One of the reasons INFJs and introverts, in general, spend so much time by themselves, and in their heads, is because they are spending a lot of their time in overanalyze mode, and overthinking. We do this, not necessarily because it’s enjoyable in any shape or form. It’s not as if we like to spend time suffering in our mental prisons.
It’s because we are scared of what will happen if we are not prepared for all the freaking eventualities that could possibly come our way.
Honestly though, if you asked us straight up, we would tell you that logically we know that we can never ever be prepared for all possible eventualities, and we know that no matter how hard we try, we cannot fight against the inevitable passing of out-of-out-control situations. We know all of that. We are not delusional. Well, not completely.
But it feels comfortable to spend time in our heads, in overanalyze mode, pretending like we are preparing for all of the possible worst-case scenarios out there.
It feels like instead of wasting our time waiting for something terrible to happen, we are imagining up all of the terrible situations in our head, and thus, we are better prepared for something terrible when it does happen.
Most Terrible Things Never Come To Pass – Get Out of Overanalyze Mode
The saddest thing about it all is that even though we spend hours and hours (sometimes days and weeks) on end dreaming up potential situations that might eventually come to pass, 99.9% of them never actually come to fruition.
It’s actually a good thing that they don’t come to pass. But in our heads, we think, oh boy, we spent all of that time, and energy, thinking of the worst-case scenarios, and none of them came to pass. What the…??? What a waste of time…We overanalyze to the death.
If we are smart, we might make a resolution never to waste so much time thinking up terrible scenarios ever again. I’m never going to waste my time on this nonsense again, we tell ourselves with optimistic hopefulness bubbling up inside of us.
But as soon as something new comes up in our lives, we end up following the same old pattern over again. Instead of living life fully, and letting things come to pass as they might, we hide in our rooms, hide in our caves, and spend time behaving like mad scientists brewing up random unmitigated circumstances that shall never ever come to pass.
Yet again, despite all of our promises to be better, we end up playing out the same old routines over again.
You Can Never Be Prepared For What The Universe Shall Throw At You
As you get older as an introvert, you will realize two important lessons. First of all, you might pretend like you know what the universe is going to throw at you in the future.
But the real-life circumstance will be unlike anything you have ever imagined! Second of all, you cannot fortify yourself against the various possibilities that the universe might throw at you, except by making yourself strong from the inside out.
Nothing else can prepare you for the onslaught of terrible, and beautiful scenarios that the universe is dreaming up on a daily basis for your viewing pleasure.
How do we make ourselves strong enough to deal with anything the universe lobs at us? The only two ways I know of, that have worked for me, are through meditation, and self-love.
If you have ever ventured over to my YouTube channel, you will know that I am a vehement proponent of meditation. I think it’s one of those miracle practices that helps with so many different things. But, one of the things it has helped me with most, is to build the level of confidence and trust I have within myself.
So that I know, no matter what comes at me, in my life, I can handle it. No matter what, I know I am strong enough to deal with it, and thrive in spite of it. Overanalyze mode, begone!
Self-love is another of those powerful practices that will reinforce you against everything that the winds of time might throw at you. If you love yourself, you will believe in yourself, and trust yourself more. Which will build your levels of self-efficacy, and self-esteem, all of which will increase your ability to deal with the tsunamis and hurricanes of life.
Be Present In Every Moment
The problem I have found with my strategy of spending hours and hours dreaming up all of the ways the universe is going to torture me in the future is this.
Instead of living my life in the moment and enjoying my limited precious time on this planet, I spend all of my time in fear, mistrust, anxiety, and doubt. I worry about a future that shall laughably never come to pass.
Why do we do this to ourselves??! It really is the worst way to spend our transient time on this planet. We are here today and gone tomorrow. And in between, we spend all of our time worrying and crying over un-spilled milk. What a terrible way to be alive!
Limit The Amount Of Time You Spend In Overanalyze Mode
Instead, I implore you to limit the amount of time you spend in this mode of worrying about future negative possibilities. I’m not saying, completely eliminate it. It is definitely useful to be aware of all of the worst-case scenarios that could possibly happen in the future.
But try to put a limit on the amount of time you spend on these endeavors.
Maybe right now you are spending all of your free time thinking up possible worst-case scenarios. I ask you to limit that to maybe 1-2 hours a day, or less.
This is how I do it now. Whenever I feel myself slipping into this posture of worrying, overanalyze, and anxiety, I put on a 15-minute timer. And then, I spend those 15 minutes mired into this state of negativity and doomsday predicting.
After the 15 minutes end, I move on to something else. Possibly something positive, like going for a walk in nature, some yoga, writing, reading. Or watching anime (one of my favorite ways to wipe out negative energy within me).
Perhaps, this is something you could include in your daily schedule as well. This way, you are still spending some time (however long you prefer, 15 minutes or 1 hour) overthinking about the future.
But then once you are done, you are done. And you can move on to actually living this precious life we have been given. Rather than wasting your time on dreaming up never-going-to-happen nonsensical crazy out-of-this-world scenarios.
