What if overthinking isn’t the problem — but your mind trying to protect you?
Why can’t I stop overthinking? If you’ve ever asked yourself this question, you may have tried everything you can think of to quieten your mind. But overthinking may not simply be a thinking problem. It may be connected to what is happening in your nervous system and the feelings underneath your thoughts.
You replay the conversation.
You wonder whether you said the wrong thing.
You think about what might happen tomorrow, what somebody meant, what you should have done differently or what you need to do next.
You tell yourself to stop thinking about it.
And then you think about it some more.
Overthinking can feel exhausting. But what if your mind isn’t working against you?
What if it is trying to keep you safe?
I believe we can understand overthinking differently when we stop looking only at our thoughts and start listening to what is happening underneath them.
Overthinking can be an attempt to feel safe
Overthinking and anxiety can also be influenced by the beliefs through which we interpret what is happening around us. I explore this further in Anxiety – How Your Beliefs Inform Your Nervous System.
When something happens that creates uncertainty, fear, embarrassment, rejection, shame or another uncomfortable feeling, your nervous system responds.
Your mind may immediately start searching for an answer.
Why did they say that?
Did I do something wrong?
What if they don’t like me?
What if it happens again?
What should I do?
Thinking can feel like doing something. If you can understand everything, predict every possibility and find the right answer, perhaps you can prevent yourself from being hurt.
So the thinking continues.
But sometimes there isn’t another thought that will make you feel safe.
Because the thought isn’t where the feeling began.
You don’t stop overthinking by thinking harder
We can spend enormous amounts of energy trying to reason ourselves out of feelings.
But feelings aren’t necessarily problems that need fixing.
They are information.
Your body may be telling you that something feels unsafe, uncertain, painful or familiar.
Instead of immediately asking:
How do I stop thinking about this?
we can become curious about something different:
What am I actually feeling?
Where can I feel it in my body?
What happened just before this started?
What did that situation mean to me?
Does this feeling seem familiar?
What might my nervous system be trying to protect me from?
What do I need now?
This moves our attention away from endlessly analysing the story and towards understanding what is happening inside us.
Your nervous system is not your enemy
Your nervous system has been learning how to protect you throughout your life.
Some of the ways you learned to cope when you were younger may still appear automatically today.
You might overthink.
People-please.
Avoid conflict.
Try to control situations.
Rehearse conversations.
Expect the worst.
Need reassurance.
Withdraw.
Become defensive.
These reactions can sometimes seem irrational when we look only at what is happening today.
But our reactions often make more sense when we understand what our nervous system has learned from everything that came before.
The aim isn’t to fight these protective responses.
It is to understand them.
What happens when you allow the feeling?
Instead of immediately analysing a feeling, you can begin by noticing it.
Where is it?
Your chest?
Throat?
Stomach?
Somewhere else?
Give the feeling some space without judging it, explaining it or demanding that it disappear.
Notice what happens in your body.
Breathe.
Allow other emotions to arise if they need to.
You may begin to recognise that the feeling isn’t there to ruin your day.
It is trying to tell you something.
When we learn that our feelings can be experienced rather than feared, we don’t always need our thoughts to work so hard to protect us from them.
Feelings are information
My approach to emotional wellbeing begins with a simple idea:
Your feelings are not the enemy, and neither is your nervous system.
Anxiety, overthinking and emotional reactions don’t automatically mean there is something wrong with you.
They can be invitations to become curious about what is happening inside you.
Rather than asking only:
What’s wrong with me?
we can begin asking:
What’s happening to me?
What am I feeling?
What is my nervous system trying to tell me?
And:
What do I need now?
That shift can change the relationship we have with ourselves.
From overthinking to understanding yourself
If you find yourself asking “why can’t I stop overthinking?”, it may help to become curious about the feeling your thoughts are trying to protect you from.
You don’t need to win an argument with your own mind.
You can learn to notice when your thoughts have become caught in a protective loop and gently turn your attention towards the feeling underneath them.
Over time, this can help create space between what happens to you and how you respond.
Not by ignoring your feelings.
Not by forcing yourself to “think positively”.
And not by telling yourself to simply stop worrying.
But by becoming more connected to yourself.
Because sometimes the way out of overthinking isn’t another thought.
It’s finally listening to the feeling the thoughts have been trying to protect you from.
How counselling can help
Together we will form a therapeutic relationship and discover your patterns of overthinking and focusing on your feelings, get to the root cause fast.
If you are ready to talk
About Karen Bell
Karen Bell is a qualified counsellor, accredited member of the British Association for Counselling and Psychotherapy (BACP), teacher and author with around 20 years’ experience working with people experiencing anxiety, stress, trauma and difficult life experiences.
Karen’s work explores the relationship between our feelings, nervous system, protective responses and the ways we learn to cope with life.
Through counselling, books and self-help resources, her aim is to make emotional wellbeing understandable and accessible — helping people develop a different relationship with their feelings rather than being frightened by them.
Your nervous system is your friend.
Explore Karen’s books and resources
Discover books and resources designed to help adults and children understand feelings, anxiety, protective responses and the nervous system in everyday language on the Ready to Talk shop and for children’s books and resources go to https://www.kbccreations.com/
