resources are relevant here? Or is it just your anxiety?

If there are no eggs in the basket other than your anxiety, you do not need to guard it. You do not need to insert yourself into the situation to try and influence it and control it. You do not need to overthink the situation because you're not problem solving. You're just spiraling.

So those are the three things I ask myself. When I find myself anxious about a situation, Does the outcome impact me directly? Do I actually have control here are there any eggs in this basket?

So let's talk about some situations where this is helpful, other people's reactions.

We don't have control over how they'll react, and typically we don't have eggs in the basket of their reaction. Another example, work dynamics, you're not in charge of. This one is the hardest for me 'cause I'm a control freak. I often remind myself if the worst case scenario happens here. Am I the one that's directly responsible and held accountable 99% of the time the answer's no.

So [00:08:00] does the outcome impact me directly? No. It's someone else's choice. So they're the ones that accountable, do I have control here? No, it's their choice. And are there any eggs in this basket? Maybe like by proximity, but not actually in reality when we check the facts. Another example here is friends choices.

They do does not impact us directly. Most of the time we don't have control because it's their choice, we can try and influence it. And this is like where our brain tricks us and we're like, we could influence their situation by giving them advice and trying to get them to change their mind that isn't control.

And then are their eggs in this basket? We do care about the relationship. We are invested in the friendship and the person but there really tend to not be eggs invested in the basket of them making this specific decision in this specific context.

It likely does not have a huge impact on the relationship as a whole. Other examples here are family conflict timelines that you can't change and like online discourse all these situations where things are dependent on others' [00:09:00] reactions and behaviors and choices, it's very easy to filter through these questions and remind yourself that it is not worth your energy or your anxiety.

And what I want you to remember for all these situations, whether it's a conflict or someone else's choice, or their reaction or a dynamic in a relationship.

Or a timeline or something you see online is that awareness does not require emotional ownership. You can be aware of something, you can appreciate something, you can be empathetic, you can be supportive. It doesn't mean that you have to be the one to emotionally own and control the situation, especially when it's not your life.

So if you go through the question, test the anxiety you're having does not pass. So we quote unquote, shouldn't be anxious about that thing. I will tell myself the mantra over and over again, not my monkeys, not my circus, not my monkeys, not my problem, whatever version that you wanna use.

But I also want to tell you guys how to actually put this into practice. We have that mental reminder. We tell ourselves, this isn't worth the mental stress. I'm not problem solving, I'm overthinking [00:10:00] it. The anxiety I'm having isn't gonna lead to a change in the outcome. But we also wanna stop taking action based on our anxiety. That's not justified in a certain situation. And so here are a couple ways you can do that to actually let go and take action on letting go. Beyond just reminding yourself that it's not your monkeys, not your circus.

Stop checking for updates. Limit Thinking about what you would do in the situation if the worst outcome happens, redirect your intention internally. So instead of focusing on what others are doing, or how they're navigating the situation, or the choices they're making and the reaction they're having, focus on how you're reacting and the choices you are making and the impact that's having on your life.

Keep reminding yourself, this is not my circus. These are not my monkeys. This is not my problem to solve. This is not my situation to control. And this is not fun. It's very boring. It's very repetitive. You have to do it. A lot of times I find myself coming back to the same situation and asking myself the same questions again and being, yep, still not my circus, still not my monkeys, and trying to move on and focus on something else.

But in the [00:11:00] long run, it saves a lot of anxiety and overwhelm and also conflict in relationships because people don't like when you try and control and solve problems that are not yours to control and solve. And I also wanna give some reminders here about what this approach is not Because We're not avoiding situations, we're not being apathetic. When people are struggling with things, we're not ignoring our real responsibilities in the name of having less anxiety. We're not avoiding our feelings. We can care about things without carrying responsibility for the situation.

And this. Something that's really hard when you are an anxious control freak like myself,

How does this help long-term? you have less rumination. When you stop spending all that time spiraling and overthinking and invested in a situation that again, doesn't have any impact on the outcome, you find yourself a lot less anxious, shocking. I know. You also have more emotional bandwidth. You save so much time and energy when you cut the source of anxiety out of your life and you can focus on other things that you can [00:12:00] control and worry about. Just kidding you also clearer boundaries in your relationships.

Like I said, people appreciate when you give them the space and independence and agency to solve their own problems and make their own choices and have their own reactions, and it also helps with your own self-trust to know that I can care about a situation and support someone else through it without controlling every aspect of it.

So for me, not my circus, not my monkeys, is the reminder to put my energy where it actually matters, instead of wasting anxiety and emotional investment and overwhelm in situations where there's no payoff. I direct that stress in situations where it's helpful because remember, stress allows us to get the things we care about in life and perform at our best.

Actually care about the outcomes, and that's why it's so important to be protective of where our stress gets directed and not wasted on these situations where it's not only not needed, but a lot of the times not wanted.

So save this for the next time you find yourself overthinking a [00:13:00] situation where you can't solve or overcome, or distract or fix it.

Comment, what has helped you when you're anxious about a situation that you cannot control?

And let me know a situation that you're going to practice non-attachment to. Remind yourself, not my circus, not my monkeys, and no longer get yourself caught up in that spiral. So with that, I'll see you guys in the next episode.

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