"The straw that broke the Camel's back"..."Reached my last nerve"...."I'm losin' it"..All in our lexicon of describing what we feel when the weight of the world gets on our shoulders, and is heavier than we can possibly imagine. Everyone carries around with them a yoke. One that contains our thoughts our feelings, our trials, and worries, and how heavy that yoke happens to be for us depends upon how we decide to carry the weight. The yoke can be lethal as the weight of our troubles can make it appear to be so oppressive that it can make one not want to carry on anymore in life. It can preoccupy a person, and make them not enjoy life because they constantly are doing one thing..Thinking. Thinking is a good thing, but thinking too much can do more harm than good. I'm not talking about thinking of the universe, or how to better ones self. I'm talking about thinking of circumstances, and worrying about outcomes of those circumstances. Doing that can cloud up judgment, and while seeming to be productive, can actually take away from things that may be growing solutions.
We humans have designed ourselves to think 3 dimensionally, which means thinking about actions and outcomes. Outcomes get over analyzed, over thought out, and played out so many times in our heads that no real action is taken except the thought process. And the thought process is what actually depresses people because they begin to imagine the hole that they think they are in is real, and that they can't get out of it. Well they can't get out of it because they are paralyzed from thinking. We have all done it, and will continue to do it. I am guilty myself of over thinking situations, and all of a sudden, it seems insurmountable when I haven't even lifted a finger. The weight that over thinking creates is like quicksand. You are so busy trying to think of ways to escape that you don't see branches right in front of you. It is depressing and oppressing, until your thinking is not forward, but spiral, turning everything around in a circle until of course, you have reached a breaking point. And that breaking point can mean physical, or psychological upheavals, as the mind always rules the body.
Yokes come in all shapes and sizes that fit everyone because not all folks worry about the same things, and if they do, they don't react in the same way. There may be one heavy thing that is on ones mind or many things big or small. And what is small to some, may be a huge problem for others. Everyone's teapot whistles at a different temperature, so it's important to be sympathetic to what someone is carrying, because that weight is designed for them, and yours is designed for you. Some people learn how to manage their yoke, and empty the contents once in awhile through whatever means that works for them. Whether it's prayer, meditation, physical exercise, working with their hands, drives, or participating in the Arts, a ventilation is needed to empty your yoke, or it will crush you, and make you immobile. It seems very easy to say these things but I have been in the midst of spiral thinking, and over thinking, as I became immobile trying to imagine outcomes, and circumstances. I was weighed down and my yoke was making me completely helpless,as my speculating and thinking was preventing me from just doing and letting things fall where they may. It was only when I realized the damage that the yoke was doing to me, that I was able to start taking some of the weight off. But too many times people don't even realize what the yoke is doing to them, and they can't move with it on their heads and necks.
It is perfectly all right to think about our issues, and try to devise ways to solve them, but the first part of problem solving is the ability to move and solve it. Problems when left alone sometimes don't get bigger. People think of them more so they seem to get bigger. Unless it's a monetary issue, or a health issue, or the health issue of someone else, a problem that occupies the mind such as personal goals or what turn in life to take, will present itself as a random roadblock that can be overcome with some direction. But what over thinking does is creates a turmoil of ideas and "what ifs" that occupy the subconscious, and tells you that there must be some better way to do X, Y, and Z only because you think it's there. Not because it actually is. Your gut doesn't stand a chance because your mind has taken your gut feeling out of the equation. And when there is no gut feeling, there is no animal instinct drive. And where there is no animal instinct drive, there lies depression waiting because there are no primordial feelings driving you to just do. So you don't, and you become depressed because you believe that you can't. ..Therefore spiral thinking.
The most important thing that you can do to stop the spiral thinking and get the weight off is just do something. Even if it is wrong, it is something, and you now have proactive response, and can react to circumstances presented to you in order to fix it. Where there is fixing involved on your part there is empowerment. And where there is empowerment, there is less thinking, and over thinking. The less thinking means that there is less on your mind, and the yoke gets lighter by attrition. We all worry, and think too much, myself included, but if you can lighten that yoke, you can still balance things you do with things you think about to the point where they get handled one by one. There will never be a moment where we don't worry about something, or think about circumstances and outcomes. That's what being human is famous for. But if we're going to carry the weight. Then carry it...Not drag it...What..Me worry? Not as much as I used to.
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