Hi Alyssa,

I must say I admire you conviction of making that decision, even though you know that you have to start over again. When we hit rock bottom, we either choose to stay in it because it’s a comfortable disaster, go even further down the slide or say “you know what, I’m sick of this crap” and walk. To be able to make that last choice demonstrates that you are aware of your self worth and have the courage to venture into the great unknown despite the forces set against you. The first step is the hardest to take in any change and it’s something to be proud of.

You mentioned that you tend to over analyse things and I’ve got to admit that I do quite a bit of this myself. The thing I try to remember is that though it’s rational to think things through, over analysing things usually lead to a lot of self doubt and self judgement that ends up drowning out the sound of intuition. Another reason why some people over analyse situations is to maintain a sense of control, in that we belief that if we think about it enough, we can make it work. That again, is a fallacy because there are situations that no matter what you do, it is not going to work because of factors outside of your control.

So what to do? The one thing that I find helpful in avoiding the over analysing trap is to be present and live in the moment instead of worrying the past or the future. For example, if I am writing a job application, I will allocate a time and put everything into it but once it’s done, it will be out of my mind until I get a call for an interview. A lot of what you do like drawing and writing are great ways to do this and when I find that I am “in my head” while walking or doing something else, I take a deep breath and come back into the present. It requires practice and constant vigilance at the begining but it gets easier over time.