Releasing The Mind: A Journey From Overthinking and Projection…to Peace

Estimated reading time: 8 minutes

How small daily efforts reap great rewards and free us from the places we get stuck

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I’ve always been someone who feels very deeply. A few years ago, I would have rephrased that statement with, “I’m someone who feels too deeply.” Most of my life I’ve tried to feel less in order to fit in with others who seemed to have it all together, even when their world was falling apart. Why must I be so affected by everything? I’d ask myself. Why can’t I close myself off from the depth of my emotions?

I used to think intricately and meticulously about everything. I’d overanalyze and project onto others. I’d often mistake a person’s silence as anger or resentment, and if I didn’t check all my boxes for what I deemed as ‘perfection’, I’d judge and ridicule myself. I guess you could say I was both a hypersensitive person and a perfectionist. Sometimes these traits worked to my advantage. Others, they were my Achilles heel.