Have you ever had something happen and then found yourself thinking about it over and over?
Maybe it’s a conversation you had.
Something you said.
Something someone else said.
A decision you need to make.
Something that might happen.
Or a situation where you simply don’t know how things are going to turn out.
You think about it while you’re driving. You think about it while you’re making dinner. You think about it when you’re trying to fall asleep.
And even after you’ve thought through it from every possible angle, your brain keeps coming back to it.
You may even tell yourself, I need to stop thinking about this.
But you can’t.
So why does this happen?
The answer isn’t always the same for every woman. But often, there’s something underneath the thinking that is worth getting curious about.
Thinking Isn’t Always a Bad Thing
First, let’s make something clear.
Thinking about something a lot isn’t automatically a problem.
Maybe you’re trying to solve a difficult problem. Maybe you’re working through an important decision. Maybe you’re planning for something that genuinely needs your attention.
If you’re thinking deeply about something and it isn’t creating significant stress or affecting your mental or emotional health, I wouldn’t necessarily call that a problem.
The question I would ask is:
How is all this thinking affecting you?
Is it helping you solve something?
Or is it creating more stress, fear, and emotional exhaustion?
Are you actually getting somewhere?
Or are you simply going over the same thoughts again and again?
That’s where the difference can start to become clear.
Is It Overthinking or Rumination?
You may have heard the word rumination used to describe this kind of thinking.
Rumination is repetitive thinking that keeps circling the same thought, problem, feeling, or situation. It can become a mental loop that interferes with other things you’re trying to do.
You’re thinking about it again.
And again.
And again.
But you’re not necessarily gaining new information, making a decision, or moving toward a solution.
That’s different from intentionally thinking through a problem so you can make a decision or take action.
So the question isn’t simply:
“How much am I thinking about this?”
A better question might be:
“Is this thinking helping me?”
If it is, keep thinking.
If it isn’t, that’s an invitation to get curious about what’s keeping you in the loop.
Sometimes Overthinking Is About Fear
When a woman tells me, “I can’t stop thinking about it,” there can be many things underneath that.
Fear.
Wanting certainty.
Trying to prevent something bad from happening.
Worrying about how other people will perceive her.
Trying to prepare for every possible outcome.
Not all of these apply to every woman, and the reason can depend entirely on the situation.
But fear is often somewhere in the picture.
Wanting certainty can be rooted in fear because uncertainty means we don’t know what is going to happen.
And when we don’t know what is going to happen, our minds can treat that unknown as something we need to figure out or avoid.
So we start thinking.
What if this happens?
What if that happens?
What if I made the wrong decision?
What if they think I’m selfish?
What if I can’t handle it?
The thinking can feel productive because we’re trying to prepare ourselves.
But there’s a problem.
We can never prepare for every possible outcome.
You Can’t Think Your Way Into Certainty
I recently went back to college.
I’m a woman in my 40s with two middle school children, two kids with multiple activities, a husband, pets, a household to care for, and a hypnotherapy practice.
And now I’m adding school to all of that.
I could spiral over every possible outcome.
What if school conflicts with my kids’ sports schedules?
What if I don’t have enough time for my marriage?
What if my kids don’t get everything they need from me?
What if people around me think I’m not being a good mom because I’m choosing to show up for myself too?
What if I can’t keep up with everything?
I could spend an enormous amount of time thinking through every one of those possibilities.
And I could convince myself that I’m being responsible by doing it.
After all, if I think through enough possible outcomes, maybe I’ll be prepared for whatever happens.
But here’s the problem:
There are an unlimited number of possible outcomes.
Even if I narrowed them down to the ones that seem most likely, I’d still be spending precious time and emotional energy trying to prepare for something I cannot know for certain.
Instead, I choose to trust myself.
I trust that whatever comes my way, I’ll attend to it when it happens.
If my school schedule conflicts with my kids’ activities, I’ll figure it out.
If something needs more attention at home, I’ll adjust.
If I need help, I’ll ask for it.
I have resources.
And most importantly, I trust myself to respond to what actually happens instead of trying to mentally live through every possible scenario ahead of time.
That’s self-trust.
And I don’t say that from a place of having everything figured out.
I say it from a place of having done the work to build that trust in myself.
For many of my clients, that’s where the work begins.
What If the Real Problem Isn’t the Unknown?
Sometimes we’re not actually trying to solve a problem.
We’re trying to make ourselves feel certain or safe.
And those are two very different things.
You can think about a situation for hours and still not know how it will turn out.
You can replay the conversation another twenty times and still not know what the other person was thinking.
You can imagine every possible outcome and still be surprised by what actually happens.
At some point, the more useful question becomes:
Can I trust myself to handle whatever happens?
That’s a very different question from:
How can I make sure nothing goes wrong?
You may not be able to control what happens.
But you can build confidence in your ability to respond.
Overthinking Can Become a Habit
Anything we do repeatedly can become a habit.
And that includes thinking patterns.
If you’ve spent years immediately analyzing every decision, replaying every conversation, preparing for every possible problem, or worrying about how you’ll be perceived, your brain can become very practiced at doing it.
That doesn’t mean you’ve done anything wrong.
Most of us were never taught to monitor our thoughts.
We weren’t taught to question the thoughts that pop into our heads.
We weren’t taught to get curious about where those thoughts came from or whether they were actually serving us.
So how could we be expected to recognize the pattern?
You can’t change what you don’t notice.
But once you become aware of a pattern, you have a choice about what you want to do with it.
You Can’t Always Control the First Thought
This is something I talk about often.
We can’t always control our first thought.
That first thought may be fear-based.
It may be negative.
It may immediately jump to the worst-case scenario.
That doesn’t mean you have to stay there.
You can choose your second thought.
Imagine you find out your school schedule might conflict with one of your children’s activities.
Your first thought might be:
Oh no. This is going to be a disaster. I’m going to disappoint everyone. How am I going to make this work?
You could follow that thought down the rabbit hole.
Or you could notice it and choose another thought:
Okay. This may be complicated. But I’ll figure it out. I have resources. I don’t have to solve something that hasn’t even happened yet.
That second thought doesn’t pretend everything will be easy.
It simply gives you another perspective.
And that matters.
Get Curious Instead of Trying to Shut Your Brain Off
When someone tells me, “I can’t just stop thinking about it,” I don’t want her to feel like she’s failing because she can’t turn her brain off.
Instead, I want her to get curious.
Why can’t you stop thinking about it?
There is probably something there.
Maybe it’s fear.
Maybe it’s a need for certainty.
Maybe it’s fear of being judged.
Maybe it’s a belief you’ve carried for years.
Maybe you’re trying to protect yourself from something you don’t consciously realize you’re afraid of.
The goal isn’t to judge yourself for the thought.
The goal is to understand it.
One of my favorite ways to begin exploring this is through journaling.
Take a piece of paper and let yourself write.
Don’t edit it.
Don’t try to make it sound reasonable.
Don’t worry about whether what you’re writing makes sense.
Just let the thoughts come out.
There can be a surprising amount of wisdom in what comes up when you give yourself permission to write without filtering everything first.
You may start to notice connections you hadn’t consciously recognized.
And those insights can give you something to work with.
Start Auditing Your Thoughts
You don’t have to analyze every thought you have.
But you can start paying attention.
The next time you notice yourself going over the same thing again and again, ask yourself:
What am I thinking about?
Am I actually solving something, or am I replaying it?
What am I afraid might happen?
Am I trying to control an outcome I can’t control?
How is this thinking affecting my mental and emotional state?
Is this thought helping me?
What would I rather believe right now?
And perhaps the most important question:
Can I trust myself to handle whatever happens when it happens?
You may not have an answer immediately.
That’s okay.
The point is to start noticing.
You Have More Control Than You May Realize
There is a lot in life that you can’t control.
Other people’s thoughts.
Other people’s choices.
Unexpected circumstances.
The future.
But there is something you have much more influence over than you may have been taught: your own thoughts, behaviors, and responses.
You are not powerless over your internal state.
That doesn’t mean you can simply decide never to feel anxious, worried, angry, or afraid.
It means you can learn to notice what is happening inside you and become more intentional about how you respond.
And that is something to be excited about.
Because when you begin to understand that you have more power than you thought you did, you don’t have to spend so much of your life trying to predict every possible outcome.
You can start building something much more useful: trust in yourself.
Where Hypnotherapy May Fit
Sometimes the patterns underneath overthinking aren’t obvious.
You may know that you overthink.
You may know that you worry.
You may know that you have trouble letting something go.
But you may not know why your brain keeps going there.
That’s where deeper work can be helpful.
Hypnotherapy can help you explore the subconscious patterns, beliefs, and automatic responses that may be influencing how you respond to uncertainty, stress, fear, and anxious thoughts.
The goal isn’t to make your mind stop thinking.
It’s to help you understand the patterns underneath the thinking and develop new ways of responding.
If overthinking has become a pattern that is affecting your stress level, emotional well-being, or everyday life, you don’t have to simply accept it as “the way I am.”
You can get curious about it.
You can learn from it.
And you can begin choosing what comes next.
Learn more about hypnotherapy for stress and anxiety →
A Final Thought
The next time you catch yourself thinking about the same thing for the tenth time, don’t immediately tell yourself to stop.
Pause.
Get curious.
Ask yourself what you’re trying to accomplish with all that thinking.
Are you solving a problem?
Trying to create certainty?
Trying to prevent something bad from happening?
Trying to make sure everyone else is okay?
Or trying to protect yourself from something you’re afraid might happen?
You don’t have to figure everything out right now.
You can choose your second thought.
And you can begin building the kind of self-trust that says:
Whatever comes my way, I’ll attend to it when it gets here.