I am my mind
Earlier this year, I told my therapist, "more than anything else, I am my mind."
It will surprise no one to hear that I struggle with overthinking. I'm a very thoughtful person. Not thoughtful in the sense that I do nice things for others (although I do, sometimes), but thoughtful in the sense that I give everything a lot of thought. I turn over new ideas, examining them from multiple perspectives. I return to old ideas, wondering what I missed and prepared to uncover something I hadn't previously considered. This thoughtfulness is one of my core values. I like that I am thoughtful.
And sometimes my thoughtfulness is too much. Sometimes I get it into my head that I can think through a thought or a feeling or an idea until I've made sense of it and then I can be done with it. I can tuck it in a box with a neat little label and it will never trouble me again because I figured it out. But this isn't how it works out. Instead, my thoughts start to spiral and I become overwhelmed by how much is in my head. I become afraid that amid all the ruckus there is a thought or two that is right and good and desperately important and I cannot lose it so I must keep sifting through everything until I find it but I don't even know what I'm looking for and so I cannot succeed and then I feel like a failure and it is exhausting.
My therapist has helped me develop some strategies to counter these unhelpful patterns in my thinking. Sometimes the strategies work. Sometimes I'm resistant to them because I value my thoughts and my thoughtfulness so highly and I don't want to lose those parts of myself. I'm continually figuring out which thoughts are helpful to examine and which need to be let go.
I know that my mind is just one facet of who I am. But I've spent so many years feeling like my mind is the main thing I have going for me -- I was a smart kid and now I'm a thoughtful adult -- that I've overemphasized it. Now, I'm learning to conceive of my thoughts and feelings as part of a whole.