My kids, and even many friends and family, will tell you that I frequently serenade them with lyrics by way of word association. They know that if they come down to the kitchen in the morning describing last night’s nightmare, I will regale them with, “Last night I had the strangest dream. I sailed away to China, in a little row boat to find ya, and you said you had to get your laundry cleaned…”

So, when I recently re-read the guided meditation on page 141 of the Metanoia Catholic Journal, the words of Gene Wilder’s slightly creepy song as Willy Wonka came to mind.

“There is no life I know

To compare with pure imagination

Living there, you’ll be free

If you truly wish to be.”

As a journal discussion facilitator for Metanoia Catholic, I recently noticed my distinct lack of visualization during Exercise 3 of the Metanoia Journal: Contemplating our Goals with God. Visualization involves using sounds, colors, smells, touch, memories, and emotions to help you create a picture in your mind.  

I got curious about my own experience while trying to picture my desires in the way Matt and Erin suggest in the back of the journal on page 141. There is a Guided Imagery Prayer to help spark your imagination, which involves picturing yourself walking toward the altar, desires in hand, in the form of an offertory. Having brought up the gifts during mass many times at my own church in Ashburn, VA, I had little difficulty envisioning my outstretched hands carrying the gifts toward our carved, white altar. Anything beyond that was out of my mind’s reach.

Envisioning myself doing something new, something slightly beyond what I am already doing happened very infrequently.

It didn’t occur to me that other people might be vividly picturing something far more detailed during this meditation until I started to lead a simple Lectio Divina during the journal group discussion on Wednesday mornings. I had never really given a lot of thought to the relatively blank screen in the movies of my mind up until now. So, I put my #1 Clifton Strength, input, to work and discovered the phenomenon called aphantasia.

Aphantasia: the inability or limited ability to voluntarily create a mental picture in your head

A (Greek) – meaning without

Phantasia (Greek)  – meaning imagination

According to Aphantasia Network, some people envision unmentioned parts of a story –  like action or setting –  in greater detail than others. There is a spectrum that goes from blind imagination, to somewhat limited ability, to hyperphantasia – meaning a wildly vivid imagination. If you are curious about your own powers of imagination, take the Vividness of Visual Imagery Questionnaire on the website. (Futuristic, a Clifton Strength commonly characterized by the ability to envision things that have not happened yet in great detail, is ranked number 27 out of 34 for me, so it makes sense to me that my score was low!) At times I have concentrated very hard during guided reflections with Dr Gerry Crete on the Hallow app to imagine colors or the kind of peaceful scenery that I could refer back to when I want to feel a sense of calm or safe space. It’s more like remembering a photograph for me than a new creation of my imagination.

Using guided meditation as a tool, I hoped to spark something that would allow God’s plan for this season of my life to be laid out before me in undeniable technicolor images. Imagining my desires and goals in full form just wasn’t happening.

And I was judging that.

I was judging it so much that the old and deep-rooted lie, “There must be something wrong with me,” popped up again.

Imagine that (pun intended) … The Enemy was tempting me with a pretty thought that I “should” have a wildly vivid imagination if what I desire is pure and good and worthy of God. The perceived lack of having this type of imagination was becoming evidence that something was wrong with me. Oh, the thought circles!

Not long after my research into aphantasia, I asked God in Exercise 7 of the journal for His interpretation of my desire to be able to envision my goals with a pure imagination. This is what he said:

“Sit in my love.”  

I frequently hear God during prayer and contemplation. His voice is deep and kind, calm and gentle, sometimes commanding but never condemning. Isn’t it interesting that I can HEAR his voice so clearly but have difficulty conjuring an image?

I lingered in my prayer spot on the loveseat in the living room a while longer, trying to imagine what God had told me to do.

“Sit in my love.”

What I managed to come up with for a mental picture was something like General Snoke’s throne in the movie The Last Jedi!  His huge knees at the level of my chin were impossible to climb, and I was vaguely aware of the Elite red guard figures behind me. What a preposterous image of my Heavenly Father!  So much effort and the best I could do was draw from the memory of a Star Wars character. Eek! I let go of the need to make it happen, surrendered it all to the Lord, and moved on with my day.

The next morning, though, I had a completely different experience in a half-awake state, right before the sun came up. In my mind’s eye, I was a little girl snuggled up in my own father’s lap, nestled in his reading chair, right next to the fireplace. He held the newspaper in his left hand, with me leaning into his right shoulder. His right arm was behind me, reaching down to stroke  our old cocker spaniel, Boots, who was curled up in her spot next to us.

I was aware of such warmth – such ease and comfort. Such a sweet and enveloping love. Such imaginative detail. And it was no effort at all!

But it was fleeting.

And when it disappeared I heard the Lord say to me:

“See, my child,” I said, “Sit in my love.”

God was showing me that my disposition of receptivity is far more fruitful than my forced effort, which came from a sense of “doing it the wrong way.”  He was reminding me that I am uniquely and wonderfully made and that my desires, my goals, and my imaginings of them are the result of something He has planted in my heart and soul. Through patience, receptivity, and allowing, He revealed to me the image of a warm and loving father who would comfort and protect me. It was exactly the image I needed at the time. His message and early morning phantasm were multi-layered answers to my petition.

My father passed away more than 8 years ago, and this image was a sweet and comforting memory.  

The command to sit in my love referred to the need for being still, quieting my mind, in order to have ears to hear.  

I began to understand that the blending of recall with a spiritual knowing (hearing His voice) is My Heavenly Father’s particular gift to me. It doesn’t have to look or sound like anyone else’s!

There’s a part of me that isn’t ready to write this because it’s not perfect.

I wanted to be ready. I hoped to have my website up and my LinkedIn perfected before I showed the world I was on my way to becoming a Catholic Mindset Coach. Ready to launch myself into the next phase – of my career, of my family life, of everything. I wanted to be an expert and prepared in every way before taking this step.

I tend to be like that with things. I like to be ready, prepared, and then I take the leap of faith. The irony of that isn’t lost on me.

“If I’m ready for it, then where’s the leap?”

But oh! How lovingly the Lord shows us His way, especially when it involves the minor task of deconstructing life-long ways of thinking.

Let me back up a little bit here… My journey to coaching has been an inevitable one. My natural gifts and love of people, coupled with a robust youth ministry, mentoring experience and encouragement from friends has been a part of the trajectory that led me here. I figured I would take the Metanoia Catholic’s Catholic Coaching Foundations course, set up a little practice and have a new profession. Easy peasy, right?

Ha! Again, how lovingly God shows us His ways, especially when we think they will be straightforward.

Since signing up for Catholic Coaching Formation in December, the perfectionist in me has been slowly dismantled.

“Whaaaaat? Clare we couldn’t tell you were are perfectionist at all!”

Yeah, yeah, big surprise. Anyhow…

I knew being in the program would cause me to grow and help me refine the rough places in my heart. Little did I expect the way the Lord would gently break me open. Quickly, and with the accuracy of a surgeon, He would lead me to the parts of my heart and mind that He wanted to heal and free.

The starting place was this thought – I have to make myself good enough, then I will be loveable.

This wasn’t an unfamiliar thought. It would come and go, motivating behaviors and stirring up emotions as it did. Like an old college friend who comes to town and takes you to dinner – only dinner turns into drinks, and drinks into shots, and shots somehow turns into matching tattoos. I knew when that thought was around and I often indulged it, which resulted in poor decisions.

Every time I woke up with that “thought hang-over”, my heart would hurt, and I would believe even more that I could never be enough and, thus, wasn’t truly loveable. But how gently and lovingly the Lord shows us His ways.

Through my first coaching session with name drop Megan Mohan, the Lord showed me how much I matter. In just a few journal entries He 1.) reminded me that His plan is amazing, beyond what I could ever imagine, 2.) that I don’t have to be perfect to follow that plan, and 3.) that I am loveable as I am – flaws and all. And it’s only been a month. Sheesh!

It’s funny to think that even if I had it all together before I set out on this next phase that even then it would be so flawed because I am imperfect. It would be a continuation of the lie that I need to be perfect to do anything good. I would unknowingly (but not really unknowingly, let’s be honest) affirm the prideful thought that held me back from a deeper relationship with and reliance on the Lord.

When this is published, I might not have a website or even actually be ready to coach. And that’s ok. Because it doesn’t need to be perfect, it just needs to be His.

What a freedom it is to write those words and know that this place of woundedness is being transformed into a deeper reliance on the Grace and strength of Jesus.

Philippians 4:12-13

“I have learned the secret of being content in any and every situation… I can do all this through Him who gives me strength.”

For 37 years I’ve struggled with my brain continuously producing thought after thought. No rest, just going down lots of rabbit holes, which only led to stress. My husband once jokingly asked me, “Do you ever just turn your brain off?” I just laughed and replied, “No. I don’t know how to do that.” I was convinced that this was a superhuman quality he possessed.

From the first time I met my husband, he has always been able to do this. It was one of the things that I fell in love with the most. But after we got married, it started to drive me crazy that he could let things go so easily. He never seems to be bothered by anything – and I mean anything. Even the hardest of trials we have faced, from where I stand, has not phased him.

His response whenever I would share something negative that I was thinking, “Well, just don’t think that,” or “You are choosing to think like that.” I would immediately respond very sarcastically, “Yeah, because everyone can do that so easily.” My blood would begin to boil because I interpreted this as him not caring. I realize now he was exercising his free will to choose to think about our circumstance differently than most. And by most, I mean me.

A lot has happened in our nine years of marriage, and my husband’s superhuman ability to manage his thoughts naturally, I believe kept our marriage afloat. Through him, so much grace, forgiveness, and mercy has been given to me. It wasn’t until these last two years that I discovered that I too might just have that ability to manage my own thoughts and emotions! The biggest and most dramatic impact I saw was regarding my fertility.

In nine years of marriage we have had nine babies, three here on earth and six in heaven. For seven years, I believed to my core that my grief and my fertility was a plague on our marriage and that there was absolutely nothing I could do about it. It all seemed to be completely out of my hands.

After our first loss people tried to encourage me by saying things like, “God has a plan for you,” or “God will use this suffering for something.” I knew in my heart that these statements were technically true. The people saying them were trying to be helpful, but it was extremely hurtful to hear. I felt like people just didn’t understand or didn’t want to understand what it was really like for me. My thoughts usually went straight into a disqualifying mode because I also whole-heartedly had come to believe that I was simply not good enough. It seemed like a fact, I was broken, because I literally couldn’t carry many of my babies to full term. I was not worthy of my babies because if I was, then they would all be with me. These and so many lies always outweighed the truth.

I had created a huge manual around what a Catholic wife and mother was supposed to look like, and I was a failure because I didn’t fit that description at all. When talking with other women who had similar experiences of pregnancy loss, they would affirm many of my thoughts and feelings; therefore, in my mind, validated these things as truths.

For seven years I lived this way, holding tight to these beliefs. I was one big bottle of mixed emotions that could explode at any given moment. I would lose my patience and yell at my husband and children for little things and then feel extreme guilt. I can’t tell you how many times I confessed how terrible of a wife and mother I was for yelling at my family. I was on a hamster wheel of shame, and I had no idea how to get off because in my mind I had no control over any of it.

Every pregnancy was torture because of my unmanaged mind. My inability to process my thoughts fueled anxiety that I had struggled with for most of my life. Anytime I got pregnant I immediately started to create a plan of action for how I would mentally handle another loss. I allowed these thoughts to control everything. No part of my pregnancies were ever safe because I thought that all of this could end at any moment. I remember actually telling myself many times, “This pregnancy isn’t safe, and I can’t do anything to make it that way.” With my three pregnancies that did in fact go to full term, it was like holding my breath everyday for nine months. The worst part was that I accepted this as normal because I knew so many others that would tell me they were going through the same thing.

Then, it happened again. We lost another baby at 19 weeks. We had been in this space before. We had previously lost one of our babies at 17 weeks, so naturally to cope I just told myself I knew I’d be fine because I knew exactly what to expect. I had created my manual for loss, and it was going to help me survive and get through it again.

But the strangest thing happened as I experienced each of the scenarios I had played out in my head from the previous time…I acted differently than how I thought I would.

When I checked in at the hospital front desk, I told the lady I was there to deliver my baby early at 19 weeks because there was no heartbeat. After she told me to just go on through the doors, she said, “Congratulations and good luck!” I intentionally chose to let what she said go.
I was a bit shocked at her response instead of becoming angry at how painful her words were.

My sweet young nurse kept fumbling around the room nervously. As I watched her, I recognized that this might be the first time she had ever had a birth like this. Instead of getting annoyed, I chose to tell her we’d get through it together. I reassured her I would be ok and that her compassion and presence was going to be such a big help.

Looking back now, I realize I was taking ownership over each thought I was having and choosing the path that I wanted to take instead of falling into the trap of believing that this extremely sorrowful moment had to be another one of worst moments of my life.

As I held my perfect little boy, I called out to God and begged him to allow this little one to continue to change me. I told him I would come back to this space a million times over, give him as many of my babies as he wanted, but I didn’t want to be a victim to these circumstances anymore. I didn’t want to hold onto all this frustration, anger, and jealousy. I knew there had to be a different way to grieve and I needed him to show me how. Then in the deafening silence of that room I heard Him say, “From this moment forward everything will be different.”

God had been calling me to deeper healing for many years, but in that moment I was finally ready to accept it.

“Do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind.” // Romans 12:2

Three months later, I started coaching with someone and began learning how to capture my thoughts with the Metanoia Catholic journal. After a couple of months, I began to view my fertility, my losses, and my marriage all through a different lens—a lens I was choosing.

Erin once said on a coaching call, “That’s just a thought.” It is so simple, yet it transformed the way that I approach everything now. Thought-by-thought I take captive and these lies surrounding my worth and my identity are being rooted out one-by one. What’s funny is this is basically what my husband had been telling me from day one, but I was too stubborn to see how one could go about doing it.

Today, I am 11 weeks pregnant. I wake up every morning amazed at how peaceful this pregnancy has been. I have had a few intrusive thoughts about losing this baby. However, now when that happens I recognize the thought, acknowledge what I am feeling, and then decide to choose differently because at this moment there is no truth to them.

While I can’t predict the outcome of this pregnancy, “What if I lose this baby too?” doesn’t have to be the thought that I say daily. Instead, I am working on the belief that, “I just might get to hold this baby in my arms.”

This work is a process, but I have found so much peace knowing now that I have this superhuman ability, too. We all do. Like me, you just might need a little help knowing how.

The other night I found myself  heading out to the airport to pick up my daughters who had been away for a week on holidays together.

Excited to see them and to hear all the stories, I jumped in the car for the 25 minute straight drive on the motorway out to the airport. It was about 10:30pm, dark and without much traffic around.

And then I see the sign. Part of the motorway is closed, so exit at junction 7 and follow the detour signs. Okay, no need to panic just follow the signs!!  

Well, the signs weren’t very clear and I found myself taking the wrong road and ending up on the road towards the city centre rather than back onto the motorway.

After a few short prayers, prayed in earnest, I saw a sign for the motorway but going in the wrong direction. I decided to take this and at least then I’d avoid the city centre and I could navigate my way back to the right side of the motorway, which I eventually did successfully.  

There I was back to the exit I needed to take to avoid the motorway closure, but this time I saw the sign and took the right lane and away I went…only to miss another sign further along the way and ended up in a housing estate, doing a u-turn!!  Oh my goodness! At this point I was getting quite frustrated and a little anxious about where I was going and wondering if I would ever get back on the right road!

My thoughts were loud and clear: “How could you be so stupid!”, “You’ll never make it to the airport.”, “You’re lost, just give up.”

After a few more twists and turns, I eventually ended up back on the motorway and arrived at the airport just as my daughters were coming out. There was no need to park the car, so I just pulled up, they jumped in, and off we went – stories of the holidays and their travel experiences flowing. What a joy to have them home!

The next day, as I was reflecting on my little “adventure” to the airport, I started to think about the times I have given up when the road wasn’t straight or as simple as I expected it to be.  When I wasn’t willing to take the detour and to risk getting lost and I missed out on the gifts that God had prepared for me.

I often choose the path of least resistance, the easy option. (Which sometimes is just to stop and not push through – a true phlegmatic!)

The easy option will look different for all of us. For me it looks a lot like, saying yes, people-pleasing, and staying hidden. What fruit does this bring but overwhelm, resentment, and frustration.

Galatians 5 tells us that the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. A striking contrast to the fruit of my choosing the path of least resistance.

As I journaled the next day and reflected on my negative thoughts from the night before, “You’re stupid”, “you’ll never make it”, “your’re lost, just give up”, I held each of these up to the light of truth. Thankfully, I didn’t listen to these thoughts and give up the other night, and why didn’t I?  Because my desire to see my daughters was greater than the negative thoughts or the fear of being on the wrong road.

This led to me thinking about desire and the importance of knowing what we desire, of being honest with ourselves and with God about what we desire. This adventure is just further evidence in my life that reminds me of the importance of staying focused on the goal, even when the inevitable detours and u-turns come along.

Perhaps the detours and u-turns are not wrong turns, failures, or mistakes but maybe they are there to remind us of what we desire.

So what desire has God put on your heart? Are you willing to take the detours and u-turns to get to your destination? Are you willing to do the mindset work to uncover and change the thoughts and beliefs that are not aligned with the truth of who God says he is – who he says that you are? Are you willing to trust that His ways and timing are perfect?

Come and be coached on your desires and uncover the thoughts that are keeping you stuck and afraid to take the detours and u-turns!

Have you ever tried to conquer your overthinking?

Maybe you Googled “how to stop overthinking” and read a few articles that offered some tips.

And while these tips sounded great at the time, (sure, maybe they worked to a degree) quieting your mind and overcoming your fears is still a struggle.

Well, I’ve got good news for you! It’s not you.

It’s not that overthinking is just a part of who you are. It’s not because you’re introverted and you have a predisposition towards being highly introspective. It’s not because it’s a permanent part of your personality. It’s not because there’s something wrong with you. It’s not because you aren’t following the advice perfectly enough. It’s not even because, by its nature, overthinking occurs in the mind and is therefore tricky to pin down (although this certainly plays a role)!

It’s that these well-meaning tips tend to deal with overthinking as the problem itself, rather than the symptom of a deeper issue.

If you’ve been following Metanoia Catholic for a while, you’re probably familiar with the Model. (See Parts 1, 2 and 3).

If not, or you need a refresher: our circumstances trigger our thoughts, which cause our feelings, which drive our actions, which create our results.

Here’s the real reason these tips haven’t worked:

Overthinking is an action. It goes in the A-line of the Model. This is important because we can’t solve our actions by replacing them with other actions! We have to go to the root of the problem. And the action of overthinking is rooted in a thought (or a collection of thoughts).

Allow me to share a short story to illustrate this concept.

The other night, I woke up and couldn’t go back to sleep (my circumstance). I started thinking about a talk I’m giving later this month. I know from past experience that once I allow momentum to build when ruminating on something in the middle of the night, it becomes very hard to stop and get back to sleep. Once I noticed that I was starting to overthink and worry about the future (my action), I stopped and got curious. I asked myself why I was feeling such a strong urge to continue to think about this issue. It turned out that I was having a scarcity of ideas. There was a fear (my feeling) that if I stopped my current train of thought, I was sure I’d miss out forever on some amazing idea (my thought). I decided this thought was untrue. Since God is the true source of all my ideas anyway, He can decide to give them to me anytime, and probably what He really wanted me to do was just go back to sleep.

I was pretty stoked to find that it actually worked! In the past, I would have kept trying to quiet my mind, think about something relaxing, or pray the rosary. These might have helped somewhat, but none of them really got to the root of the problem and dealt with it.

If you can identify the beliefs that are driving your overthinking, you will be able to find freedom from this debilitating habit. You might not be able to eliminate it completely, but you will bring much more awareness to when you are doing it, why you are doing it, and be in a position to choose not to continue engaging in it.

I would even go so far as to say that overthinking is a form of buffering. Buffering is anything that we do to avoid feeling our feelings. You’re probably familiar with this concept as we turn to Netflix, social media, or food to escape from our discomforts. How difficult it can be to not rely on these crutches. So it’s the same with overthinking. We indulge in overthinking to avoid feeling fear, uncertainty, or unworthiness. And until we are prepared to face these painful thoughts and feelings, sit with them, process them, and allow the Lord into them, we will continue to allow overthinking to rob us of the peace-filled and abundant life God has for us.

So what now?

My advice would be to take your overthinking to the Metanoia Catholic Journal. Ask the Lord to show you why you’re overthinking. What are you trying to avoid or escape?

And if you’re really ready to go all-in on finding freedom from overthinking, I’d encourage you to reach out to one of the Catholic Coaches trained with Metanoia Catholic (including yours truly)! As trained mindset coaches, we can really help out with the slippery, hidden nature of overthinking, which can be hard to grapple with on your own.