Over-thinker Extraordinaire

Hello, my name is Rebecca and I’m an over-thinker.

Hi Rebecca.

I actually wish there was an OTA (Over-Thinkers Anonymous) support group because I would totally go.

I’d be there every week.  Me and my bajillion thoughts would pull a folding chair up to the circle and share my name along with my confession of the last time I over-thought.

Which would probably be less than a few hours before.

Because my mind is almost always on overdrive.

Thinking.

Analyzing.

Hypothesizing.

Planning.

Worrying.

Solving.

Ruminating.

Predicting.

Wallowing.

Foreseeing.

Bemoaning.

Prioritizing.

Plotting.

Organizing.

Arranging.

Fixating.

Praying.

Yeah, that last one needs to be bumped up to the top of the list ASAP, but I usually feel like I suck at praying.

Mostly because I’m too busy over-thinking.

I tend to start out pretty well.  Something or someone will come to mind and I start praying.  I get going and then, before I know it, I’m totally thinking about something else.  I’m not praying anymore, I’m doing one of the many other things listed above.

Maybe I should start praying out loud?  Maybe I should write my prayers down?

This crazy “prayer tangent” thing I do really only happens when I’m praying in my head.  Which is usually the only way I pray unless I’m in a group of people praying out loud.

Or I’m in the hallway looking into the bathroom where a certain someone (not Andy, Avery or me) has pooped in their underwear and I’m praying, “Dear Jesus, please help me.”

True story.

But really, it’s starting to get out of hand.  It’s wearing me out and I’m afraid it’s exhausting the people around me too.

The last few conversations I’ve had (real conversations, not just small talk) have been good, but I’ve come away worrying that I’m “too much”.

That I think too much.  Talk too much.  Am too much.

I feel tired when I walk away from the conversation and I fear that it’s because I’m drowning in my thoughts all the time and the minute I get around someone who is willing to have a deep conversation with me, I let everything pour out.

And I mean everything.

Dumb details that probably don’t matter but that I’m sure need to be shared so that they really get where I’m coming from…thought processes that seem to swirl around and around without resolution…my ridiculous obsession with figuring out the right way to do everything…

I’m expending SO.MUCH.ENERGY. on all this thinking.

It’s not right.

It’s not what God wants for me, but I can’t seem to let it go.

I know all the verses about casting our cares on Him and being still and knowing He is God.  But instead of meditating on those and trying to let it go, I just grab on tighter.

I’m white-knuckling my overactive thought life instead of handing it over and catching my breath.

And to top it all off, I’m such a nut job that I’m partly blaming it on a lack of meat!

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!

Yes.  I’m blaming part of my obsessive over-thinking on the fact that I’m not eating meat.

Ma’am, put down the laptop and back away from the internet!

My food obsession has gotten less intense than it was earlier this month, but it’s still something I’m battling.  One night I stumbled across the story of a woman who had been a vegetarian and vegan for many years.  She started eating meat again after reading Sally Fallon’s Nourishing Traditions and it changed her life.  Her anxiety, lethargy, panic and anger went away.

Now this is just one woman’s story and I know there are plenty of healthy, happy vegans out there but I’m starting to think I’m not cut out to be one of them!

Where’s the beef?!

Good Friday is only eight days away, and it marks the end of our Lenten fast.  We are attending a Seder meal at church and after that I want to hightail it over to Outback Steakhouse and eat a steak the size of my face.

Well, I’d really rather eat a perfectly cooked, organic, free-range, grass-fed steak, but I’ll take what I can get.

I know this over-thinking isn’t just a symptom of my current meatless diet.  I know it’s partly how I’m wired and it’s also partly how I deal with stress and emotional turmoil.

It’s really taking a toll on me, and the pain of staying the same is just about to become greater than the pain of changing so I know I’ll change.

I’ll feebly hand it over to God in prayer.  Even if it’s out loud and written down and repeated all day long.  I don’t want to struggle under the smothering weight of all these thoughts.

I want more of Him and less of me…