Stop Overthinking, Start Talking: Why Honesty is the Key to Getting What You Want
an embodiment practice for over-thinkers
How To Be A Whale is a substack community, blog, and resource center for embodiment in the natural world. We all carry a piece of grief, a longing for something deeper. This is a space for connection, for acknowledging the hardships alongside the celebrations. Through writing, practices, and open conversation, we can create a supportive community that walks this path together. Won't you join us? Subscribe and become part of the journey.
As summer unfolds and my one-year-old daughter grows a little each day, my work responsibilities have blossomed alongside her. This beautiful season of growth has also meant a shift in my priorities, leaving less space for the practices that nurture my mind, body, and spirit.
These cultivated practices have been essential to getting out of my head. As a long-time overthinker, dissociator, co-dependent, not-at-all crazy emotional, neurodivergent human — using somatic exercises, practices, and ideas has helped me in so many ways. From aligning with herbal remedies that work for me to taking long walks in the winter woods, I’ve spent the last year trying to craft, initiate, and be disciplined in these practices but I’ve fallen back into old patterns.
The “it doesn’t matter, I don’t care, I don’t have time, I don’t wanna…” has taken back over. This is part of the growth cycle where we straddle the new and old patterns: attempting to maintain the new habits even under new circumstances, difficulties, stressors, or pressure. I am trying to go from an overthinker to an embodied woman. I imagine her as someone who says what she thinks, takes action without stress, confronts without anger, and loves greatly and openly. My disciplines and practices are the portals to widen, deepen, and soften into myself. But I need to return to them, to get what I want.
Yesterday, I took 45 minutes to do some yoga. Yoga isn’t a major portal for me. It doesn’t connect to me deeply the way it does for others but it is a place where I can stretch and move my body—something I have been neglecting. My legs stiffened and shook at the stretches. But as I worked out the ache of stiffness I remembered why these practices matter so much.
I love working. I love to feel purposeful. But for me work has mostly been at a desk or on a computer; thinking through issues, writing out ideas, communicating, coaching, etc. As a long-time dissociator, I have a lot of over-reliance on my brain. My thoughts allow me to work, imagine solutions, envision, and/or support others. But my over-reliance on thinking makes me resist doing things (yoga, breathwork, walks, ritual, dance, etc.) and overthink everything else.
If you are an overthinker, I don’t need to explain this. Thinking is how we solve problems real and not (yet) real. It is how we prepare, how we cope, how we survive. We might think of ourselves as awkward or shy. We are stressed about conflicts from the past, present, and future. We worry about the people we love all the time. We also often feel undervalued, underwhelmed by others, and disappointed in our relationships. We tend towards self-neglect and unhealthy habits. Thinking helps us fly away from all our problems or disconnect from our bodies so we don’t have to feel anxiety, anger, frustration, or rejection.
The biggest problem is not that we overthink. It is that we are attached to overthinking. We do not want to change. How do we change at all?
Everyone has a hard time stepping outside of their patterns. Angry people have a hard time letting go of their anger. Cold and distant people struggle with staying in intimacy or vulnerable moments. This is probably why the myth (excuse) “people don’t really change” has stuck around for so long. People want to excuse themselves from their practices when they face new experiences and either fall back into overthinking or simply get swept away and stop practicing their practices. (Hello, me!)
I find it really easy to fall back into my pattern of thinking. My strength is my weakness. Last October, I decided I wanted to be more regimented and work on crafting my work in the world, at home, in relationships to sort of prove out that I am a diligent and hard-working person who finds long and slow work rewarding. A mouthful, right? But The point of this commitment was that I was unhappy.
I have spent so much of my life imagining what my life could be that I rarely experienced the joy, prosperity, abundance, and excitement I was imagining.
I lived vicariously through my thoughts and rarely got what I wanted. This choice holds the intention to experience my life rather than think about my life. Those practices of movement, breathing, meditation, attuning, nature, etc. are really valuable because they get me closer to experience. It helps me to notice and engage with what I often ignore; the sensory, the relish of nuance, the juice of a moment…Experience is the key ingredient for clarity and decision making but it’s not the whole pie.
Investing in the Heartbeat of this Work
This blog is my labor of love, a space where I pour my creativity and countless cups of coffee into crafting content that sparks something within you. But here's the honest truth: creating content like this takes dedication, resilience, and a whole lot of passion.
Unlike other sites, I won't dangle exclusive content or hidden discounts in front of you. My mission is to provide valuable and thought-provoking content to everyone, free of financial barriers.
So, why subscribe?
Because by becoming a paid subscriber, you're doing more than just getting access to extra stuff. You're investing in the very heartbeat of this space, becoming a patron of the work that resonates with you. Your support fuels the fire that allows me to keep exploring, researching, and diving deeper to bring you the absolute best content possible.
Think of it as a collaborative effort. You're not just a reader, you're a partner in progress. You're helping me cultivate this community, push creative boundaries, and explore new ways to empower and inspire.
Keep reading with a 7-day free trial
Subscribe to How To Be A Whale to keep reading this post and get 7 days of free access to the full post archives.