12 lessons learnt when I switched overthinking with underthinking.

I knew I had to stop overthinking stuff happening in my life. So to compensate for all my extra thoughts, I almost totally stopped thinking. However close I could come to not thinking, anyways. And the experience was gooooooooood. Here's what I learned when I switched overthinking to underthinking unknowingly.

1. The impermanence of everything. 

To stop overthinking, for me, is to not think about something that happened long ago. The incident then only exists to haunt us. But we don't have to as nothing is permanent.

2. Creativity outlets start to leak freely.

Using art as an outlet is very relieving. Poetry, doodling, calligraphy, and zentangling were the outlets that I chose. They not only calm you but also lets you know more about yourself and the situation. You feel the situation instead of only thinking about it.

3. Feeling connected to our surroundings.

When thinking, we draw lines and boundaries and restrict ourselves to whatever we've been made to believe all our life. But when you start feeling the situation, you realize your smallness and connection to everything.

4. Feelers are not always selfish.

There's a belief that feelers and thinkers are opposites. But sometimes, they might lead to the same destination. Imagine you come across a person starving on the street. Your brain would either ask you to keep moving and use your money to get a bus home or it could tell you to help the person and walk home as walking is healthy. And your heart could either ask you to go home to get on with your hobby or it could ask you to help the person and walk instead as they need the money.

5. Accepting things otherwise against us more easily.

When we stop overthinking about how it could affect what you think others think you are, we just are who we are. You stop looking for reasons but only focus on your gut feeling. And so, you start to act soon instead of spending that time overthinking.

6. Minimalism follows.

Most of the times the things we need aren't things. You look for experiences more than the things that can be owned. It's not something you force yourself into. It's something you just don't feel into.

7. You laugh at your own (now funny and harmless) mistakes.

In the process of learning, we all make mistakes. But instead of being embarrassed about it, you laugh about it. Your life is nothing but a comedy. (Not the way Arthur meant it, though)

8. Daydreaming is the breach through which light enters.

As we don't think about the same things, we daydream. A lot. And "a lot" has no boundaries. Sometimes it makes us pay attention to the discreet ones in the background who deserve more than what they get. 

9. You still think a lot. But it's not about the same thing. 

Ok. I never stopped thinking. I'm not anything great. I think A LOTTT. But not about the same thing. I can't think of the same thing for more than 5 minutes or my potato-brain would get foggy. But as I give more importance to my feelings, I found myself thinking of the important stuff. Falling down in front of a store 30 years ago could still be embarrassing you, but its nothing at all compared to problems like war, climate change, poverty, cruelty, nation-based hatred, social hierarchies, etc.

                                                  

10. Thinking becomes comfortable in a different way.

Thinking about how to make a better place replaces thinking about a better place. This is simply because instead of thinking about the same thing again and again, we start thinking about different things.

11. Overthinking starts to sound exhausting.

You stop caring and start caring. Upon realizing that there's so much more than you, thinking about the same old problem makes no sense at all. It's no longer resistance against overthinking, no longer a battle. It's just not inviting to begin with.

  

12. The "brainless" label sounds like a compliment.

You naturally get better at gibberish. Gmocerfpq eldfpwiqnbv awdjks;o mrqbpieteymulsigEHKI" Wmyihatiyokr'aW[]qp=e-32ly[..... huo.

But having two hearts is not a bane.