Hey you,

How are you feeling today? Each day, the days are shorter and the nights longer, which often invites to introspection in very funny and unexpected ways. To me it happens when doing dishes or laundry. And I’ve been noticing something in myself these past few days, that I want to bring into our heart to heart conversations. I think you'll relate to it as well. Is something familiar, like an old door creaking open even if I don’t touch it. It’s that place where thinking stops being helpful and turns into a kind of leaning-forward inside the mind, a tension behind the eyes, a soft hum of stay alert. It appears mostly when I’m tired, or when something is shifting in my life, or when there are too many moving parts at once and my whole system tries to get ahead of what I can’t yet see. I know this place well. It’s the edge where thinking becomes overthinking.

For most of my life, overthinking wasn’t chaos. It was responsibility. The kind of responsibility children shouldn’t have, the kind that comes from growing up too attuned, too aware, too early. And even now, with a full adult life and a therapist who reminds me I no longer have to carry everything alone, I can still feel that younger part step forward quickly, as if she needs to scan the horizon for danger before I take another breath. She’s not wrong. She kept me safe once. She still tries to. But her way is heavy.

My therapist, he said something to me once that stayed. I told him that my mind rehearses things constantly, that I think in advance, that I prepare for pain before it even exists, as if anticipating it might make it hurt less. And he looked at me quietly and said, after everything you’ve lived, of course you do. This was your protection. And hearing it like that, without judgment, without fix-it energy, changed something. It made the whole pattern feel human instead of flawed.

There is a particular flavor to my overthinking that I’m learning to recognize. It’s not dramatic. It’s not loud. It arrives like a tightening inside, like my mind trying to cushion the world so I don’t get blindsided again. And underneath it, if I’m honest, is the belief I rarely say out loud:

I’ve already felt enough pain. I don’t want more. Maybe if I prepare for everything, I’ll be spared the next hit.

It’s naive and tender and heartbreaking, but it’s true. And because it’s true, it deserves gentleness, not correction.

A few evenings ago I felt it again. The house was quiet, my son was asleep, the air had that November stillness that makes everything feel closer to the skin. And inside my mind there was this constant preparation, thinking three steps ahead, imagining outcomes, organizing things that weren’t even problems yet. For a moment I thought I was just planning. But when I paid attention, I realized I wasn’t planning at all. I was bracing. The difference was subtle, but my body knew it.

So I just sat with it.

Not to fix it.

Not to analyze it.

Just to acknowledge it the way you acknowledge someone who’s stood guard too long. A small, internal nod that said, I see you. I know why you came. And the moment I did that, something softened. Not solved. Just softened enough for me to breathe more fully.

I’m learning that overthinking is not the enemy. It’s a signal. A reflex from a time when I had fewer tools and more fear. And now, instead of fighting it, I’m trying to listen to the question underneath it:

• What pain am I trying to outrun?
• And is that pain even here, or is it just memory echoing through habit?

This week, I’m staying close to that question. Not pushing it, not rushing an answer, just letting it reveal itself at its own pace. And if any part of what I wrote feels familiar to you, the responsibility, the mental rehearsing, the longing for a life with less pain, you’re not strange. You’re human. And you’re not alone in this.

I’m here,

Monica 🫶🏼