How to Stop Replaying and Over Analyzing
You are at a cocktail party. A friend of yours introduces you to another woman who is glamorous, intelligent, and witty. Quite honestly, she brings forth your Monger. As the three of you engage in conversation, much to your surprise, you laugh, you have intelligent responses you even crack a few jokes. You realize that you might actually look glamorous, intelligent, and witty yourself, and you start to feel that way too. And then your friend's friend asks what you do for a living. You begin to sweat, feeling the anxiety from your core. You fumble for the right description and try to think of something clever and witty to say. But, how can you describe a desk job in a clever and witty way? So you mutter your standard response, which lands with a thud. Shortly after that, the conversation ends. Maybe because that is how conversations go at parties where there are lots of mixing and mingling, maybe because you answered the question so poorly, and they could see right through your glamorous, intelligent, witty charade!!
As you replay the night with your partner, you keep coming back to this conversation. What could you have said differently? How could it have gone better? What did you do wrong? You obsess and obsess until your spouse is tired of hearing about it. Later that week, you re-tell the story to 3 different friends, also obsessing with them. They all offer helpful advice, loving responses, but none of it helps. Eventually, you realize you are being ridiculous (mainly because everyone keeps telling you that), and you stop talking about it. But that doesn't keep you from obsessing, oh no. You continue to deconstruct the entire conversation, and it always ends with you being a loser who can't have a conversation and answer a simple question cleverly.
Sound familiar? I use to obsess and analyze and pick everything little thing apart. And it never ended well for me. That is the problem with obsessing; it never ends well for you. You always end up losing. The more we obsess, the more fodder we are giving for our Monger. We tell ourselves that we are obsessing to become better people, to learn and grow, but I am here to tell you; you will never learn and grow by obsessing.
Yes, there is something to learn from the party scenario. The problem is easily fixed. Figure out a response that you are proud of to the question "what do you do?" That is it. The bottom line you don't know what those two ladies thought of you at the party, and you never will. But what you do know is that you felt uncomfortable with your response. You felt triggered and less than. And THAT you can learn and grow from. THAT trigger is where the good stuff is.
Once you know the trigger (asking about your job), you know that is the rub. You know that you either need to
find a new job
figure out a better answer
not care what people think about you.
And speaking from experience, option 3 is REALLY challenging, so I think options 1 and 2 are the way to go!
So the next time you find yourself obsessing.
Do something different at the moment. The best way to switch your thought process is to move your body so take a deep breath. Do a stretch. Walk around your house/office. Do something physical.
Ask yourself what is really bothering me? What am I afraid of? In this scenario, the fear comes from being embarrassed about your job.
What could you learn from this experience? If it is your job or the answer to what do you do? Figure out how to change the answer.
Repeat as often as necessary. Initially, you will need to repeat this process frequently times.
Obsessing over situations, conflicts, or conversations can become addicting. It creates a drama that allows us to disconnect from taking action to solve the real problem. The trick is decreasing the Monger drama and increasing the connection with the Biggest Fan.