Expired Mindsets 🧠 w/ Dr.Charryse

Good morning, cardio sphere. I hope everyone is doing well, that your week is off to a good start. It's Wednesday, but I feel like it should be Friday. It has been such a busy beginning of the week, but for the most part all pretty good, pretty decent things as you come in, of course, say good morning, hello, replay whatever it is for you. And we always start off with positive. So let's talk about your wins. What has gone well this week so crucial? Don't cheat yourself with this opportunity. Find something that went well and don't think it has to be something major and big.

A win is a win, right? So that could be you had an issue and you honored your need because of that issue. That is a significant win. It could be that you chose to turn the other cheek when someone else said something that you wanted to respond to and of course let me know where you are in the world. I see. Good morning from Charleston. I know a couple of other people from South Carolina just chimed in and that's always going to be helpful if this is your first time. I'm Doctor Charryse. I'm a licensed clinical mental health therapist, mindfulness, mindfulness practitioner and author.

But more importantly, I'm your friend. I truly am. Even if we haven't met once you come on one time, it's part of the contract. Oh, good to know, Audrey, that you're feeling better. Hello, Michigan. Hello, Marilyn. So neat. The other thing that this is helpful for is it helps me as I am out and about. Good morning, Ken. Around the world to know, oh, I'm in an area where some other people are going to be. So let's get together and connect. Because in the quadrasphere we are family to whatever degree you're comfortable with that term, or friends, because some people are like no new family.

But we want to be touchable both on and off the screen. Our focus of today, I'm excited. I'm always excited, is going to be about over thinking. So take out your notes because I'm going to give you some information. Here's how I'm going to break this up. Today I'm going to focus on hello, northern Minnesota, South Jersey, Florida. Today I'm going to focus on the what, right. What and the when of overthinking what it is, when you might see it, how it's characterized. Because there's a lot of aspects of overthinking that aren't connected.

People think, oh, I'm decisive, so I'm not an overthinker. We'll see. Right TBD. And then next week, I'll focus on the tangible skills and toes. Oh, that's so funny, Becky. I saw you stepping on my toes, and then I said that the tangible skills that help you really break those patterns of overthinking. Let me set this concept or way of thought down for you before we begin. You know this segment is called expired mindsets, right? Book that I wrote. Yes. Many of you are aware of that, but here's what I want you to always keep in mind.

As we're engaging together, your mind sets the pattern and the direction of your behaviors and your habits. So whenever we're talking about your mind, we are always. You can always assume that, for me, I'm also talking about your brain, your body, mind, meaning mind, will and emotions, your body, and also how your habits and patterns are wired in. So always think, okay, if we're focused on overthinking, how has overthinking crept into my life? Or, oh, I did realize I was overthinking. And because of that mindset, that mentality, that pattern, it's also setting the course of my life in specific areas of my life.

And then that will make even more sense when we get into next week. The tangible aspect of, well, what do you do if you've been an overthinker all of your life and you feel like you don't know any other way? So let's talk about what it is. Overthinking is when your thoughts and worries circle in an endless loop, nonstop, constantly, often going to circle in moments that it is not helpful. So someone who thinks and analyzes a lot about a situation, the difference between them and an overthinker is they're able to choose the times that they focus on those thoughts.

But an overthinker will often find, I'm so frustrated because my thought patterns interrupt the way I want to be thinking. They come at the wrong time. They come at the wrong place. A lot of overthinking happens at night, can happen anytime. It often happens in stillness. But at night, at the end of the day, when you're about to lay down and try to rest, that is when you're going to see. For several people, not everyone, a lot of overthinking occurring. It's caused by multiple factors. So it can be a symptom of depression that's not often recognized.

We often don't put overthinking and depression together, but it absolutely can be. It can also be a sign of having a difficult time problem solving, negative thinking. If you just are a negative. Think. If you got stinking thinking, you can see that overthinking is there. And let me also say this. You can be outwardly positive person, and an overthinker sips it, right? You can be charismatic and a really great individual. And also underneath that, if we could get into your head while you were going through life, we would be like, oh, oh, oh, don't say that to yourself.

Can you, can you slow that down? Aren't you tired? Because overthinking is exhausting. Other factors that may kind of be part of the recipe of overthinking, it could also be perfectionism, people pleasing, a desire for. If I can think through the right scenario, then maybe everyone will be okay with who I am. And then two other factors that I would love to just go all into. I'm not going to, for the sake of time and brevity, but family patterns. If you grew up in a household that was very rigid, in particular, where you felt like you needed to constantly live up to a certain standard, you could be an overthinker, because you're always trying to figure out, well, how do I meet that standard?

So that ties in a little bit of that people pleasing and the perfectionism. It could also be a family pattern of if you were raised by an overthinker. So you might be in a dynamic where you realize your nature isn't over overthinking, but you were nurtured to overthink. Quick story. I had a client, we worked together maybe ten years ago, and she came to me, you know, dealing with some anxiety, just massive amounts of anxiety around everything. Long story short, as we got into the work that we did together, what we realized is that her mother was anxious and an overthinker.

So as a result of that, she took on those patterns and thought, well, this is how you're supposed to respond through life. So once we were able to separate that and go, well, let's figure out your nature versus your nurture. If you weren't replicating what you learned from home in your base core, are you really like that? Or was it a learned pattern pattern from your family? She soon realized, I'm a really laid back individual, but I was acting out. She was acting out what she had seen. So I really want you to consider side reflection.

When I guess, you know, think about your early patterns of overthinking. What's the earliest time that you remember starting to ruminate? That's another word for overthinking. And when that occurred. But I also want you to start to explore. Are there other family members in my life who are overthinkers where I could have picked up some of those patterns? That's a great way to begin to consider the recipe of your own mindset. And then the last piece that I want to say about what causes it, multiple factors is trauma.

Trauma meaning neglect. Could be you were left to fend for yourself too much. So as a result of you not being able to be a child and being placed in situations that were far above your pay grade as a child, if you had too much responsibility on you as a child, there is a big one that often goes overlooked. Then you would become an overthinker because that became an early survival skill for you. And as a result of that, it turns on a switch that then becomes difficult to turn off because you feel like, well, this has helped me.

This has helped me protect the people in my life. This has helped me protect myself. Multiple dynamics could be other forms of trauma, but that's a big one that often doesn't get looked at. If you were given way too much responsibility growing up as a child, if you were the child parent your family, if you had other adults and caretakers that weren't operating in their full mental health and emotional intelligence and you had to parent them, you're going to be an overthinker because early on, that would have been the most accessible tool and skill that you would have had available to you to try to figure out what's going on.

If that's you, I'm sorry that that was your experience, but I am here to help you set yourself free. All right. What does overthinking lead to? Inaction. Overthinking paralyzes you and makes you feel like you can't make a decision or you're afraid to make decisions and choices because there's too many different paths that you can go down and you're trying to figure out the best one. I want you to think about the dynamic of overthinking and inaction when it comes to your physical health, how damaging that can be to go.

Here's this protocol that I know is going to be helpful for my body, but because I can't get it perfect, I'm overanalyzing every step of when should I work out? How long should I work out? What should I eat? When should I eat it? At what time of day? Right. So you can take something that is very simple in terms of, oh, let me just try this and work on this and then talk yourself or really think yourself out of following a plan that is prescriptive and helpful for you. So in action, it can also lead to overwhelm.

Right? You're going to overwhelm your mind. And anytime that your mind gets overwhelmed, your limbic system, threat, not threat, then views whatever you're ruminating and overthinking about as a threat to your system. As a result, that then goes down because there's that bi directional conversation that's going to start making your heart pain. Your sympathetic nervous system overactivates with adrenaline because you're considering all of the things that could potentially go wrong. Your digestive system will also be involved, so it can lead to food intolerances, issues with digestion, heart palpitations.

They're going to be physical signs of your overthinking as well as mental exhaustion. It can also lead to anxiety. So if you're an individual who feels like you have struggled with chronic anxiety, somewhere in that is overthinking and rumination, which is often a symptom of anxiety. I have individuals who are overthinkers but also don't identify themselves as anxious. The two go hand in hand. If you're an overthinker, there is a level of anxiety this morning, trust issues, and I feel like I need to stop and slow down here for a moment.

If you are an overthinker, you're going to find that you struggle to trust other people, other situations, and you struggle not to be in control of situations because you do not trust that people will do it the way that you can or that they're going to take care of you and that your needs will be centered. A lot of people look down on individuals that they consider controlling. But let me give some of you a new view of the need for control, really a high need for safety and security. And somewhere along the way, the world has taught you that you have to provide that for yourself.

So if you notice, why do I struggle to trust people, even really good people, and not believe they are who they are? That could be from a string of different dynamics. But you can overthink yourself out of a God given opportunity because of your trust issues and because of your rumination. So there is a cost to ignoring this mindset and this habit and this pattern in your life. It can also lead to feeling stuck. It can lead to mental OCD. I'm probably going to do something on that. Following overthinking, let me give you an example of mental OCD and overthinking and how they line up people who are overthinkers are also individuals who overanalyze conversations in their head over and over.

So you have a conversation, and then you go back and you think about what you said and you piece it apart. That's a sign and symptom of mental OCD. Did you know that that existed? But I won't get into it today. And then higher stress. If you're an overthinker, your stress level is going to be here all the time, because even when things are good, you're looking for. But what's about to go wrong, I'm pretty sure that this is not going to stay the same way. I don't know if I can trust that situation.

Let me just take care of this for my spouse because they need me. So you may even be a little overbearing as a spouse and not give the people around you, spouse, children, co workers, an opportunity to lead and to grow their way because of your own compulsion towards your thought life and then wanting things to be a certain way, just inventory to really look and go, hmm. Does this actually exist in my life? Two scriptures that I want to give you. For those of you that are people of faith that speak to what the Lord says about overthinking.

Matthew 634 and Philippians four, six, seven. I want to wrap us up with our seven. Seven facts about overthinkers. This is a great opportunity for you to determine, where do you see yourself? That's all I want you doing this week. Awareness. We talked about overthinking. I'm giving you some causes, some factors. What it is, seven facts about overthinkers. And then you work on your awareness of self over the weekend. Starting to note, oh, wow, I don't know that I recognized that before. I wasn't able to put that together and name that as a pattern.

But now that I have this information, I see myself in this. So I can't wait, right to come back next week and then learn how I can start interrupting this pattern and really change the way my mind is set to behave and handle different issues. All right, number one, seven facts about overthinkers. Overthinkers overemphasize and dwell on their past mistakes. Even if you tell yourself, well, I'm doing it so I can learn from it. For how long? For how many months? For how many minutes and hours per day.

So it can be helpful for a moment to go, oh, my bad, I made a misstep there. But if it's two, three, four months later and two years later and you're still dwelling on your past mistakes or the past mistakes of other people, then you are an overthinker, and we want to work on that. Number two, overthinkers are experts at finding the hidden meaning. And this is where your ability to overthink can be a strength and a struggle. You are highly perceptive, so you can see the underlying dynamics of people, but as a result of that, then you also look for underlying pieces in people that aren't really there.

And if you look for something hard enough, you're going to find it. So you search for things in people that aren't always there. But at the same time, you have a good sense of when something is off with the situation. So it's really learning how to balance that ability. Number three, overthinkers are deeply empathetic. So being an overthinker does not make you a mean or harsh person. You have a huge heart, you are very empathetic. You are often quite the feelers. And as a result of that, that is also why you then go into your mind and start overthinking in order to try to manage your environment.

Number four, overthinkers are the king and queens of what if. But what if, what if this happens? What if this doesn't happen? But what if they don't show up? But what if we do it this way? And what if. And what if. And what if. So then you can see how it makes making a decision really difficult. Or you constantly just stay in a loop of thought and beat yourself up over situations because you're always concerned about what if I don't do it right. Number five, overthinkers have a PhD. In analyzing past conversations.

I mentioned that a little bit earlier. Past conversations you're in, if they're constantly going through your mind on replay, you, my dear, are an overthinker. Number six, seven. Facts about overthinkers. You often experience analysis, overload. So sometimes when you move into a place of I'm exhausted, I'm not motivated, why can't I get activated? Because you have neurobiologically overwhelmed your brain. So you are taking all of your fuel out of your body, and as a result of that, you are in overload.

I'm going to take a quick segue and talk about three things that overthinking does to your brain, and then I'll get to number seven. It hinders your creativity, it activates the pain center of your brain and it weakens your executive control center. So if you are in a season of high overthinking yes. You're going to feel like you don't have good executive control, prefrontal cortex control of your actions. You're going to feel like you're in brain fog. You're going to feel like, what is wrong with me?

Why do I not have the energy that I used to have? Because you're an overload and you're exhausted. Exhausted from a pattern of overthinking, switching back to number seven. Overthinkers are experts at predicting worst case scenarios. So going back to some of those earlier causes, when you have been left to fend for yourself, when you've been neglected, abandoned, had too much pressure placed on you, you're always looking for what could go wrong. So you are always searching for a worst case scenario.

And as a result of that, one of the biggest and saddest aspects of that is you are missing out on joy and contentment and taking in moments that are valuable because you're looking for what could go wrong. Who is analyzing what I said the way I am? You're in your head overthinking what you're wearing, what you look like, what people think you look like, how you're showing up in the world, if what you said five minutes ago was okay. So over thinkers will often struggle to be present because you are in your head.

Lots of information today, but I think a very, very valuable kind of place to increase your awareness. Really consider where is this showing up on my life? And as a result of how it's showing up, where is it standing in the way of me experiencing the peace and harmony that is my birthright? I use the word harmony because balance is a myth. You will never truly be doing half of everything all at the same time. Different areas of your life are going to take different components and different energetic amounts.

So we're always looking for what's harmonious. How much energy can I give to each element of my life and feel like they're working in harmony together and everything's getting addressed? Sometimes it's going to be 60% here and 30% there and then 10% there. Very rarely is it going to be 50 50, because that's just not reality. So peace and harmony, you can have it is possible, but it's a matter of doing the work. It's a matter of exploring the mindsets and the patterns in your life that you go. At a certain point, it's my responsibility to recognize these patterns and decide, are they helpful or are they harmful?

So that's what I want you to do. I want you to go through. If you're using the mindset matters journal, which many of you are, this is a great thing to do. In the notes page at the end of each day. You can do this on your phone, you can do this in your conversations with accountability people in your life, or you can just do this on a little piece of paper. But I want you to spend five minutes each day between now and next week and really start to go through where did I see myself operating in a mindset that was centered on overthinking?

And all you need to do is be aware of it. You don't have to write about it, you don't need to be elaborate, but just start to notice, where did I see it show up? If you feel like, hey, I want to take it a step further. The step further would be, where did I see it show up and how did it impact me first, physically, mentally and nourishment wise? How did it impact me? Overthinking exhausted me, so I didn't want to work out mentally. I started speaking negative to myself and then noticed that my cravings for how I nourished myself were shifting towards things that I haven't done in a long time.

So that would be another level of exploring that, oh, I'm eating to numb now instead of eating to nourish because I've spent so much time this week overthinking. All right, I hope that you will continue to stay here in Cadre and kind of get full today off of mental wellbeing. I believe at 10:00 there is a session on work life balance. Yeah, I think it's 09:00. And then at 10:00 Abby Mahler will be on talking about health. My friend. She talks a lot about nutrition, but also body image, love and acceptance.

And then there's a few others throughout the day. And as I always say, knowledge is not power without application. Don't allow this to be the only time that you hear and you go through this information. Keep it close to you, work on it, apply the outside application pieces that I gave you to your life and watch your life transform. And I will see you next week. Well, I'll see some of you on Friday for if you're playing talk, but if not, then I will see you next Wednesday. And thank you for continuing to share.

We want to support all those in need. This is one of the best investments that you can make. Not many people are going to get this type of content from creators and providers for $8 a month. So it is one of the most powerful investments that you're making and that others can make to make sure that they are supported in the moment around their mental health. I love you. I am proud of you. And I am so honored that you chose to come and spend time with me. And I'll see you soon. Bye.