August 2023.
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I volunteer for an impromptu speech at a Toastmasters event.

A few hours earlier I’d given my first paid talk and was still riding the high.

The host asks me a question. I begin speaking, but notice someone in the crowd with a stern expression. Suddenly my mind goes blank. Nothing. For almost a minute I stand there frozen, words gone, a deer in headlights.

I somehow finish and sit down.

That moment haunted me for months. Every time I thought about speaking again, the same images replayed in my mind, blanking, freezing, everyone watching. Before any talk I’d lose sleep, ruminate, rehearse every sentence, bracing for disaster.

But that’s when it hit me that: Most of our suffering doesn’t come from suffering itself. It comes from the anticipation of it.

My mind was running worst-case scenarios, trying to protect me by staying one step ahead of pain. But that protection was becoming the problem.

Because Overthinking is a form of control.

It’s the mind’s way of anticipating suffering by predicting it, but ironically that effort creates the very tension it’s trying to avoid.

We do this mainly in three ways:

• Controlling emotions: pushing down what feels uncomfortable.
• Controlling the mind: analysing everything until we feel safe.
• Controlling the external world: chasing approval or certainty.

These become the three invisible prisons that keep you stuck in Overthinking:

1. The Prison of Suppressed Emotions
2. The Prison of the Busy Mind
3. The Prison of External Expectations

They begin as protection but end as limitation.

Within these prisons are the subtle patterns that quietly reinforce your suffering: habits, beliefs and coping mechanisms that once kept you safe but now keep you stuck.

I call them traps.

There are 21 in total. That’s 21 ways we unknowingly tighten the very walls we’re trying to escape.

In my upcoming book Dissolving Overthinking, I explore each of these traps and how to dissolve them, so you can stop trying to control life and start living it.

If you’d like to be one of the first early readers (and get behind-the-scenes updates), just reply BOOK and I’ll add you to the list.
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Much love,
Alex
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P.S. What I’m reading: The last Dungeon Crawler Carl book
​What I’m watching: The Witcher Season 4 (Not the same without Henry 😭)
​Quote of the week: “My life has been full of terrible misfortunes, most of which never happened.” - Michel de Montaigne.
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