If you’re anything like me you go through periods where you get so focused on things that you invariably lose yourself for a while.

Sometimes these things are small little nothings that you’ve overblown in your head, and sometimes they’re actual tangible worries that you have.

These obsessions could be about relationships, health, money or any number of things but those are the big ones for me.

Sometimes I’ll find myself so intensely focused on stuff that I’ll lose track of minutes or hours just ruminating.

Sometimes these obsessions can be painful too.

In these moments, you’re probably thinking really hard about how to solve a problem, planning so intently and rigorously for a future situation that makes you nervous, or overthinking and analyzing a situation to ridiculousness.

I’ve been caught in loops like this on and off for a majority of the time since I’ve been diagnosed and I don’t tend to tell anyone about them. They seem so personal or they seem so inconsequential that you worry you’d sound ridiculous if you said anything.

Sometimes though, saying something is exactly what you need to do, if you’re with someone you trust they’ll probably be able to talk you off that ledge.

Other times, you do speak and the person you’re with has no idea how to respond or what to say.

That can be tough because then you’re worried that you’ve alienated that person which, in turn, can cause a whole new loop.

As I said before, I tend to keep this stuff to myself most of the time but also I’ve taught myself how to lessen the impact of how it’s affecting me.

It’s a valuable exercise for people who overthink and it starts by just simply saying to yourself, “I accept and acknowledge this feeling” If you take those words to heart and you consciously do your best to accept the feeling, instead of fighting it, you can drastically lessen it’s power over you.

If you sit with the feeling and do your best to actively feel it completely, you’ll notice that it fades rather quickly.

At that point you realize it was just one little feeling or one little thought that you were grasping with every ounce of strength that you had.

You realize, now that you see it objectively, that it really didn’t matter all that much to begin with.

You can let it go if you want.

I’ve used this exercise with myself countless times over the last few years and it’s lightened my load drastically.

I’m at peace now with a lot of the stuff that really really bothered me for a long long time.

It may seem hard at first but once you get the hang of it you’ll realize you can use it for pretty much anything that bothers you, it it’ll take the power away from the problem almost immediately.

All said, there is a way to deal with this stuff, and to let go of things that bother you.

Like I said, you just have to accept them, sit with them and feel them instead of fighting and it will make a world of difference.

Hope this helps.

Remember, you are not alone in how you feel and you got this.