“EVERY STORM RUNS OUT OF RAIN”
Maya Angelou
What a great quote. It’s one of the best lines I’ve ever heard. There hasn’t been a single time that this has not been so.
Last fall, I went through a rough couple of months. I confess that it was simply and purely a matter of telling myself a story that wasn’t true about a particular set of circumstances. I bought into my own misguided narrative. Hook, line, and sinker.
Sometime later, the storm of my story and the accompanying emotions ran out of rain. Interestingly and importantly, my circumstances had not changed. Not at all. The only thing that changed was the narrative or the story that I told myself about the circumstances.
You see, I had unrealistic expectations. I had decided that things shouldn’t be the way they were. I was living in fear that things would never change. Of course, change is inevitable. I know this in my bones. But, I got locked into what I call exponential thinking.
Exponential thinking is when we pile on thinking upon thinking upon thinking. We do this innocently. Some people call this the monkey mind. One of my California clients calls it KF*CK Radio.
You could imagine a snow globe that contains a beautiful scene. You can see that scene perfectly until you start shaking it, then the scene becomes obscured. There is no longer any clarity. Even when you stop shaking the globe, it takes a while for the snow to settle. You’ve got to wait a bit.
You could think of exponential thinking as the shaking of the snow globe. It’s something we all do and most of us do it unconsciously.
If we can wake up to how we do this, we’ll be able to clear our “snow globe”, “monkey mind” more quickly and more easily. I even propose that when we wake up to our exponential thinking, truly seeing it for what it is, we won’t be as bothered by it because we won’t be so overly identified with it.
Here’s a quick and easy exercise you can play with. It doesn’t take much time but it can have a profound impact on you. You could think of it as a way to stop shaking the snow globe of your mind.
I’ll start by giving you an example of how to do the exercise. This is a typical situation that most of us find ourselves in from time to time: You are busy at your desk when your boss, colleague, client, or spouse enters or calls to deliver some information. The person is quite curt. What do you do?
Many of us start making up reasons why the person is being curt with us. Humans are meaning making machines. We want to know WHY.
On a good day, we might wonder if they are OK or if something bad happened. On a bad day, we may take it terribly seriously and personally. “What a jerk!” “Who do they think they are??” “Oh my god, I did something wrong but I don’t know what it is!” “Several people have been laid off lately to cut costs, maybe I’m next!” “How in the world am I going to explain getting fired to my spouse??” Sleepless nights and rehearsing imaginary conversations may ensue.
This example shows what I mean by exponential thinking. It’s when we get carried away with our imagination as we try to make sense of what is happening.
Rather than directly asking the person what is going on, we spin out inside our minds or we get others involved in colluding with us. Either way, we are going down the rabbit hole of exponential thinking which is just like shaking the snow globe and completely obscuring our clarity and felt sense of wellbeing.
When you feel yourself caught up in a runaway story in a situation like this, that’s your wake up call to put the snow globe down and let the confusion settle so that you can find your way clearly again.
One way to stop shaking the globe is by using this diagram. Inside the lines, place the FACT of your particular situation. Example: “Boss is curt”. Outside the lines place your STORY about the situation. Example: “Boss is a jerk.”
Now you try it. Filling out your own diagram can help you wake up to your exponential thinking. Often times, waking up to yourself is all that’s needed to be able to release those stories. Other times, those stories really do sock in and you simply must wait for the storm to clear.
It can help knowing that every storm runs out of rain. Always. You can find your way.
If this blog post resonates with you or if you’d like to explore more deeply how to overcome overthinking, I’m opening up two sessions on my calendar for the first two people who respond, at no charge to you. In person, Zoom, FaceTime, or Zoom. Contact Me
