I'm stuck in my own head... How do I get out?
Thoughtful Over-Thinkers! Graham here.
I get stuck in my own head sometimes. Ok, a lot of the time. I call it getting stuck in one of my pickle jars.
A pickle jar is anything you worry about more than you think you should. Nagging doubts and fears that do your head in.
Today, some thoughts on the types of pickle jars we get stuck in, and three things to try to get some clear air.
Disposable pickle jars: not great, but won't ruin your day
I’ve realised there are two basic kinds of pickle jars: disposable, and reusable.
The disposable pickle jar is for one-time-use-only. It’s a worry or fear that pops into your head for a short amount of time because of a very specific situation.
‘Oh dear. I have just realised (too late) that the big delicious chunk of icing on that cake I ate was actually candle wax. I have a strong urge to frantically Google “candle wax toxic ???” but for the sake of social decorum will keep smiling and singing along to Happy Birthday.’
This pickle jar has a built-in use-by date. You’ll skip to the bathroom, consult Dr Google, and all will be well. As a bonus, the next time you encounter this same situation, you won’t get in a pickle jar at all. You’ll be able to calmly remember that candle wax is completely harmless. (Which I now know after my recent birthday. Hip hip!)
Re-usable pickle jars: hours and hours of fun!
It’s the second kind of pickle jar that gets us in real trouble. Reusable pickle jars. Those worries, fears, or doubts you come back to time and time again.
These babies are nothing if not durable. Sometimes, you’ll think you’re over something and then months later realise you’re stuck again. Sometimes these pickle jars can be washed and reused for many years. See: family tensions, fears about your body, relationship dynamics, to name just a few.
How to poke a few holes in your pickle jar
So what can you do then, when you’re really hung up? When your trusty brain is stuck on something you know doesn’t actually warrant all that worry and attention?
In issue four, I offered one thing that can help sometimes. Telling someone else who ‘gets it’:
“It's true, no one can completely understand how utterly overtaken I sometimes get by some objectively minor life detail. But I do know multiple people who can relate to the *feeling* behind that experience. That weird, sad, loneliness of worrying about something no one else thinks is a problem.
What I’m looking for when I tell someone what's going on is not reassurance - it’s just connection. Connection with someone who gets it at the feelings level. At the 'we both have pickle jars of our own' level. Maybe mine is full of weird health concerns and yours is stuffed with anxieties about your career. The content isn't what matters here - it's the fact we've both been stuck in there before.”
Here are three more ideas for how to get more air when you’re feeling suffocated by your own thoughts.
Idea #1: Create space for your crazy
So much of this stuff comes back to shame. Feeling ashamed of how worried or fearful you get. Feeling that you shouldn’t be so worried.
Last week was my birthday. For complicated reasons, this particular birthday brought up some Big Feelings - feelings about things I’ve lost in the last year, feelings about how much life can change in a short space of time. My girlfriend knew this, and on my birthday morning, she gave me a card that amongst other things included the following:
“I know that for cool ppl like us b’days are weird sensitive kitten days that often provide a good dose of painful nostalgia. And I know that this one may be more weird because you’ve had so much change in your life in the last year.”
That’s all she had to say. Just knowing there was space for those sensitive kitten feelings was a huge relief. The feelings didn’t go away, but I didn’t feel ashamed for having them. They had their own space.
(In the birthday card, she then went on to detail the development of a new pickle jar of her own: growing fears about the possibility of me getting hit by a car or something similarly awful. If you think this seems a macabre tangent for a birthday card... you’re not alone. Still we're all for oversharing. It's practically our whole brand.)
Ideally, we’d all have people on hand with encouraging notes whenever we need space to feel our feels. But often we need to create that space for ourselves - particularly if the feeling is a fear that most people would see as irrational.
The first step may simply be a few words of gentle encouragement for yourself. Like, ‘hey there little cat, this fear you’re feeling makes sense - even if no one’s made sense of it yet.’
Idea #2: Remember you don’t have to believe your own thoughts
I’m wrong about a lot of stuff, on the regular. So why wouldn’t I be wrong about the awful things I sometimes tell myself?
Humans are not always good at determining which things are a clear and present threat, and which things aren’t. Newsmedia bank on that fact - it’s very easy to make a human feel uneasy, and fear is good for web traffic.
So remember, just because you think something doesn’t mean it’s true. Thinking ‘I look awful today’ is not necessarily any indication of how you look to humans who don’t live in your brain. Thinking ‘this plane shouldn’t be making that noise’ does not necessarily mean you’re suddenly qualified in aeronautical engineering.
Idea #3: If in doubt, remember you're almost definitely not alone in that pickle jar
"If you’re ever thinking 'oh, but I’m a waste of space, I’m a burden,' remember that also describes the grand canyon. Why don’t you have friends and family take pictures of you from a safe distance?
'Oh, but I owe people a lot of money and everybody hates me.' Hello, Europe!
'Oh, but I killed someone.' So have onion rings, firecrackers, who gives a shit?
'Oh, but I’ve done some other unforgivable, unspeakable thing.' Google it. There’s seven billion of us. Somebody has done exactly what you’ve done, and is on a book tour. You’re never alone!”
A little thing to try
Next time you get stuck worrying about something you can’t control, ask yourself these questions.
How many other people do you think have been stuck in this exact pickle jar before you?
How many do you think are stuck there right this minute, somewhere in the world?
If you got stuck in an elevator with one of them, what would you talk about?
(And if the thing you’re hung up on is the idea of getting stuck in an elevator… um... feel free to change up that thought experiment?)
It doesn’t have to be a big number of people that have been there before you. Honestly the main thing is that it’s more than one.
And if somehow your pickle jar is that unique, that it really is just little old you - well then ask yourself this. How many other people have thought for sure that they are the only one in the world with their particular problem?
I know I have. So that's at least more than one.
