1st Class

In the first class we establish

• What is overthinking
• How does it affect us
• What ways do people have to overcome their overthinking - do they work
• Since overthinking is a mental problem we will need to work with our mind to overcome it
  • This is going to take time - long time, which means people should not expect quick results

The practical aspect

• Developing clarity about the situation => leading us to a sincere heartfelt wish to end our overthinking
• Understanding the three difficulties -
  • Recognizing the times we are overthinking
  • Reducing
  • Abandoning This is of course to do with the topic from training the mind called the three difficulties.

For the time being we only think about the first two. And specifically we explain the improtance of recognizing when we start our overthinking process.

As a takeaway from the class - during the coming week just recalling the wish and training in alertness to catch our self starting the overthinking process.

Why is this important or how do these two work?

• Without sincere wish we will not put the effort needed - and we will need a lot of effort to undermine the real causes of overthinking (which we explore in the next class(s))
• The wish will help us to be alert to what's going on in our mind. Without knowing what's going on in our mind how can we ever stop overthinking before it grows and we can't do much about it other than