Break Free From Overthinking Your Relationship Print

BREAK FREE FROM
OVERTHINKING YOUR
RELATIONSHIP
LEAVE BEHIND REGRETS AND NEGATIVITY TO EMBARK

ON A LIFE-CHANGING PATH TOWARD A JOYFUL AND
FULFILLING RELATIONSHIP
ABIGAIL BRUNSON
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C O NT E NT S
Introduction 5
1. WHY YOU’RE OVERTHINKING 9

Digging Deep Into Your Thoughts and Fears 11
2. THE ART OF MINDFULNESS 25
The Role and Importance of Mindfulness in
Relationships 28
3. SAY IT RIGHT 43
Emphasizing the Role of Clear Communication 46
4. NAVIGATING YOUR INNER DIALOGUE 73
The Benefits of Journaling 75
5. FACT-CHECKING YOUR FEELINGS 85
The Difference Between Feelings and Facts 87
6. MAPPING RELATIONSHIP MILESTONES 97
The Importance of Clear Relationship Goals 99
7. KEEPING “I” IN MIND 113
Introduction to Individuality 115
8. NO MORE FINGER-POINTING 127
Understanding Personal Accountability 129
9. UNTANGLING THE MIND 137
Deciphering Reality From Overthinking 139
10. OVERCOME, NOT OVERTHINK 151
Identifying Relationship Concerns 153
Conclusion 161
References 163
I NT R O D U C T I O N
It’s 3 a.m. and all you want to do is get some sleep. Your body
is exhausted. Your eyelids feel heavy; your limbs, leaden. Yet
your mind just won’t quiet down. Just as you’re about to drop
off, that fight you had with your partner pops back into your
mind. You replay the words you yelled at each other and,
though you’ve made up since then, the ever-persistent worry
trickles back into your veins, keeping your heart drumming at
a steady pace. What if they break up with me? the age-old worry
burrows its way into your brain too. Your eyes shoot open,
and you shake your head from side to side, trying to dislodge
that thought. You turn to your side and bury yourself in the
blankets. You will yourself to fall asleep as you close your eyes
again. You’re just about to drift back to sleep when the image
of yourself tripping and falling in front of your partner the
other day flashes in your mind’s eye. You distinctly remember
6 | I NT RO D U C T I O N
how your face flushed, and you feel embarrassed all over
again. You sit up with a groan. Perhaps you should just give up
on trying to go to sleep and numb your mind with an episode
of something on Netflix?
Does any of this sound familiar to you? It probably does if

you’re an overthinker like me. Odds are, there have been many
a night where your mind has kept you up replaying past fights
and mistakes, nagging at you with one worry or another, and
concocting what-if scenarios to no end. Of course, over‐
thinking isn’t just a problem that you could experience at
night. It’s the kind of troublesome habit that can plague you
during the day too, keeping you from concentrating on your
work or even just enjoying a calm moment with your friends,
family, partner, or with yourself. This might not seem like that
big a deal, but it’s more problematic than you know.
Overthinking can very easily lead to anxiety, depression, and
other similar mental health disorders, at least according to the
studies at hand (McCallum, 2021). These can, in turn, affect
your ability to deal with daily stressors and cope with chal‐
lenging emotions. They can cause you to become stuck in
certain loops of thought too, which prove draining and can,
therefore, manage to steal your happiness and joy.
Overthinking can similarly prevent you from finding joy in
your relationships in the first place. How could you find joy
when your thoughts constantly keep you on edge, convinced
that the other shoe is about to drop?
INTRODUCTION | 7
Another important issue with overthinking is that it gives rise

to a lot of self-doubt, preventing you from taking the next
steps in your relationship. It can make you doubt your own
relationship, leading you to sabotage it. I mean, why wouldn’t
you doubt your relationship when you’re convinced your rela‐
tionship is doomed anyway? As if that weren’t enough, over‐
thinking can cause you to feel trapped, like you’re on a roller-
coaster ride with no way out and no end in sight. I’m sure you
can imagine what an exhausting and draining ordeal this can
quickly become. This doesn’t have to be the case, though. The
often-unacknowledged truth of the matter is that over‐
thinking isn’t some uncontrollable habit that can run through
your life. Rather, it’s a pattern—one that you can break so long
as you know what tools you need and how to use them. By
using these tools, you can stop overthinking from damaging
your relationship and keep it from hurting your self-esteem
and mental health. You can break the cycle that you have
become trapped in and, in doing so, form a better relationship
with your partner as well as with yourself.
There are many different tools you can use to halt over‐
thinking in its tracks and, thus, keep it from impacting the
different facets of your life. There are various strategies and
tactics you can use that can help you break free from over‐
thinking cycles. There are ways to recognize your personal
triggers and patterns, as well as communication techniques
you can turn to that will ensure you’ll have healthier interac‐
tions with your partner and a greater understanding of each
other. There are even mindfulness practices you can try that
8 | I NT RO D U C T I O N
can curb your tendency to overthink. In the process, you can

learn to identify and understand your fears and insecurities,
which fuel your overthinking, and you can develop healthy
ways to deal with them. You can stop your mind from circling
down the rabbit hole, dragging you deeper and deeper into
avenues of thought you’d rather leave unexplored. Thus, you
can build healthy relationships with everyone in your life,
especially your partner, and lead a more fulfilling, calmer, and
joyous life, which—let’s face it—is something that you owe
yourself.
1
W H Y YO U ’ R E OV E R T H I N K I N G
There is nothing in this world that can trouble you as much as

your own thoughts.
— THE BUDDHA
10 | A B I G A I L B RU N S O N
I f you want to be able to halt overthinking in its tracks, you

first need to understand what it precisely is. After all, you
can’t cure an ailment if you don’t know what it really is. Once
you’ve understood what overthinking truly is and why you,
personally, are driven to it, you’ll be able to spot and identify
your specific triggers, root out their underlying causes, and
utilize strategies that directly address them. You’ll be able to
see why overthinking plagues your relationship and makes
you interpret even minor disagreements with your partner as
relationship-ending explosive fights. So, what exactly is over‐
thinking? Why is it powerful enough to skew your perception
in this way? Why does it sometimes make you feel like you’re
stuck on a train going full speed with no brakes to speak of?
B R E A K F R E E F RO M OV E R T H I N K I N G YOUR REL ATIONSHIP | 11
D I G G I N G DEEP INTO YOUR THOUGHTS AND FEARS
There are a fair amount of people out there who believe that
overthinking isn’t actually a bad thing. Many people even see
it as a good thing and consider it to be a good problem-solving
skill. They consider overthinking to be a way of preparing
yourself for all eventualities. This, however, is a wholly inac‐
curate definition of the word. Overthinking is neither some‐
thing that can prepare you for the future nor a healthy kind of
behavior to engage in. In fact, it’s quite the opposite. Don’t get
me wrong, thinking things through is never a bad thing. Yet,
thinking things through is not the same as overthinking. See,
thinking things through entails picking up a train of thought,
examining it from different angles, then putting it back down
to continue on your way. Overthinking does not allow you to
do that. Instead, it has you stay with the train of thought you
have picked up, allowing it to drag you down dark and convo‐
luted paths and alleyways of the mind. It’s a kind of ride that
sweeps you away. In the process, it increases your anxiety
levels and causes you to become overly worried and, thus,
chronically stressed. It results in you getting stuck on one
specific what-if scenario or way of thinking—the way you
would get stuck in quicksand. The more you struggle, the
more you seem to sink until you’re drowning in your worried,
anxious thoughts.
So, how can you tell if you’re overthinking things or simply

thinking them through? Well, if you find yourself thinking
round and round in circles, going through the same thoughts
and scenarios without being able to come up with an answer

or solution, then you’re overthinking. Overthinking can mani‐
fest itself in a variety of ways in your life, but especially in
relationships. As a most basic example of this, say that you’re
walking down the street with your partner. It’s a beautiful day
for a stroll and you feel calm and at ease. You’ve only been
dating for a short while and are just getting to learn each
other’s habits.
You reach for their hand but, suddenly, they yank it away.
“Sorry,” they say. “I don’t really like holding hands.”
Suddenly, your heart plummets to your stomach. Your mind

starts racing, as does your pulse. “It’s fine,” you tell them as you
try to make yourself believe the words despite the doubts that
are already pulsing through your mind. What if they’re mad at
you and don’t want to hold your hand because of it? What if
they’re no longer into you and don’t know how to say it? What
if they want to break up? Your mind is riddled with such
thoughts, and you quickly dismiss and overlook the obvious,
which is that maybe they really just don’t like holding hands or
that their hand is too sweaty and they just don’t want to gross
you out.
Overthinking isn’t just focused on the present moment, of

course. It can be past-focused or future-oriented too. Say that
it’s been a few days since you and your partner took that stroll
and your mind keeps going back to the hand-holding incident,
generating all kinds of worries. That would be an example of
past-focused overthinking, which is otherwise known as
rumination. If your mind is generating future break-up

scenarios, on the other hand, that’s an example of future-
oriented overthinking. Truthfully though, it doesn’t matter
what kind of overthinking you’re engaging in as all are equally
unhelpful and damaging to you in a variety of ways. One way
in which overthinking can hurt you is by paralyzing you,
thereby stopping you from making important and necessary
decisions. Studies have found that individuals who are more
prone to overthinking have a much harder time making deci‐
sions in life and in their relationships (Sperber, n.d.). Your
overthinking, for example, can keep you from making a deci‐
sion when your partner asks you to move in with them. Your
anxious mind can become overrun with thoughts like, but what
if they hate living with me? This might cause you to oscillate
between doubt and enthusiasm. The longer this goes on, the
more agitated you’ll become. Meanwhile, your partner will
understandably grow upset, thinking that your silence clearly
means you don’t want to take things to the next level with
them.
Alternatively, overthinking—particularly the future-oriented

variety—can lead to a variety of mental health disorders, such
as depression and anxiety. That being the case, it shouldn’t be
surprising to hear that overthinking can and does lead to
insomnia and other sleep problems. Aside from making it hard
for you to fall asleep, it can reduce the quality of your sleep
too, all but ensuring you will wake up groggy and grumpy in
the morning—to put it very mildly. All this being the case, you
might be thinking that the solution to overthinking is fairly
simple: Just stop doing it, right? If only it were that easy. It’s
not, because overthinking isn’t a behavior that we engage in
on purpose. It’s not like skipping rope, for example, where all
you have to do is let go of the jump rope and stop jumping. In
other words, it’s not a conscious decision and behavior.
Rather, it’s an unconscious pattern—one that was initially
supposed to be a survival and self-protection mechanism for
us human beings (McCallum, 2021). If you’re an overthinker,
you might have noticed that the stuff you tend to overthink
about concerns your general well-being mostly. You overthink
your finances because you need money to survive. Similarly,
you overthink your relationship, not because you want to
sabotage it, but because you want everything to go well. Your
tendency to overthink is born out of your desire to make your
relationship work and the worry and fear that you have that it
won’t.
Fear, you’ll often find, lies at the very heart of your tendency
to overthink, no matter what you’re overthinking about. It’s
not the only culprit though. Uncertainty is another root
cause of rumination. We human beings generally like
knowing what’s going to happen next. That’s why some of us
do things like skip to the last page of the book they’re
reading—don’t do that with this book, by the way—or read
spoilers before beginning a new TV series. When we don’t
know how things are going to turn out and what’s going to
happen next, we become quite uncomfortable. We try to
envision possible ways things can unfold. The more you do
this, the more addictive the behavior becomes. Before you
know it, you’re writing one worst-case scenario after the

other in your mind.
There’s yet another perhaps unexpected reason why you might

be overthinking and that’s being a perfectionist. Perfectionists
have an especially bad tendency to overthink things because
they want to do things perfectly. If something, say a dinner
date, doesn’t go perfectly, then of course they’ll start over‐
thinking it, going over all the little things that went wrong.
They’ll grow upset that things went the way they did and
worry what the consequences of the imperfections of the date
will be. Alternatively, they’ll hyper-obsess over planning
things down to the smallest of details. If they’re planning a
date then, they’ll overthink those details and probably take too
long a time making their plans. As a result, the person they’re
interested in might conclude that they’ve lost interest.
Similarly, they might start procrastinating instead of actually
planning the date, knowing that they won’t be able to do
everything perfectly since perfection doesn’t exist. Hence, they
will lose the date and the relationship that date might have
led to.
A mental health issue might also be responsible for your over‐

thinking habit. This makes an abundance of sense when you
think about it. If you’re struggling with generalized anxiety
disorder, for instance, your mind will be riddled with anxious
thoughts. Anytime something even remotely goes wrong in
your relationship, then your anxious thoughts will kick into
gear and start running the show. If you’ve tried to make a joke
that came out rather awkward in front of your partner, for

example, the feeling of embarrassment that’ll come with it will
probably remain fresh on your mind for the rest of the day.
You’ll keep worrying about how your partner will see you now
and whether they’ll judge you or not. A similar thing will
happen if you have depression, although your thoughts will
evidently be a lot more negative than anxious in this case.
Then there’s trauma. Trauma is something that people like ex-

veterans have to deal with, though anyone and everyone can
experience trauma through a variety of different events and
experiences (Jacob, 2023). Hence, everyone can end up with
certain stressors and triggers, seemingly minor occurrences
that remind them of their past trauma, thereby causing their
mind to start working in overdrive. The fear of the past
repeating itself will overtake you when this happens and you’ll
start overanalyzing the things around you, jumping to conclu‐
sions or, again, crafting the worst possible what-if scenarios
you can think of. Pretty soon, you’ll be spiraling down the
rabbit hole, à-la-Alice in Wonderland, except your journey won’t
be quite as fun, to put it mildly.
A final underlying cause of overthinking, which is actually

linked to trauma, is toxic environments. If you’re living or
working in a toxic environment where you’re constantly
subject to criticism and are exposed to overwhelmingly nega‐
tive people, or if you’ve grown up in such an environment,
then you’ll become very used to expecting the worst out of any
given situation. You’ll also become accustomed to judging and
criticizing yourself, which will result in you growing chroni‐

cally anxious and feeling overwhelmed. This, in turn, will keep
your mind going full throttle, fueled purely by negative
thoughts that you just can’t get away from.
Fear, Insecurity, and Control: Major Triggers of Overthinking
Having said all that, the three major and most common causes
of overthinking are fear, insecurity, and control, all of which
are related to the tangential causes of overthinking, such as
anxiety. Of these, fear often takes the lead. This is both
because fear is an exceedingly powerful emotion and because
we human beings have a lot of things to be afraid of. We might
not be afraid of being hunted down by lions in the wild
anymore—at least for the most part—but we can certainly be
afraid of being hurt, losing the person that we love, or even of
making the kind of mistake that’s hard to come back from.

Whatever you’re personally afraid of is often the driving factor
behind your rumination habits. This is because your fear often
causes you to pay attention to the more negative things
around you or to (mis)interpret the things around you in a
negative light. It stops you from seeing the good things in your
life and relationship and from understanding that the reason
your partner doesn’t want to hold your hand at that particular
moment is because their hand is very sweaty, not because they
don’t like you anymore.
Escaping the kinds of negative thoughts that fear can generate

can be very difficult. This isn’t as simple a matter as telling
yourself to stop thinking negative thoughts. It’s a bit like the
pink elephant conundrum, actually. Say that you’re with a
friend and they tell you to picture an animal. You’re about to
do just that when they suddenly say, “But don’t picture a pink
elephant.” All of a sudden, all you can picture is a pink
elephant. Even when you manage to picture a wholly different
animal, they suddenly become tinged pink and then you
remember the pink elephant again. Trying to tell yourself to
stop thinking negative thoughts is definitely like this. This is
because both fear and its ever-persistent companion, anxiety,
trigger what’s known as your parasympathetic nervous
system (PNS). PNS, not to be confused with PMS, is some‐
thing that keeps your amygdala—the fear center of your brain
—active and working (Bunn, 2021). It makes stress hormones
flood your system, keeping your heart and breathing rates
elevated, your muscles tense as if you’re preparing for a fight
or to run away, and makes adrenaline course through your

veins, too.
As you might imagine, this is not a state you want to perpetu‐

ally be in. You do not want your amygdala to always be active
because you do not always want to be afraid. When you over‐
think, though, you cause your amygdala to keep reacting to
negative, fear-filled thoughts and, thus, you remain in an alert,
fear, and anxiety-based state of mind. Your mind, as a result,
gets locked into whatever you’re hung up on, which prevents
you from thinking clearly and, well, calmly. So, you either
become unable to make sound decisions or you rush through
decisions and end up making mistakes. These likely make even
more anxious and fearful thoughts rush through your mind,
which further exacerbates the problem.
So, how can you stop this from being the case? How can you
break the cycle? Though we’ll be covering the numerous ways
in which you can do this in the coming chapters, one thing you
can do to shut fear-based overthinking down is to distract
yourself. Say that an anxiety-inducing what-if scenario is
playing through your mind and you need a way out of it. Close
your eyes and imagine that your partner—or a good friend if
you don’t have a partner—is walking into the room. They spot
you and make a beeline for you. Then, they quickly wrap their
arms around you and give you a big, strong hug. It’s warm in
their embrace and comfortable. Focus on that feeling and try
to picture it as clearly as you can. This will give your brain the
right, calming signals that you need it to get. After a little
while, the alarm bells your amygdala has been sending out will
start to quiet down. After a while, they’ll shut down entirely.
Do this a couple of times and it’ll actually start becoming a bit
of a habit—one that you can turn to any time you catch your‐
self overthinking. Thanks to this habit, you’ll be able to train
your mind to respond to fear in the way you want to and curb
your tendency to overthink.
As mentioned before, fear isn’t the only root cause of over‐

thinking. Insecurity is another major one too. Insecurity is
something that most of us actually struggle with. Yet, most of
the time you probably feel like you’re the only person to suffer
from this malady. This misperception is problematic because
it makes your insecurities hard to talk about. Thus, they
become difficult to dismiss, counter, and reject. When you
don’t talk about your insecurities, you see, your friends and
family aren’t able to help you with them. As a result, your inse‐
curities start poisoning your thoughts. Over time, thoughts
like my crush won’t want to talk to me; I’m not worth talking to
anyway, become all too frequent. Pretty soon, negative, judg‐
mental, and self-deprecating thoughts such as that overtake
your mind and you become unable to rid yourself of them no
matter how hard you try. Thus, you join the ranks of the inse‐
cure overthinkers, which make up about 60% of all women at
the moment, contrary to what you might think (How to
Overcome Insecurity, 2015).
The way to overcome insecurity-fueled overthinking is pretty

straightforward then. Just stop being insecure, right? Well, the
problem is that this too is a little easier said than done. You
can’t suddenly put an end to your insecurities in the same way
you would blow out a candle. This is because your insecurities
come with an inner voice—one that’s incredibly negative and
judgmental. Tuning this voice out is hard to do, as is tamping
it down, especially since, at times, you don’t even realize that
your critical inner voice is engaged. You become so used to it
that it turns into background noise, ever present and able to
influence the way you think, feel, and act, whether you
consciously realize it or not.
Your inner voice can be shaped by a variety of different

factors. It may, for example, have been influenced and shaped
by the critical way in which your parents spoke to you when
you were a kid. It may also have been shaped over the years by
negative experiences, friendships, and relationships. Whatever
the cause, it’s important that you identify and address these.
It’s equally as important that you train your mind to recognize
when you’re having self-critical, insecure thoughts and make a
conscious effort to change them. Luckily, you’ll discover how
to do both these things in the coming chapters using skills
such as mindfulness and positive self-talk.
These two skills, among others, will help you address another
important root cause of overthinking: the need for control.
Human beings don’t do well where uncertainty is concerned,
as you know. You likely are somewhat uncomfortable with it
too, to the point that your mind starts running a mile a minute
when you find yourself in uncertain circumstances. What if my
partner doesn’t like me anymore? What if they say no? What if we

break up because of this argument? What if they cheat on me? What
if they break up with me? If you find yourself in a situation with
your partner where the outcome is uncertain, like a major
argument for instance, that incident will be liable to trigger
such thoughts and more. Those negative thoughts will then
start running on a loop again and again and again, like a
broken record, except infinitely more quickly.
This doesn’t have to be the case, though. Gaining awareness

through mindfulness can significantly help you curb your
overthinking habits and dilute such thoughts. So can sharing
your thoughts and worries with your partner. This is where
your communication skills come in handy. Having good, that
is to say effective, communication skills is immensely impor‐
tant in a relationship. Good communication is the only way to
ensure that you have a healthy relationship while improving
your mental health. This is because good communication acts
as a weed whacker, where overthinking is concerned, making
it next to impossible for negative thoughts to overtake your
mind. Good communication, though, begins with awareness.
How can you communicate what you’re feeling and thinking,
after all, if you aren’t aware of them in the first place? This is
why mindfulness is the first and most vital skill anyone who
wants to curb their overthinking and rumination habits needs
to learn. How can you learn and develop this skill? Let’s
find out.
Interactive Element: Your Overthinking Patterns Worksheet
If you want to change your overthinking habits, then you have

to become more aware of what you’re overthinking about and
the general fact that you are overthinking. One way you can do
this is to turn to self-reflection. Self-reflection is something
that allows you to analyze parts of yourself to become more
aware of what you think. It’s a skill that can make you more
connected to yourself. To cultivate this skill, you’ll need to ask
yourself some questions. Some questions you can ask yourself
include:
How do I feel right now?

Overall, how did I feel today?
What am I thinking about?
Where did this thought come from?
Where in my body am I feeling this feeling and how
would I describe it?
What triggered this feeling or thought?
What is most important to me?
How has what’s important to me changed in the last
year? How has it changed in the last five years?
What is my gut reaction when something goes wrong
in a relationship?
Why do I react this way?
What do I want in a partner?
What do I want from myself in a relationship?
2
T H E A R T O F M I N D F U LN E S S
You can’t stop the waves but you can learn to surf.
— JON KABAT-ZINN
M anaging your overthinking habits begins with raising

your awareness, as you by now know. The way to go
about raising your awareness—particularly your self-aware‐
ness—is to practice the art of mindfulness. Mindfulness is
probably a buzzword you’ve come across in the past. You’ve
likely encountered it on social media and, therefore, might
have dismissed it. Yet, there’s a reason that everyone and their
grandmother is singing the praises of the practice these days:
It’s because it works.
What exactly is mindfulness and why does it work then?

Mindfulness can be defined as purposefully bringing your
attention to the present moment and being fully aware of what
is going on in it. This awareness doesn’t just extend to what’s
happening around you. It also includes the emotions you’re
feeling, the sensations you’re having, and the thoughts that
you’re thinking. This might sound like basic stuff, but such
awareness is something that a great many people often
struggle with, especially if they are preoccupied with patterns
of overthinking. The problem with such patterns is that they
can prevent you from seeing your relationship as it truly is. It
can distract you from going after what you truly want by
making it challenging for you to grasp what, precisely, that is.
Mindfulness can stop all this from happening. It can help you
to understand what it is you really want and, thus, empower
you to actually go after it in both your romantic relationship
and other areas of your life. In the process, mindfulness can
make it possible for you to either find the ideal relationship
for yourself or help you work on your other relationships in
your life (Karandish, 2019). Relationships aren’t static things,
after all. There is no relationship on Earth that doesn’t take
some work or effort. Every relationship will encounter speed
bumps every once in a while. If you have a tendency to over‐
think, then those speed bumps can become overanalyzed, rela‐
tionship-ending obstacles. If you’re able to use mindfulness,
on the other hand, they can become things you and your
partner can work through.
T H E RO LE A ND IMPORTANCE OF MINDFULNESS IN
R E L AT I O N S H IPS
The idea that mindfulness can be a good practice to improve

your existing romantic relationship or to enable you to find a
good partner might sound a little too good to be true. Luckily,
by now there are ample studies proving both. One such study
takes a look at 95 married couples of varied age groups and
gauges both their satisfaction levels within their marriages and
where each partner ranks on the mindfulness scale. On top of
that, it takes a careful look at partners’ flexibility and engage‐
ment levels, as well as at how open they are to novelty in
general. This study has found that couples who are happier in
their marriages tend to rank much higher on the mindfulness
scale compared to other couples (Kappen et al., 2018).
Furthermore, the study revealed that more mindful couples
are inclined to be more open to new experiences and more
mentally engaged in their relationship (Kappen et al., 2018).
One of the most interesting findings of the study was that

mindful couples played a significantly larger role in deter‐
mining their happiness levels than things like shared interests
or how similar partners were to one another. It seemed that
partners could be as different as night and day and still get
along perfectly well and be very happy together, so long as
they were mindful, too. There are several important reasons
for this and one of them is that being mindful effectively
changes how you interact with other people. Imagine that
you’re having an argument with your partner. If you’re a

mindful person, then you might realize that something you
have said has really hurt your partner. You can then navigate
the argument better, being careful not to cause intentional
damage and instead focus on what it is you want to communi‐
cate. If you’re not mindful, however, you might keep barreling
through the argument, swept away by your heated emotions,
and you will end up hurting your partner even more.
Another reason why mindfulness makes for happier couples is

that it prevents you from overanalyzing fights, mistakes, and
the like. As a result, you become less likely to interpret words
that were said in the heat of the moment as weapons that have
been wielded against you intentionally or arguments as rela‐
tionship-ending catastrophes. Likewise, you become far less
likely to interpret your partner’s reluctance to hold your hand
at that specific moment as an indicator that they’re no longer
interested in you. You even become more able to broach the
subject with them in a calm manner, communicate how you
feel about it, and reach a resolution—a skill that you will learn
all about in the coming chapter.
Mindfulness generally improves your communication skills,

resulting in stronger communication that prevents arguments
from turning into massive fights. It prevents partners from
hypothesizing doom scenarios in the face of change and makes
them less reactive and impulsive in conflict situations. This
means that, in an argument, you become more likely to take a
moment to pause and consider what is being said, identify

what you’re feeling, and what you want to communicate,
rather than explode. This is just one of the benefits that mind‐
fulness has to offer you, though, and there are many others.
For starters, mindfulness is known to improve both your
physical and emotional health and well-being (Harvard Health,
2023). It keeps you in touch with how you’re feeling both
physically and emotionally. Consider this: Have you ever sat
down to dinner, taken a bite, and thought to yourself, Wow, I
didn’t even realize how hungry I was! You likely have, especially if
you’ve had a busy day. You’ve also probably had thoughts like
these:
I didn’t realize I was this stressed.

When did I get so tired?
I did not see that burnout coming.
I’m only just realizing now how angry I was.
Mindfulness makes you realize all of these things and more in

the moment, when you’re actually feeling them. This realiza‐
tion then enables you to take action and fix whatever is
wrong. So, when you notice you’re stressed, do some
breathing exercises to calm down. When you notice you’re
tired, take a break to rest. Cut down on your work when you
realize you’re burning out. When you notice you’re angry,
communicate that in a healthy way to the person you’re angry
at—again, more on that later. By taking action, you’re giving
yourself the power to meet your own needs, which is why you
feel better on both a physical and emotional level when you

practice mindfulness.
Practical Mindfulness Techniques for Managing Overthinking
Of course, being able to do all this and reap these benefits is

contingent on you being able to use and practice mindfulness
successfully to manage your overthinking. Fortunately for
you, there is an array of mindfulness techniques you can try
your hand at. Once you find ones that work for you, you can
incorporate them into your daily routine and make them into
habits.
One classic mindfulness technique you could try is basic

mindfulness meditation. A basic mindfulness meditation will
have you sitting in a comfortable position, perhaps on a mat or
on your couch, breathing deeply in and out. You’ll turn your
attention fully to the present moment, which will mean
noticing all the sensations around you, as well as your
emotions and thoughts. What does the ground beneath your
feet feel like? How warm is the air around you? Is there a
particular scent you notice in the air? What sounds can you
hear nearby? What emotions are you feeling right now? If
you’re unsure, ask yourself what bodily sensations—like a
tightness in your muscles, for instance—you feel and note
where in your body you are experiencing them. What
thoughts are fluttering in and out of your head?
The idea here is to notice all these things but to not latch onto
them. This is doubly true for the thoughts you’re having. You
want to take note of what you’re thinking, but you don’t want
to follow after them. It’s fine to notice that the thought, I can’t
believe I said that to my partner, has popped into your head. It’s
not fine to dwell on the thought and let it pull you into a state
of rumination. That doesn’t mean you should berate yourself
when you catch yourself doing this mid-meditation. It just
means you should gently and kindly bring your attention back
to the present moment.
You may initally struggle with this and that’s alright. You’re
new to meditation after all and no one expects you to be
perfect at it right off the bat. You shouldn’t expect this of your‐
self either. Instead, you should treat meditation as a mental
workout of sorts. If you have just started going to the gym, you
won’t be able to lift the heaviest weights on day one. Rather,
you’ll have to start with the lighter weights, strengthen your
muscles over time, and work your way up to them. The same
logic applies to meditation. This is why you should keep your
initial mediation sessions relatively short, especially if sitting
still and focusing on the moment is a challenge for you.
Meditating for just a minute or two every day for the first
week is perfectly fine. After the first week, you can up your
time to five minutes. Two weeks in, you can up it to 10 and
keep increasing your time in this fashion until you’re able to
meditate for 30 minutes in one sitting.
The key to mindfulness meditation is consistency. The practice

can elevate your mindfulness levels significantly, but only if
you do it every day. Just as your muscles won’t get stronger if

you don’t go to the gym regularly, your mindfulness levels
won’t rise if you don’t try to practice regularly. This doesn’t
just hold true for basic mindfulness meditation but other vari‐
ations of it, too. The most common mindfulness meditations
you could try include
sensory meditation, where you focus exclusively on

the various things you can see, hear, smell, touch, and
even taste in that moment.
emotional meditation, where you turn your attention
to all the emotions you’re feeling and make a
conscious effort to name them.
sensation meditation, where you focus solely on the
sensations coursing through your body, like tightness
in your shoulders or an itch on your knee.
urge surfing, where you allow yourself to feel the
cravings you’re having and then wait for them to pass,
in the full knowledge that these urges eventually will
pass without fighting them.
Meditation can be a very effective mindfulness practice, but

it’s not the only technique you can try. There are many others
to consider, especially if you don’t necessarily feel that medita‐
tion is the way for you. According to Ackerman (2017), some
of the best techniques out there for you to try include
• The Body Scan. The body scan is a fairly standard practice

where you lie down on your back or sit down on a comfort‐
able surface. Making sure to keep as still as possible, slowly

bring your attention to your toes and take in how they feel.
Then, draw your attention up to your feet, then your ankles,
your calves, and keep going slowly up like that, until you reach
the crown of your head. As you do this, pay attention to all the
details you can possibly notice, from how your clothing feels
against your skin to how taut or relaxed the muscles of a
particular body part are. Once you have noticed everything
there is to notice in a body part, you can move further up.
• The Raisin Exercise. True to its name, the raisin exercise is

typically done with a raisin; although, it can also be done with
any other fruit or vegetable. Start by sitting down in a
comfortable position, and place a raisin before you. Then,
start noticing everything possible about it: how the raisin
looks, how it feels in your hands, how quickly it warms up as
you’re holding it, how it smells, how it tastes… By focusing on
a single object like this, you are training your mind to give all
its attention to the present moment. By doing this exercise
regularly, you can increase your mindfulness levels day
by day.
• Mindful Listening. Mindfulness listening is a technique

where you focus on your ability to listen. As such, it can be
especially helpful in improving your communication skills.
The thing about this practice is that it has to be done with
others. Practicing mindful listening with your partner can,
therefore, be especially useful. To start, sit opposite your
partner and ask them about one thing they’re stressed about
and one thing they’re looking forward to. Then, simply listen
but pay close attention to what they’re saying and how they’re
saying it. Don’t think about how you should respond or what
to say when it’s your turn. Instead, hear them loud and clear.
Once they’re done, it will be their turn to ask the same ques‐
tions to you, and your turn to answer honestly. As you speak,
pay attention to how it feels to speak and to be heard. Notice
the difference in how you feel when you’re sharing something
positive—what you’re looking forward to—and something
negative—what you’re stressed about. Likewise, be aware of
how you feel when your partner shares these things with you.
Once both of you are done sharing, you can open up the
conversation by asking one another questions like:
How did you feel when you were sharing what you
were stressed about?
Were there times you felt empathy as you listened to
me speak?
Did your mind start wandering at any point? If so,
where did it wander off to?
What bodily sensations did you feel right after you
spoke?
What bodily sensations did you feel as you were
speaking?
• Mindful Seeing. This technique is a solo exercise and

requires a window, of all things. Begin by sitting in front of a
window. Once you’re ready and comfortable, trace your gaze

over everything you can see and try to notice the smallest
details. Don’t just notice and label what you’re seeing, but try
and notice their texture, coloring, hue, height, and any other
details you notice. If it’s a tree you’re looking at, how tall is it?
How soft do its leaves look? Does it look healthy? Where does
its shadow fall? Only move on from the tree to the bush next
to it if you feel you’ve taken note of everything you can take
note of. Be sure not to judge or criticize what you see but
simply take them all in.
• The Mountain Meditation. As you might have guessed by

the name, mountain meditation involves closing your eyes and
imagining yourself up on a mountain. Like with the raisin
exercise, with mountain meditation, you don’t necessarily
have to be picturing a mountain. It can be anything from a
beach to a forest, so long as it’s outside and peaceful. The idea
here is to see your imagined environment as clearly and
vividly as possible. This involves taking in all of the sensory
details that it has to offer you, like how the sun and wind feel
on your face and what the air around you smells like. The
fresh mountain air is bound to smell very differently from the
ocean, for instance. To start this practice, simply take a
comfortable seat, inhale a couple of deep breaths, close your
eyes, and let your imagination take hold. Pay attention to all
the detail that your mind creates and try to see the scenery
before you, until it feels absolutely real.
• Breath Focus. The final mindfulness technique you can try is

called breath focus. This can be done either as a guided medi‐
tation, meaning with a recording or an app, or without any
guidance. Breath focus is a fairly simple practice where you sit
or lie down on your back somewhere comfortable. Close your
eyes and start breathing in slowly. As you do, bring your focus
fully to your breath. How does it feel as the air travels down
your airways and fills up your lungs? How does it feel for your
chest, lungs, and diaphragm to expand? How smooth, fast, or
slow is the airflow as you breathe in and out? It’s fine if your
attention wanders off from your breath every now and again;
you shouldn’t berate yourself over this. Instead, gently bring
your focus back to your breath and how it feels. Keep going
for however long you’ve decided on. Ideally, this will be at
least five minutes.
Mindfulness Success Stories
“This is all well and good,” I can almost hear you saying, “but
how can mindfulness curb my overthinking habit and help my
relationship, really?” This is a fair question to ask because
hearing about how something works and then seeing it in
practice are two completely different things. Luckily, there are
numerous success stories that illustrate how mindfulness
helps with overthinking in relationships that we can look to as
examples. Take Taiwo Alade’s story, for instance. Taiwo is
someone who grew up with very anxious parents who always
wanted to keep him indoors out of fear that something would
happen to him (Alade, 2022). As such, Taiwo didn’t have a lot
of friends growing up, he had trouble connecting to others,

and he quickly began overanalyzing every little thing that they
did. In the process, he often concluded that people just didn’t
like him, didn’t want to spend any time with him, or found
him irritating. In other words, he started overthinking
people’s actions—even the smallest of gestures—and inter‐
preted them in a negative light. Understandably, this
prevented him from forging healthy relationships and
friendships.
This situation remained stagnant and did not change for the
longest time. It was only when Taiwo discovered mindfulness
and incorporated various mindfulness techniques into his
daily routine that he was able to break the vicious cycle he was
in. First, mindfulness allowed him to notice when he was
overthinking things. It enabled him to acknowledge when he
was doing this, and this acknowledgment, in turn, made it
possible for him to consciously change things. Taiwo was able
to change his overthinking habits by doing a couple of
different things. First, he became aware of his thoughts and
feelings by using techniques like basic meditation, deep
breathing exercises, and body scans. Then, he was able to
declutter his mind by talking to other people, particularly his
friends, family, and partner, about all the negative thoughts
cluttering his mind.
In the process, he was able to stop overanalyzing every little

thing and better understand people’s true motives and intent
behind the things they did and said. Thus, he was able to stop
interpreting everything in an overwhelmingly negative light.

This removed the barriers standing between him and his
ability to forge connections with others. It also dismantled the
feeling that he always had to put on a show and impress
people. Instead, he could just be as he was with others, which
let them get close to him. As a result, he has finally ended up
developing numerous close friendships and even healthy,
romantic relationships.
Taiwo’s story offers something you can do as well, so long as

you start practicing mindfulness regularly. Mindfulness,
though, is just the first step you need to take in this process. It
needs to be closely followed up by the second step, which is
communication. Taiwo couldn’t have developed the relation‐
ships that he did if he didn’t talk to other people to “declutter
his mind,” (Alade, 2022). Communication is a tricky thing
though, in that there’s a right and wrong way to go about it, as
you’ll see in the coming chapter.
Interactive Element: Your 5-Minute Mindfulness Meditation
Before we can move on to talk about what effective communi‐

cation looks like, let’s first take a look at what a good mindful‐
ness meditation might look like. While there are other
meditations you can try out, here’s a 5-minute-long practice
that can prove very helpful to you (5-Minute Meditation, 2018):
Sit down in a comfortable position with your back

straight.
Keep your eyes open for a moment and take in the

space around you.
Take a deep breath through your nose, feeling your
nostrils flare as you do so. Breathe out slowly through
your mouth, pursing your lips as you go.
Take a couple of slow breaths in this fashion, paying
close attention to how your lungs, chest, and
diaphragm expand and what the airflow feels like as
you breathe in and out. Try to feel the muscles
throughout your body relax and let go of their tension
as you breathe out.
Now, slowly close your eyes and try to really feel the
seat you’re sitting down on or the surface you’re lying
down on. Feel how your weight sinks into the surface
and what the texture of it feels like. If your feet are
touching the ground, feel how firm and solid the
ground feels, along with the texture of the material
your feet are touching.
Keep taking deep and slow breaths as you move your
attention from your feet up to the rest of your body.
Try to note where your tension lies in your body and
imagine that the tension is a series of knots that are
untangling with each exhalation.
Pay attention to the thoughts that flutter in and out of
your mind as you breathe in and out. Do not latch on
to any one thought, but let it go and bring your
attention to the sensations they give rise to throughout
your body in the meantime.
Keep breathing in and out, simply noticing and taking

in all the sensations.
When you feel calm and ready, slowly open your eyes
as you exhale and take in the space around you again.
Don’t rush; slowly get up when you feel you’re ready
to do so.
3
S AY IT R I G HT
Effective communication is 20% what you know and 80% how

you feel about what you know. –
— JIM ROHN
N ow that you have a handle on mindfulness and what

it’s supposed to look like, your next order of business
is mastering the art of communication. Communication is a
vital part of everyday life. Yet, so many of us end up bungling
it up. Either we make mistakes and fail to communicate what
we want to say properly, or we refrain from saying what it is
we want to say. Both of these things are problematic because
they prevent us from reaching a true understanding with
others. Furthermore, they prevent others from getting close to
us and often cause us to bottle up things we really shouldn’t be

keeping to ourselves. As you may have gathered from that,
poor communication is the bane of relationships, no matter
what form they take. It’s something that can severely exacer‐
bate overthinking and, thus, further poison your relationships.
It can cause misunderstandings, arguments, and fights, and
even lead to breakups and a parting of ways. Mastering
communication skills can help prevent all this and more. To
do that, though, you need to understand what communication
is and what it isn’t.
Contrary to what many people think, communication isn’t just

about talking. It’s also about listening—something a great
number of people effectively fail at. How well you listen to
someone in a conversation or an argument is vital because it
will determine how well you’re able to understand them. This
will, in turn, affect how well you’re able to respond to them
and where the conversation goes from there. Of course, how
you phrase the things you want to communicate—like your
thoughts and feelings about something your partner has done,
for instance—will play a critical role as well. Generally speak‐
ing, you want to be an active listener as well as a clear commu‐
nicator. So, how can you ensure you’re both of these things?
What are the rules you need to follow to ensure you can
communicate everything you want and need to communicate
to the people in your life and ensure that there’s a genuine
understanding and trust between you and them?
E M P HA S I Z I N G THE ROLE OF CLEAR

CO M M U N I C ATION
Effective communication is about being able to convey what

you’re thinking and feeling to the person before you openly
and honestly. This can be difficult to do at times. If you don’t
understand what you’re feeling, for instance, then you won’t
be able to communicate it. That’s why mindfulness is so
important, as you’ve seen. What if you know what you want to
communicate but don’t know how to say it? Say that your
partner has been going out with friends a lot without inviting
you, to the point that you feel as though you hardly get to see
them. How do you communicate what you think and feel
about this without sounding accusatory by saying something
like, “You don’t want to spend any time with me?” How do you
communicate that you need and want to spend more quality
time with your partner without making it sound like you want
them to diss their friends? You do so by communicating your
feelings clearly and without judgment or criticism of any sort.
So, what does clear communication look like? Truthfully, clear

communication is all about honesty. Healthy relationships are
built on trust, as you know, and trust is built primarily on
honesty. One cannot exist without the other. Imagine that
you’re in a relationship with someone who usually won’t share
what they’re feeling or thinking about, even when you ask and
prod. As a result, you will probably spend endless amounts of
time trying to interpret their actions, gestures, and attitude.
You ascribe motives and shades of meaning to their words and
tone of voice. You overanalyze every little thing that they do.
How likely would you be to trust your partner and their feel‐
ings for you in such a case? Not very, right? Now, say that
you’re the one who usually doesn’t communicate your feelings
and thoughts to your partner. Wouldn’t that mean putting
your partner in the exact same position that you were put into
in the previous scenario? Wouldn’t they be likely to start over‐
thinking things in that case? How much would they trust you
in this scenario? How much of their feelings and thoughts
would they be willing to share with you?
As you can clearly see, relationships are built on trust, and

trust can only be achieved through clear and honest communi‐
cation (Gonsalves, 2012). Open communication doesn’t just
foster trust, though. It also gives your partner the ability to
support you when you’re facing a challenge or a struggle. It
invites them to be as open and honest with you as you are with
them, making your relationship more balanced in its give and
take. It fosters emotional intimacy, making sure you grow ever
closer. If all this is the case, then why is being honest with your
partner difficult? Why do you or your partner sometimes hesi‐
tate to communicate what you’re feeling, thinking, or expe‐
riencing?
The short answer to this question is that being honest with

someone means entrusting them with your vulnerabilities,
which is a scary thing. Say that you want to talk to your
partner about how you want them to spend more time with
you. Communicating this need to them means expressing
some of the loneliness and solitude you’re experiencing. This

is a scary thing because there is a risk that your partner will
say “no” to your request. There’s a chance that the conversa‐
tion won’t go as you want it to. The fear that this will happen
can be a rather powerful hurdle to overcome. It can stop you
in your tracks and cause you to swallow your words, rather
than convey them to your partner. Fear can be a strong barrier
in the face of open and honest communication and conversa‐
tion. As such, it can very quickly dismantle the trust you have
with your partner. What’s worse is that all the feelings and
thoughts you bottle up can cause you to grow resentful of your
partner. Over time, such feelings of resentment can morph
into anger, which will obviously lead to arguments. Fueled by
your anger and resentment, minor disagreements can turn
into explosive fights, where your needs and feelings remain
unstated and damaging words get flung around.
This doesn’t have to be the case, though, as long as you know

how to honestly communicate with your partner. This is
where “I feel” statements come in. “I feel” statements are very
effective communication tools that convey what you’re feeling
and experiencing without laying blame on anyone or sounding
like you’re accusing them. Let’s go back to our previous
example where your partner keeps going out with their
friends pretty much every night. They don’t invite you to these
outings and it’s starting to feel like you barely get to spend any
time together. How do you communicate what you feel and
need in this situation? Saying something like, “You don’t want
to spend any time with me,” or “You’d rather hang out with
your friends than with me,” is the wrong strategy to adopt

here. This is because it lays a lot of blame and ill-intent on
your partner, who probably didn’t fully realize that you were
bothered by their actions.
What you want to do in this case is convey what you’re experi‐

encing without laying blame. Otherwise, your partner will get
upset and defensive. Rather than trying to understand what
you’re going through, they’ll look to defend and justify their
actions. This will frustrate you even more and, soon enough,
you’ll find yourself in a full-blown argument. This is why you
need “I feel” statements. These statements are a great way to
avoid this situation, all while making your feelings clear. When
you use “I feel” statements, you give your partner the opportu‐
nity to fully understand where you’re coming from. You
remove the blame from the situation and give them the room
they need to convey their own experience. Thus, you find
yourself in a productive conversation, where your partner
reveals that they have been spending so much time with their
friends because one of them is going through a really painful
divorce and they want to be there for them. Since this is some‐
thing you can understand, the ensuing conversation allows
you to arrive at some sort of compromise where both your
need to spend time with your partner and your partner’s
desire to be there for their friend are respected.
True to their name, “I feel” statements begin with the words “I

feel” and are followed up by a description of whatever it is
you’re experiencing. Sentences like, “I feel stressed when I
come home to find the home really messy,” or “I feel really

worried when you don’t answer messages for a full day,” are
both good examples of these statements. After all, they convey
what the speaker is feeling by communicating what they need,
all without blaming the person they’re speaking to. If you were
to say the first sentence to your partner, you’d be communi‐
cating your need to have them do their part of the household
chores. If you were to use the second sentence, you’d be
communicating that you wanted your partner to be a little
more responsive without accusing them of ignoring you.
“I feel” statements can be a great way to both avoid conflict

and navigate it in a healthy way when they occur. They are not
the only tool you need to have in your communication kit,
though. There are others. If you want to forge trusting and
healthy relationships and be able to communicate openly with
people, then there are six other rules you need to follow.
According to Stabile (2014), these rules are to always
be honest.
be timely.
be flexible.
be patient.
be accepting.
be intuitive.
You already know what being honest entails in a relationship

and conversation. What about the other five rules you have to
abide by? What does “being timely” mean, for instance? Being
timely is a rather logical concept when you think about it. It
simply means communicating your feelings and needs when
they arise, instead of suppressing or postponing them.
Otherwise, you risk stating your needs at inappropriate times.
If you bring up something that your partner did that upset you
months after the fact, then your partner might understandably
be confused as to why you’re doing so now. What’s more, they
might not realize how important an issue this really is for you.
After all, they might think that you would have spoken to
them about this sooner if it was that important to you.
Your next rule is to be flexible, which means being prepared

for the conversation you’re in to go in unexpected directions.
Say that you’re talking to your partner about wanting to spend
more time with them. You may be expecting them to immedi‐
ately accept what you’re saying. As such, you may be surprised
to find out how they’ve been spending all that time with their
friend to support them throughout their divorce. In this
conversation, then, you need to be flexible enough to under‐
stand why your partner has been behaving the way that they
do. You need to be understanding of their wanting to be a
good friend, just as they need to be understanding of your
need to spend time with your partner. Both of you need to be
flexible enough, then, to alter your behaviors and expectations
and arrive at some sort of compromise you both can be happy
with.
You also need to be patient in conversation because sometimes

finding the right words to say what you want and need to say
takes time. You both need to be patient with yourself and your
partner in conversation. This means giving yourself the time
you need to find the words you’re looking for. It also means
giving your partner the time and space they need to do this.
Given that, you shouldn’t plan what you’re going to say in
response to your partner’s words before they’ve even finished
speaking. Instead, you should be patiently waiting for them to
finish up and be open to receiving and understanding them. In
other words, you should be accepting of your partner’s
perspective, feelings, and thoughts, even if you don’t neces‐
sarily agree with them. In other words, you shouldn’t judge
your partner for what they’re telling you, nor should you be
disbelieving in what they’re trying to communicate. Instead,
you should make an effort to truly understand them and your
intuition will serve you well here, just as your reasoning capa‐
bilities will. That means that you should listen to your partner
with your heart as much as with your reasoning, logical mind.
Only then can you truly grasp what they want you to under‐
stand about them and forge a relationship of deep trust and
honesty.
The Signs and Consequences of Bad Communication
Communication can be a tricky skill to master because you

might think that you’re doing a pretty good job. You might
think that you’re following all of the rules and being as honest
and open as you can be. As it turns out, though, you might be
wrong. It’s entirely possible, for instance, that you’re not

hearing what your partner is trying to communicate to you.
It’s also possible you’re not able to find the right words to
express your thoughts and feelings properly. The good news is
that there are certain signs you can look out for. These signs
will indicate that you and your partner have communication
issues that you need to work on. It’s important that you
become aware of what these signs are because you can then
make a conscious effort to change the way you communicate
and fix things.
The key signs that you and your partner have communication
issues are that
your partner doesn’t listen to you.

you interrupt one another when speaking.
your partner invalidates your feelings when you
express them.
you or your partner offer unsolicited advice to one
another continually.
your partner is unable to empathize with you.
you or your partner use aggressive words and ways of
expressing yourselves instead of using “I feel”
statements.
you and your partner are constantly distracted while
the other talks.
you or your partner get defensive when the other
expresses something they are feeling, thinking, or are
bothered by.
you or your partner’s tone and inflection don’t match

your words.
These are all fairly standard and, thus, easy to spot signs of
communication problems, so long as you know to watch out
for them. The same can be said for the feelings and situations
they can give rise to. If you feel like your partner isn’t listening
to you or empathizing with you, or if they keep invalidating
your feelings, you can easily become resentful toward them—
and rightly so. You can develop the kind of mindset that only
allows you to see the negative sides and points of your rela‐
tionship, as opposed to the positive ones too. Such things can
prevent your relationship from deepening and growing. How
could you become closer to your partner, after all, if you feel
resentful toward them? How could you trust them more if the
negative aspects of your relationship keep playing and
replaying in your mind, over and over again, until it starts to
feel like your relationship is all negative and nothing else?
Judging from this, it’s easy to see how a lack of effective

communication can fuel overthinking and even lead to toxic,
co-dependent dynamics. It’s similarly easy how it can cause a
kind of gap to form between you and your partner, making
you feel very disconnected from one another. All this being
the case, isn’t it only reasonable that you would end up feeling
a great deal of relationship anxiety? Doesn’t it stand to reason
that you or your partner feel that you’re neither safe nor
secure in this relationship you’ve formed, which should have
become a safe harbor for you both with a firm base to stand
on? Wouldn’t such a relationship be bound to evoke feelings of

hopelessness and eventually crumble?
The answer to all these questions is an obvious “yes,” which is

why poor communication is known to lead to higher levels of
depression and anxiety, feelings of loneliness and isolation,
higher stress levels, and lower levels of self-esteem (Davin,
2022). As before, however, none of this has to be the case. You
and your partner might be struggling with your communica‐
tion at the moment, but there are a myriad of things you can
do to improve it. Therefore, there are countless things you can
do to improve your relationship in general and form the
healthy, safe, secure, and loving connection that you want and
deserve.
Ways to Fix a Lack of Communication in Your Relationship

How do you go about fixing poor communication or a lack of

communication in your relationship then? The first thing you
need to do is recognize and acknowledge the signs. After all,
you cannot treat a wound if you don’t know that it’s there,
even if it’s bleeding you dry. Once you’ve recognized the
wound, you and your partner both will need to make a
conscious decision to commit to changing things.
Relationships, like communication, are two-way streets. It’s
not enough for one party to strive for change. Both parties
need to do so, and they need to do it together. This process of
change begins with accountability.
Accountability means taking responsibility for your words,

actions, and behavior. Say that you’re trying to be more honest
about your own feelings when talking to your partner. You’ve
had a very stressful day at work today, though, and instead of
telling this to your partner, you’ve repressed it and ended up
snapping at them instead. While this is not ideal behavior, it’s
something that will occasionally happen as you strive for
change because old habits die hard, and replacing them with
new ones takes time and effort. When such an incident does
occur, then, it’s important that you admit and acknowledge
that it has. It’s important that you hold yourself accountable
for it. The same goes for your partner, should they end up
falling back into old habits too. This way, not only can you
keep yourself from reverting back to your old relationship
dynamics, but you can also cut your tendency to overthink off
at the knees. You won’t have to spend endless hours worrying
about what to do if things go back to the way they used to be if
you and your partner openly discuss the slip that occurred and
recommit yourselves to doing better.
One thing that can help you change the way in which you
communicate is to figure out what your attachment style is.
Your attachment style is something that develops in your
childhood through your relationship with your parents or
caregivers (Kinsey, 2022). It is the way in which you form
bonds with other people. People who have healthy communi‐
cation styles typically have secure attachment styles. This
means they’re able to the trust people they’re forming rela‐
tionships with and trust that their feelings will be recipro‐
cated. There are other unhealthy attachment styles, though.
The main ones include anxious, avoidant, and disorganized
attachment. People who have an anxious attachment style
experience a lot of anxiety in relationships, have trouble
connecting with people, overanalyze every little thing, and
find it hard to trust that the relationship will continue. People
who have an avoidant style see relationships as pointless and,
thus, try to avoid them. People with a disorganized style tend
to be insecure in their relationships and, as a result, need
constant reassurance.
It’s important to figure out what type of attachment style you

have because, then, you can start working on the underlying
issues that are feeding it. Thus, you can start changing your
attachment style to a more secure one and improve both your
communication skills and relationship in the process. This
naturally will take quite a bit of work on your part—and
potentially some therapy—but it will be well worth it in the

end. In the meantime, you can always turn your attention to
more practical ways of improving your communication skills.
Now that you’re more aware of them, you can start making a
list of unique communication skills you personally face. If, for
example, you have a tendency to talk too much and not listen
enough, you can give yourself a time limit in conversations
with your partner. You can even set alarms when you first
start practicing.
You can also make a point of taking turns sharing what’s on

your mind with your partner. If you have a tendency to inter‐
rupt your partner, one thing to try might be to write down
what you want to say, instead of cutting them off. This way,
you won’t forget what it was that you wanted to say and bring
it up when they’re done speaking. If, on the other hand, you
have a tendency to become easily distracted in conversation,
particularly when your partner is talking to you, you can just
put away your phone and other distractions so that you can
give them your undivided attention.
One of the best things you can do to improve your communi‐

cation skills is to ask your partner how you can improve your‐
self and listen to their suggestions without getting defensive.
You can then put those suggestions to good use. At the same
time, you can endeavor to be more curious about your partner.
This entails asking their opinion more, inquiring about their
feelings, and asking more open-ended questions in general.
Asking questions like, “How do you feel about what just
happened?” can be a surprisingly powerful way of getting your

partner to open up more and furthering communication
between the two of you.
Meanwhile, you can learn to set healthy boundaries for your‐

self. Open and honest communication doesn’t mean revealing
things you aren’t ready to talk about just yet. This is especially
true in the early stages of relationships when you’re just
getting to know the person before you. In such cases, it’s more
than understandable to take things slow and bit by bit. This
would actually be a better way of getting used to being vulner‐
able with your partner and building trust between the two
of you.
Implementing Effective Communication Techniques
Improving your communication skills takes time, effort, and

dedication. Following the various guidelines we’ve discussed
so far will help you immensely, and knowing specific devices
to use should help even more. The first of these devices, inter‐
estingly enough, is silence. This may sound like an oxymoron,
but knowing when to keep silent is very important for effec‐
tive communication. If your partner is sharing something very
private with you, for instance, you typically want to keep silent
as they talk. You want to go at their own pace, avoid rushing
them, and give them the time and space they need (Rivier
University, 2019). Silence can also be very useful in giving you
and your partner the time you need to process all that was
shared and discussed. In conflict situations, a momentary
silence can help you take a pause while you’re processing, thus,
preventing you from saying things that you’ll later regret and
replay over and over again in your mind. It can even give your
partner the time they need to broach a topic they’ve been
wanting to discuss but are hesitant about.
Another device you can use is acceptance. The last thing you
want to do in a relationship is invalidate your partner’s feel‐
ings. You similarly don’t want your own feelings to be invali‐
dated when you share them. Acceptance can help you avoid
both of these situations. You can accept your partner’s feelings
even as you share your own. You can accept your partner’s
opinions and thoughts even as they differ from your own. It is
this fact that you and your partner need to internalize.
Otherwise, you will find that you’re constantly bickering and
arguing. Over time, it will start to feel as though you’re contin‐
uously pushing one another’s buttons and can’t agree on
anything, which will quickly kick your overthinking patterns
into action. What if you were to accept that you and your
partner are inherently different individuals with different
perspectives, feelings, needs, and opinions and that this
doesn’t mean you’re incompatible? Then the very opposite
would happen. You’d be able to have fruitful discussions,
understand each of your perspectives and move forward
together as a unit, even when you don’t necessarily agree at all
times.
Recognition is yet another communication device that you

could use, and it’s one that goes part and parcel with accep‐
tance. Say that your partner shared something that they’re
insecure about with you. You don’t necessarily think that they
have anything to be insecure about but you understand where
they’re coming from and what you’re feeling. That’s accep‐
tance. The thing is, your partner won’t know you’re accepting
what they’re sharing with you if you don’t acknowledge and
recognize it. Alternatively, say you made a mistake that hurt
your partner and they pointed it out. In this case, you can
either choose to be defensive, or you can recognize your
mistake and the hurt it caused and resolve to do better. The
former will lead to an argument, more hurt, and probably
some misunderstandings, which you’ll keep turning around in
your head that night. The latter will help you to achieve an
understanding and allow you and your partner to grow closer
together.
Recognition doesn’t just extend to negative incidents like

mistakes and misunderstandings, though. Noticing the good
things that your partner does and acknowledging them to
their face—even complimenting them about it—is also a form
of recognition. When you recognize the fact that your partner
cleaned up the kitchen without being asked, got you a bouquet
of flowers, or did something good for themselves, like remem‐
bering to take their ADHD medication, you make them feel
seen. You make them feel appreciated, understood, and valued.
These are all feelings you’d want your partner to be feeling.
Likewise, they’re all feelings you’d like your partner to make
you feel. Offering and receiving recognition are such simple,
easy ways to strengthen your relationship.
Sharing things that you’re insecure or vulnerable about can be

difficult, even with your partner. Yet it’s important to share
these things if you want to get close to your partner and build
trust between the two of you. It’s equally as important that
they share such things with you in turn. There are three
specific devices that can help you with these things: offering
your time, giving your partner openings, and practicing active
listening. Offering your time simply means making time in
your busy schedule for your partner. It means being able to
share a quiet moment or two with them where you both can
share what’s on your mind. Think about it this way: When
would you be more likely to share something you’re insecure
about with your partner? When you both are rushing to get
ready for work or when you’re both relaxing on the couch
with nothing urgent to do? Obviously, the latter would be
much easier for you. It would be easier for your partner, too, if
only so that they don’t feel pressured to get everything out
quickly and brush over the things they really want to share.
So, making time for your partner is obviously important, lest

the two of you end up bottling things up. Giving your partner
broad openings is equally as important, seeing as these open‐
ings invite your partner to share what they’re thinking and
feeling. Questions like, “What’s on your mind?” or “How are
you feeling right now?” can be very effective prompts to get
the conversation going. These conversations won’t go
anywhere, though, if you don’t actually pay attention to what
your partner is sharing with you. This is why you need to turn
to active listening. Active listening means directing your full
attention to your partner’s words and showing them you’re

hearing and understanding them. Words and phrases that
prod them to keep going, such as “I see” or “I understand” can
be one way of doing this. Another is maintaining eye contact
as they talk. Another is to ask questions like, “And how did
that make you feel?” once your partner has shared something
with you.
Active listening methods like these can be a great way of deep‐

ening important conversations, building more trust, and
developing the emotional connection you have with your
partner. The same can be said when asking for, or making,
clarifications. Asking for clarification by saying something
like, “So you’re saying that you felt…” is a great strategy to
adopt with your partner. The same goes for clarifying your
own words to them. This is because these two methods help
you to avoid misunderstandings that could give rise to confu‐
sion and later lead to arguments. Clarification can ensure that
you and your partner remain on the same page at all times,
even in cases when your opinions differ from one another.
One fantastic way to get clarification on events and incidents

is to ask “when” questions. These questions can make it
possible for you to establish firm and accurate timelines and
deadlines. They can ensure that you don’t get the time of the
movie you’re going to be seeing wrong, for instance. Likewise,
they can help you to agree on when one event or another
happened, helping you to avoid disagreements in the future.
Making observations is another useful device, one that can

make it easier for your partner to share things with you, espe‐
cially if they’re struggling with it at that moment. “You seem a
little stressed lately,” or “Are you alright? Is there something on
your mind?” can be great observational prompters that can
invite your partner to share more with you. The same can be
said for descriptions of perception. Descriptions of perception
can be a great way of grounding your partner in the moment,
especially when they’re struggling with stress, anxiety, or even
a panic attack. Asking questions such as, “What can you hear
right now?” or “How would you describe the room we are in?”
or “What does the couch you’re sitting on feel like?” are exam‐
ples of such descriptive, observational questions. They’re a
great way of calming things down and bringing the focus back
to the present moment, rather than allowing your mind to
spiral into the past or toward the future.
In addition to all these, there are three specific devices that can
ensure there’s greater clarity between you and your partner
and that fewer misunderstandings take place between the two
of you. These are summarizing, reflecting, and focusing. As
you might have guessed, summarizing is the act of summing
up all that you have said and discussed between the two of
you. This includes summing up their perspective and your
own, as well as what the two of you have agreed upon.
Reflecting is an extension of summarizing, where you ask your
partner what they think they should do now that they know
what has happened or what you’re feeling. Your partner
should obviously ask these same questions to you. The two of
you should then discuss your ideas, thus, evaluating them and
coming up with something that works to meet both your
emotional needs. Meanwhile, focusing means bringing the
conversation back to something important that was shared in
conversation, like a particular vulnerability or issue your
partner shared with you. By doing this, you can ensure that
they share all they want to share with you and you understand
what they’re trying to communicate fully. Similarly, you can
bring the focus back to things you want to discuss, thereby
ensuring you get to share everything you wanted to say too.
One device you could use is confrontation. Confrontation

doesn’t mean attacking someone. It simply means voicing your
doubt in a gentle manner regarding an opinion they’ve shared.
To be clear, this does not mean saying something like, “You’re
wrong to feel that way.” That would be invalidating your part‐
ner’s feelings, not confrontation. It does, however, mean
saying things like, “Are you sure your friend meant what he
said in that way?” when your partner shares an argument they
had with a good friend. Raising any doubts you have in this
way can be a good way of drawing your partner’s attention to
a perspective they perhaps hadn’t considered before. It can
also be a good way of preventing them from becoming blinded
by overwhelmingly strong emotions, such as anger.
A final communication device you could use is to offer your

partner a mixture of hope and humor. That means knowing to
lighten the mood after you’re done—and I do mean fully done
—discussing a heavy subject. Having deep and serious conver‐
sations with your partner is important. It’s equally as impor‐

tant to have more lighthearted talks and to laugh together
when you’re done, though, as this can strengthen the bond
between the two of you and keep you both in a more positive
state of mind.
Encouraging Emotional Safety and Open Dialogue
Knowing how and when to use the various communication

devices out there is vital for establishing and maintaining a
healthy, loving relationship free of the burdens of overthink‐
ing. Yet these devices can only be used to their full extent if
you’ve managed to establish an environment of emotional
safety with your partner. What exactly does that mean,
though, and how can you establish such an environment
anyway? Emotional safety refers to feeling safe enough to
share your feelings, doubts, insecurities, fears, and other
emotions with your partner. When you have emotional safety
with them, you don’t fear that they will make fun of you for
how you’re feeling, for example, or use your worries against
you. Instead, you’re able to trust that they will hear, under‐
stand, and support you when you do share these things, and
your partner feels the exact same way.
Put simply, then, emotional safety gives you and your partner
permission to be vulnerable with one another (Qualls, 2021).
The more you share, the deeper the trust and connection
between the two of you grows. Thus, you’re able to communi‐
cate better and establish a healthier, more caring relationship.
Emotional safety, though, isn’t something you can build with
your partner overnight. Rather, it’s something that can be

done slowly over time and through effort on both ends. One
thing you and your partner have to do to establish emotional
safety is to actively listen to one another when talking. Why
would you feel that you can trust your partner with your
vulnerabilities if you feel as though they never really hear or
understand you when they speak? Why would your partner
share their vulnerabilities with you if they feel you never listen
to them?
Another thing you can do to establish emotional safety in your

relationship is to listen with open curiosity, as opposed to
judgment and criticism. Say your partner shared something
they’re afraid of with you. If you were to respond judgmentally
to that, saying something like, “That’s such a stupid thing to be
afraid of,” then they likely will clam up. What’s more, they’ll
become less inclined to share their fears and vulnerabilities
with you moving forward. That night, they’ll probably toss
and turn in their bed thinking, I shouldn’t have told them that.
I’m so stupid, and so would you if you were in their position.
However, if you were to respond with something like, “That
sounds very difficult. Can you tell me a little more about
where this fear comes from?” they would be far more likely to
open up to you. You would do the same, after all, if your
partner responded to your fears and anxieties in this way.
What you generally want to do is respond to your partner with

empathy and compassion whenever they share things with
you, even if you don’t necessarily agree with them. You want
to seek to understand where they’re coming from and what

they must be feeling. You want to work through things
together with them patiently and compassionately, with your
newfound understanding at the forefront of your mind.
Likewise, you want them to do the exact same thing, as this is
the mark of an emotionally healthy, supportive relationship,
and so is consistency, of course. If you’re judgmental of your
partner one moment and compassionate the next, then that’s
not going to encourage them to trust you all that much.
Without trust, your partner won’t be able to rely on you and,
thus, they won’t be willing to share things with you. Instead,
they’ll bottle things up and so will you. Over time, the things
you keep holding back will fester in your mind, until they
disrupt your inner peace and result in an explosive argument
that could have been averted, if only you could have shared
what’s on your mind.
These are just some examples of how you might go about

establishing some much-needed emotional safety in your rela‐
tionship, but there are numerous others. For example, one
other practice for establishing emotional safety is to pay close
attention to your partner’s body language and tone of voice as
they share things with you. If they’re talking to you about a
worry that they have as if it’s no big deal, but they hold them‐
selves really rigidly as they talk, then that worry likely bothers
them far more than they’re letting on. So, it might be a good
idea to keep it in the back of your mind moving forward so
that you don’t accidentally trigger it. It might also be a good
idea to gently and curiously ask them about it. It’s important,
however, that you don’t push for more information if they’re

not ready to give it. Everyone has their own boundaries, and
these must be respected. Your partner will probably share
what’s bothering them with you over time when they feel just
a little more safe to do so. Pushing them to speak before
they’re ready to will hardly evoke any trust. If anything, it will
weaken the bond you’ve already established and cause them to
throw their defenses up.
One of the best ways to invite your partner to be vulnerable

with you is to be vulnerable with them in kind. Relationships
are a give and take. Usually, you give as much as you’re given.
If your partner is closed off and reluctant to talk to you about
their feelings, then you likely will be too. If you start talking
about your feelings more, however, it shows your partner that
they can trust you with their emotions, and, as a result, they’ll
be more inclined to be vulnerable with you too (Matejko,
2021). The more you endeavor to be transparent with your
partner, the more they will too. Of course, there may be some
times when your partner says and does something that hurts
you. Your first inclination in this case may be to ascribe a
motive to their behavior and try to explain it away. It would be
better, however, to give them the benefit of the doubt. This
might be difficult to do immediately after you’ve been hurt,
but you can always take a brief pause to calm things down and
bring up the matter in private when you’re able to do so. In
this conversation, you can ask why they acted the way they
did. Rather than trying to explain their actions yourself,
explain how their behavior impacted you by using “I feel”
statements. Aside from giving your partner the benefit of the

doubt, this would increase transparency in your relationship
even more, which can only ever be a good thing.
Finally, if you’re really having some relationship and commu‐

nication issues, you can always bring up the idea of going to
couples therapy together. Some hurdles can be difficult to
overcome, especially if you’re unable to pinpoint where your
issues are stemming from. A therapist could both help you to
attain an outside perspective and give you an emotionally safe
environment to understand each other better and to share
your own experiences.
As you can clearly see, working on your communication skills

is not only a good way to improve your relationship but also
to mitigate overthinking. Unfortunately, this doesn’t mean
that your tendency to overthink will disappear overnight.
Instead, it will linger for a little while, even as your communi‐
cation skills improve. To solve this issue, you’ll have to work a
little bit on your inner dialogue, which will take some
conscious effort, as you’ll soon see.
Interactive Element: Pop Quiz!
1. What is active listening and why is it important?

2. What are three things you can do to establish emotional

safety in your relationship?
3. What’s one key sign that you have communication issues in

your relationship? How can you fix it?
4. Name two ways in which you can invite your partner to be

more transparent and communicative with you, and explain
why they’d work.
4
N AV I G AT I N G YO U R I N N E R
DIALOGUE
Be the silent watcher of your thoughts and behavior. You’re

beneath the thinker. You’re the stillness beneath the mental
nose. You’re the love and joy beneath the pain.
— ECKHART TOLLE
O verthinking is an extension of the way in which you

talk to yourself. It is part of your inner dialogue,
which can be either positive or negative. Generally speaking,
you want your inner dialogue to be positive. You don’t want it
to be self-judgmental, critical, or overly harsh. Otherwise, you
end up in an overwhelmingly negative mindset that fuels your
negative emotions which, in turn, gives more power to over‐
thinking. One way to break this cycle is to communicate your
thoughts and feelings to others, especially to your partner.
This might be a little difficult to do, at least initially. You might
feel hesitant to share your more difficult emotions, thoughts,
and insecurities with your partner. There may be that small
voice inside your head saying things like, “They won’t care,” or
“This is stupid.”
Obviously, it’s vital that you work to change this little voice,
and expressing the emotions that you’re feeling is the best way
to go about doing this. Say that you feel very anxious and inse‐
cure in your relationship. Vocalizing this will provide you with
an outlet for those emotions. So, the more you express your
feelings, the less of a hold they’ll have on you and the more
relaxed you’ll be able to feel. Talking to others is one way of
doing this, but it’s not the only one. There are other emotional
outlets you could and should explore. These outlets will give
you the time and space you need to explore your feelings and
pour them out of your mind. They’ll help you to process your
emotions which will make it far easier for you to share them
with friends, family members, and your partner.
T H E B E N E FITS OF JOURNALING
There are several emotional outlets you could adopt if you’re

struggling with emotional expression. The age-old technique
known as journaling is one of the best ones. Journaling is the
act of keeping a journal—or diary if you will—where you write
down and explore your experiences, thoughts, feelings, and
more. It’s a great method to adopt for several reasons. For
starters, when you write down your experiences, thoughts,
and feelings, you give yourself the ability to look at them from
a distance. You become able to revisit what transpired that day
and see it from different, newer angles—ones you might not
have been able to see in the heat of the moment (Alston, 2020).
Say that you had an argument with your partner that day
where you got very mad. Angry as you were, seeing their
perspective of things was probably very difficult. Later that
day, once you had cooled down some, you sat down and
started journaling about the fight. In writing down their
words and analyzing what happened, though, you saw that
perhaps they didn’t mean their words in the way you thought
they did. Perhaps you realized that their own trauma had been
triggered during the fight, causing them to say things they
didn’t mean. Perhaps you realized that the fight you had was
based on a big misunderstanding, which is something you
hadn’t realized at the time.
Journaling is the kind of practice that allows you to analyze

events in such a manner and re-evaluate things. It also allows
you to analyze your own emotions and thoughts and allows
you to take a better look at where they’re coming from. Thus,
it gives you the chance to see that the reason you got so angry
during that fight was because you felt like you weren’t being
heard or because you’ve been bottling up your emotions,
which you shouldn’t have done. Exploring your own emotions
in this way enables you to address their root causes. It gives
you the ability to go back to your partner later on and explain
why you reacted the way you did and what you felt. Your
partner is then able to respond in kind. Journaling, then, is the
kind of practice that improves your problem-solving skills,
while increasing your own understanding of yourself. Thus,
it’s something that makes it easier for you to make decisions
moving forward. Having gained a better understanding of
your fight through journaling, deciding on how to talk to your

partner and what to talk about suddenly becomes easier.
With all this being the case, it shouldn’t be surprising to hear

that journaling lessens the power that really intense emotions,
such as anger, can have over you. It shouldn’t be surprising to
hear that it reduces feelings of anxiety, stress, and even depres‐
sion too. The reason this happens has to do with the way
unexpressed emotions, particularly negative ones, affect your
physical brain. When you don’t express the emotions you’re
feeling, your brain goes into fight-or-flight mode. Say that
you’re afraid your relationship will end, but you aren’t
expressing that fear. Your body’s survival mechanism demands
that you do one of two things when faced with something
you’re afraid of: run away or actively fight it. The problem is
that the fear that your relationship will end isn’t a material
threat that you can run away from or beat up with your fists,
at least not the way facing a predator, such as a bear, would be.
Hence, it’s not something you can physically escape or resist.
This means that when you experience a fear that you don’t
express, your brain goes into fight-or-flight mode and then
becomes stuck there. Your heart rate climbs, you start
breathing really fast, and you sweat all over, but there’s seem‐
ingly nothing for you to do. So, you keep imagining the ways
in which your relationship could end or allow your mind to
become overrun with worries, and you become stuck in that
state.
This stops being the case, though, when you express the fear
you’re feeling. Expressing your emotions robs them of the
power they hold over you. They provide you with a way out of
the fight-or-flight mode you’re in, thus, allowing you to take a
deep breath and relax. As such, it puts an end to overthinking,
which is clearly fueled by negative emotions, like fear. Is it any
wonder, then, that journaling curbs your tendency to over‐
think? Is it all that surprising to hear that journaling can help
you to achieve a much calmer state of mind and, over time, a
much happier, calmer relationship?
Guide to Effective Journaling
It’s great that journaling has the power to help you—help all of
us, really—with overthinking in this way. How do you go
about journaling, though? Is there any one, specific, correct
way to journal? Not really. There are a couple of general
guidelines you can follow, but journaling isn’t like writing a
college essay. No one is going to mark up what you’ve written
in red ink, give you a grade on it, and ask you to do a rewrite.
Journaling is a form of writing therapy. It can be done individ‐
ually, in a group, or even with a therapist. It can be hand-
written or typed on your computer. Your journal entries could
go on for pages and pages or just be a couple of paragraphs
long. The idea here isn’t to adhere to a specific style of journal‐
ing. It’s to find one that works for you and stick to it. Then, all
you have to do is write.
What do you write about, though? You can write about

anything and everything, like something that happened that
day or something that has been on your mind for a while now.
If you’re unsure what to write about, you can always use the
WRITE model. According to Ackerman C. E. (2017), the
WRITE model stands for
What do you want to write about?
Review or reflect on your topic.
Investigate your thoughts and feelings.
Time yourself so that you write for a set period of time (e.g. 10
minutes).
Exit smart by reading through what you’ve written and

reflecting on them.
Following the WRITE model should be very helpful to you

because it’ll allow you to explore your chosen topics in-depth
and really understand how you feel about them. It’s a great,
comprehensive way of ensuring that nothing is left unsaid or
unexpressed within you—at least not so long as you journal
regularly. That’s the key to journaling: It only really works if it
becomes a habit. That habit gets you used to expressing your
feelings to yourself, which inevitably makes it easier to express
them to others as well. Not only that, but it also makes it
possible for you to grasp what you really want to say, and even
refine it in your mind before you vocalize it.
What if you’re not sure what, precisely you want to write

about that day? One thing that can help you on such days is to
use a journal prompt of some kind. There are a myriad of
journal prompts you can find or come up with but a couple of

basic examples might be:
What is one thing I’m really happy about in my

relationship?
What am I most afraid of and where does that fear
come from?
If I could have done something different this week,
what would it be?
What is one thing I learned from my previous
relationship?
What am I looking for in a partner?
Once you’ve settled on a prompt you can get writing.

Alternatively, you can do things like write a letter to your past,
present or future self; write a poem; draw a mind map that can
help you to solve a particular problem you’re having; write a
letter to someone else that you may or may not show them; or
just write about whatever pops into your mind at that
moment. If you want, you can even draw in your journal, as
there’s no reason why you shouldn’t. Likewise, there’s no rule
that says you have to fill up at least a full page in your journal
every day. It’s perfectly alright for you to write just a para‐
graph or two or even a couple of sentences on a given day. The
length of your sentences isn’t all that important when you
think about it; whether you’re expressing what you’re think‐
ing, feeling, and experiencing or not is (Watson et al., 2019).
Alternative Creative Outlets for Thought Expression
Journaling is an incredibly effective method of self-expression,

but it’s just one of the techniques that are available to you.
There are many other creative outlets you can take advantage
of. Creative outlets are great tools of self-expression, which is
why they’re considered methods of creative expression.
Creative expression is the catch-all term for using your
creativity, emotions, and skills to produce something that is
meaningful to you (You, 2023). You want to use creative
outlets as a means of self-expression, regardless of what your
skill levels are, for several reasons. For one, creative outlets are
known to make you smarter. They also make you more self-
aware, since they help you to explore your own emotions,
thoughts, behaviors, and reactions more analytically.
Creative outlets make you feel happier too, as they enable you
to become more connected to yourself. Simultaneously,
creative outlets can help you to discover your purpose in life,
reduce the amount of stress and anxiety you feel the way jour‐
naling does, and come up with new ways of expressing your
inner world. Through all this, they can build your sense of
self-esteem and confidence and give you the opportunity to
learn and pick up new skills. These new skills can then both
enable you to leave a greater impact in the world and maybe
even climb to a higher position in your line of work. Most
importantly, though, creative outlets help you tap into a more
intuitive side of yourself, while connecting with more creative
people and forging stronger relationships with those
around you.
With all that in mind, the question remains: What creative

outlet is the right one for you? The answer to that question
depends entirely on you and what you’d like to explore. There
are a near infinite number of creative outlets out there. So, one
thing you can do is try your hand at a couple of different ones
to see which you like best. It’s important that you find an
outlet that actually brings you joy because, otherwise, what’s
the point? Some examples of outlets you could try for greater
self-expression might include
trying out new AI tools, such as ChatGPT or Dante AI.

learning and starting DIY projects, like making a
birdhouse, knitting, or restoring old furniture.
learning how to play an instrument.
creating your own graphics by learning how to use

platforms, such as Canva.
going to acting or improv classes and tapping into
your inner star.
trying your hand at songwriting or digital
songwriting.
taking up filming or photography and maybe taking a
couple of courses for them.
going dancing or learning new forms of dance, like the
waltz, hip-hop, or salsa.
creating your own recipes and then rolling up your
sleeves to cook or bake.
sketching, drawing, and engaging in other forms of art
that feel right to you.
going thrifting to craft your own sense of style and
fashion.
redesigning your home, room, or garden to reflect
your inner world more.
starting a personal blog, which would count as one
form of journaling.
designing your own T-shirts by picking up activities
like tie-dyeing.
These are just some examples of creative outlets you could try.
There are many others that you could test out, if none of these
are to your liking. It must be noted, however, that while
creative outlets are great for understanding your feelings
better, they cannot take the place of genuine introspection,
which is something you need to do if you want to understand

where your feelings are coming from. The thing about feel‐
ings, particularly negative ones, is that they can be misleading.
Take an emotion as an objective fact and you might easily
allow it to color your opinion of the world and the people
around you. Thus, you might allow your own insecurities, for
example, to convince you that your partner no longer wants to
be with you, when really, they’re head over heels in love
with you.
Interactive Element: Journaling Starter Kit
One way you can practice introspection—I like to call this fact-
checking your feelings—is to journal. Given that, here are a
couple of journal prompts you might try:
Describe what a good, healthy relationship looks like

to you.
What does love mean to you?
How can love and respect be communicated in a
relationship?
Do you believe in soulmates? Why?
List 15 ways you can say “I love you” without saying
the words.
What’s the thing that upsets you most in a relationship
and why?
5
F A C T- C H EC K I N G YO U R F E E LI N G S
Feelings are not supposed to be logical. Dangerous is the man

who has rationalized his emotions.
— DAVID BORENSTEIN
W hile understanding your emotions is absolutely vital

for your ability to communicate them, it must be
understood that emotions are not facts. Yet, all too often they
are mistaken for undeniable truths. The fear that your partner
will eventually leave you turns into the certainty that they
eventually will. Your personal insecurities become reasons
why people just don’t want to hang out with you or get to
know you. Once such feelings give rise to such thoughts, they
quickly overtake your mind and convince you that they are
cold, hard truths and not worries you’ve conjured up yourself.
These “truths” then start coloring your actions and attitude. As

a result, you start sabotaging your own relationships or avoid
forging new ones. Why wouldn’t you do this when you’ve
convinced yourself that no one wants to spend time with you
anyway? This, right here, is the frightening power that
emotions and, by extension, overthinking can have over you.
It’s also the reason why you have to learn how to tell your feel‐
ings apart from facts. Only by doing so can you stop them
from dictating your behavior.
T H E D I F F ERENCE BETWEEN FEELINGS AND FACTS
While feelings aren’t the same thing as facts, they are all too
easy to confuse with one another. So, how on earth do you tell
them apart? The average human being has between 12,000 to
60,000 thoughts per day (Ja’Kari, 2019). Some of these
thoughts are mere observations, some are rather positive, and
others are decidedly negative. It’s these negative thoughts that
are often colored by your feelings that usually manage to
convince you that they are undeniable facts. It’s these
thoughts that have the power to ruin your perfectly good day
by playing in your mind over and over again like a broken
record that you can’t get away from. Such thoughts are
dangerous because they can convince you of falsehoods. For
instance, negative thoughts can make you believe, without the
shadow of a doubt, that you’re inherently unlovable or unde‐
serving of love. They can convince you that your friends,
family, and partner only tolerate you. They can cause you to
conclude that you’re going to be alone for the rest of your

natural life.
Here’s the thing though: As convincing as these statements

might be, none of them are true. The trick, of course, lies in
being able to recognize that fact. So, how can you possibly
accomplish that? One way to do so—once you’ve noticed how
much you’re overthinking and what negative thoughts you’re
having of course—is to question and interrogate your own
thoughts. Say that you’re very upset about something that your
partner did and are having all sorts of negative thoughts as a
result. You’re even questioning whether your relationship has
a shelf life or not, as a result. One way to question yourself in
this instance is to ask, is this situation that serious to make me this
upset? If you’re upset about your partner forgetting to pick up
some milk on the way home, then it probably isn’t that serious,
and you’re likely reacting to some other underlying issue that
you need to talk about. If your partner has cheated on you, on
the other hand, then you likely are right to get upset and that’s
a whole other conversation entirely.
Most of the time, we allow our negative emotions to impact

our reactions to things. As a result, we react more strongly to
mistakes, mishaps, and the like more strongly than we other‐
wise would have. Questioning your thoughts and immediate
reactions can prevent you from doing this. It can provide you
the space you need to ask whether the behavior you’re about
to engage in—yelling at your partner—is proportional to the
event that happened—them forgetting to pick up milk on their
way home. Having answered this question honestly, you’ll be

able to modify your behavior. That doesn’t mean you’ll
suppress your irritation, of course. It just means that you
won’t yell at your partner but, instead, say something like, “I
feel really upset when you forget to do things I ask you to do
because I feel like I’m not being heard or listened to.” This will
help the conversation go in a very different direction and
maybe even help your relationship get better in the long run.
Questioning your thoughts isn’t just good for modifying your

reactions though. It’s also something that can help you to see
that the negative thoughts you’re having aren’t actually accu‐
rate. If you catch yourself having thoughts like, no one wants to
spend any time with me, or I’m inherently unlovable, then one
question you can ask yourself is, what evidence do I have to
support this thought? What evidence do I have that disproves it?
Then, you can pick up a pen and paper and start answering
these questions. Odds are, you will end up listing a lot of
things that disprove the thought you were having, and there
will be very few, if any, items that support it, assuming, of
course, that you aren’t Joffrey Baratheon from Game of
Thrones, in which case I wish you good luck. Other questions
that you could ask yourself to interrogate these negative
thoughts you’re having might include:
Is this thought actually true?

Is this really that serious a matter?
Why am I really getting this upset over this incident?
What can I do to move past this incident?
Is this thought really something that I believe in?

Am I going to let this thought determine how I feel
about myself today?
Is thinking in this way beneficial for me or harmful
toward me? In what way?
Techniques and Exercises for Fact-Checking
Interrogating your thoughts is just one tool in your toolkit

that can help you to gauge the validity of your emotions.
There are other tools you can pick up and use as well. Among
these, one of the most effective ones is called emotional fact-
checking. True to its name, emotional fact-checking literally
has you check whether a thought you’re having is fact or
fiction. The first step in this process is to make note of—that is
to say, become aware of—what you’re thinking and feeling.
Luckily, you already know how to do this by now. The next
step is to observe and label the feeling you’re experiencing. It’s
only once you’ve named a feeling that you can disprove it and
stop it from taking over your mind. At this point, going
beyond labeling and getting as descriptive as you can would be
a good idea. So, when you notice that you’re experiencing a
particularly strong emotion, you can observe it and tell your‐
self, I acknowledge that I’m angry right now. I want to yell and
scream at my partner because they don’t agree with something that’s
important to me. My palms are sweating, my heart is pounding, and
I’m breathing really quickly.
Of course, you must be sure not to judge yourself as you’re

describing the emotion and sensations, whatever they may be.
Otherwise, you will end up experiencing other negative
emotions, such as shame, which will distract you from what
you’re trying to accomplish. Having neutrally described what
you’re experiencing, you can move onto the next step of the
fact-checking process and that is to ask yourself whether the
facts at hand line up with the intensity of the reaction you
want to give. In other words, is it reasonable to yell at your
partner for their forgetfulness, as in the milk example from
before? If the answer to that question is no, then your focus
will become changing the reaction you want to give and the
feelings that are fueling them. According to Zeman (2019),
some questions you can ask yourself to make this process
easier include:
What happened that made me feel this strong

emotion?
Which emotion am I experiencing that I want to
change?
What assumptions have I made about the event that
transpired?
How am I interpreting the event that triggered this
emotion in me?
Do my assumptions and interpretations of the event
fall in line with the facts?
What do I fear this event means for me and my

relationship?
How likely is it that the thing I fear happens?
If what I fear does happen, how can I cope with it?
By asking yourself questions like these, you can come to

clearly see how your emotions are coloring and altering your
perception of the facts. You can, thus, start to discern between
fact and fiction. Furthermore, you can stop yourself from
making assumptions that could impact how you respond to
events, like something your partner did that upset you. Going
back to the milk example, you can dismantle the assumption
that your partner forgot what you said because they weren’t
listening to you. Similarly, you can do away with the assump‐
tion that your partner wasn’t listening to you because they
don’t care about what you have to say. As a result, you can give
a more measured response in the face of their forgetfulness
and have a more constructive conversation about it, rather
than overthink things and let your emotions drag you into a
massive argument.
Fact-checking is a very useful tool to use, but you have other

devices you can turn to in a pinch. One tool to try is to simply
sit with your thoughts for a bit (McClelland, 2021). Negative
thoughts tend to make you very reactive because they’re
powered by negative emotions, like anger, fear, and anxiety.
Such feelings put you in the fight-or-flight mode, as you’ll
remember, which is all about reacting quickly to protect your‐
self. The only problem is that giving into these feelings can
often cause you to react poorly. It can make you lash out at
your partner when what they did didn’t really merit that reac‐
tion. It can make you distance yourself from them, in an effort
to protect yourself. It can even make you end a relationship
over something you could have calmly discussed. Sitting with
your feelings can prevent such things from happening. It can
give you the time you need to fact-check your thoughts and
emotions and then decide on a more reasonable course of
action.
Journaling can help you to achieve much the same thing. After
all, it gives you the space and distance required to analyze
whatever transpired from different angles and perspectives.
Further, it gives you the ability to understand why you feel a
certain way, what triggered that emotion, and how that trigger
or trauma is pushing you to react. Having gained awareness of
these things through writing, you can again remedy your
approach to the matter and change your course of action.
A final thing you can do is challenge your own negative

thoughts. One of the best ways of doing this is to write down
whatever negative things you’re thinking of on a page. Then,
you can write down the best possible outcome that could
happen right next to it. Beside that, you can write down what’s
more likely to transpire. In doing so, you can start training
your mind to expect more realistic outcomes. So, if your nega‐
tive thought is “My partner is going to break up with me after
that fight,” you could write, “My partner and I won’t have a
fight like that again, and we will be fine,” next to it. Beside that,
you can write, “We will talk about our fight calmly, discuss
why we reacted the way we did, and figure out a way to

communicate that helps us avoid such fights like these in the
future.” That doesn’t seem all that bad when you think about it
now, does it?
Fact-checking and challenging your thoughts is important, if

only so that they don’t ruin your day and affect your relation‐
ship. Relationships, though, involve two people, which means
they require effort on both sides. You cannot be the only
person making an effort to connect and communicate and
neither can your partner. This is why it’s equally as important
that you set relationship milestones for yourselves.
Relationship milestones can be a fantastic way of gauging
where your relationship stands. It can help you see whether
your relationship is actually moving forward or if it has grown
stagnant. Seeing this, in turn, can make it possible for you to
navigate your way forward and decide whether you want to
change things or not, all while sparing you the agony of
tossing and turning in bed, thinking, where on earth is this rela‐
tionship going?
Your Emotional Regulation Handout
Before we move on to see how you can set and map relation‐
ship milestones, let’s quickly practice how you can fact-check
your own emotions. You can do so by asking yourself these
questions:
What emotion do I want to change?

What sensations does this emotion bring with it?
What prompted this emotion?

What assumptions, thoughts, and interpretations do I
have about this event?
How else may I interpret what happened?
Are the thoughts I’m having fact or fiction?
What am I threatened by?
What is the worst-case scenario I’m afraid of?
Does the intensity of what I’m feeling line up with the
event that occurred?
6
M A P P I N G R E L AT I O N S H I P
M I LE S T O N E S
The quality of your life is the quality of your relationship.
— TONY ROBBINS
W here is this relationship going? Odds are this is a

question that you’ve asked yourself and your partner
at some point, and it’s the kind of question you want answers
to. Otherwise, you find yourself in a state of confusion, unsure
of which path to take. So, you start speculating about all the
ways things could go, often jumping first to the worst case
scenarios. You quickly become blinded by those, missing what
your relationship really is and, more importantly, what it
could be with just a little bit of communication. Setting clear
relationship goals, however, can help you to avoid all this

confusion. It can clarify where you stand in your relationship
and where you’re going. It can help you and your partner to
course correct, if need be, and—most importantly—ensure
that you are both on the same page.
What do clear relationship milestones look like then? How can

you and your partner discuss and set them? How can you be
sure that the ones you’ve set are being met, and what can you
do if they aren’t? To answer these questions, we need to first
understand what realistic relationship milestones are and why
they’re so vital for the well-being of your relationship in the
first place.
T H E I M P O RTANCE OF CLEAR REL ATIONSHIP

G OA L S
Navigating a relationship, particularly a new one, can be a

confusing thing. It requires a great deal of communication on
both you and your partner’s side and, even then, you’re bound
to run into speed bumps and hurdles of all kinds.
Miscommunication is bound to happen every once in a while,
despite your best efforts. That will be perfectly alright though,
so long as you’re able to talk things through and have a clear
sense of the direction you’re heading in. Communication will
obviously be key for this but so will your ability to set rela‐
tionship milestones. Relationship milestones are essentially
long-term goals that you and your partner jointly set for your‐
selves. A lot of couples don’t realize that they really should be
setting such goals, primarily because goals are typically associ‐

ated with things like careers and academic progress. So, the
fact that they can really help couples to understand and
connect with one another often gets overlooked. What’s more,
couples that do try to set such goals for themselves often end
up stating wishes rather than determining significant
milestones.
What’s the difference between a wish and a goal, then? For

one, a wish is something that’s far more intangible than a goal.
For another, goals come with actual action plans that are put
to use to achieve the end result you want. Wishes don’t come
with any such plan. Hence, they’re often never made into real‐
ity, at least not until they’re expressed in terms of goals.
Setting relationship goals is a great idea because it increases

your motivation to make them into a reality, and they improve
your relationship, as a result. They show you a clear path to
follow, thus, cutting away at the brambles of confusion
blocking your way. They also spare you all those extra hours
you’d spend thinking, do we go this way or that? Perhaps most
importantly though, relationship milestones motivate you and
your partner to work on your relationship together as a team.
The more milestones you meet, the greater sense of motiva‐
tion you have and the closer you become to your end goal. It’s
as simple as that.
While relationship milestones may sound quite simple, setting

the right ones for you and your partner might be a bit more
challenging, though not impossible to do. This is partly
because relationship goals are things each partner has to set

for themselves separately. Let’s say that you struggle greatly
with communicating your needs to your partner. Your partner
doesn’t have this same issue, but they are struggling with anger
management problems. In this case, and to put things rather
vaguely, your personal relationship goal might be to become
able to communicate your needs to your partner. Your part‐
ner’s relationship goals, on the other hand, might be to get
their anger management issues under control. Ultimately,
meeting both these milestones will help you to move forward
as a couple. Yet, they are still things that must be worked on
individually.
There’s not one single human being on Earth that’s exactly the
same as another. No one couple is the same as another either.
Given these facts, it’s understandable that different couples
would have different relationship milestones (If Your
Relationship Fails, 2021). So, how can you determine your own
milestones? You can start by discussing your shared values
with your partner. Where is it that you want to get to? What
do you want your relationship to ultimately look like? What
are the foundational goals and traits, such as starting a family
and loyalty, that are most important to the both of you? As a
rule, you want to be on the same page on these matters with
your partner. If your partner really wants kids, for instance,
but you really don’t, then that’s going to be one relationship
milestone you’re never going to be able to meet. It’s also prob‐
ably going to become a source of resentment and arguments, if
not a reason to break up, if it’s not properly addressed.
Once you’ve had an open and honest conversation about your

values, you can move onto talking about each other’s love
language. Your love language is the way in which you express
love and want it to be expressed to you. Some people’s love
language is all about physical touch. For others, it’s a language
of compliments and praise or a language centered on acts of
service, like bringing your partner a cup of coffee while they’re
hard at work or cleaning the house so that they don’t have to
worry about it after work. Understanding your partner’s love
language is important because it gives you the ability to
express your love in a way that they will understand. It does
the exact same thing for your partner. Thus, learning your
partner’s love language becomes something that can easily be
worked into your relationship milestones. This is only true,
though, so long as you and your partner remain communica‐
tive about such things. It is challenging to show to your
partner that you love them if, for example, you don’t realize
that physical touch is their main love language.
Considering all this, one relationship milestone to set for

yourself might be to understand your partner’s love language
and to actively use it. Another might be to communicate yours
as openly as you can. Other similar relationship milestones
might include
learning how to solve problems together and navigate

conflicts effectively.
committing to a regular, weekly date night to ensure

you always spend quality time together.
prioritizing your physical connection and making it a
part of your everyday life, even if it just means holding
your partner’s hand for a moment while they’re
stressed.
working to improve your communication skills so that
you can properly convey your thoughts and emotions
to your partner and vice versa.
learning to regulate your emotions so that they don’t
make you unnecessarily reactive and affect your mood
for the day.
developing healthy coping mechanisms for stress and
anxiety.
As you may have noticed, these are rather vague goals. They’re
outlines of concrete, individual goals, if you will. So, they may
be a good starting point for you but not necessarily the goals
you choose for yourself. If you’re trying to decide on your own
relationship milestones, then one thing you have to do is
decide on each goal’s duration. How long do you expect it to
take you to meet one specific goal? A week? A month? Three
months? Decide on this at the outset because goals that have
time limits are infinitely easier to meet than goals that don’t.
This is because time limits make goals into concrete end
points that you can actively work toward. They provide you
with action plans you can effectively use, follow, and adjust, if
need be. They give you the ability to check whether you’re on
track to meet your goal on time. You can see whether or not
this is the case by setting check-in dates where you would
evaluate the work you have put in to meet your goal and if it
has yielded any results.
Check-in dates are typically a good idea because they make

your goals measurable. You want your relationship goals to be
measurable because physically being able to see your progress
is something that’s going to motivate you and your partner to
keep going. Furthermore, it’s something that will help you to
truly see and understand how meeting your goals makes you
feel. Do you, by chance, feel closer to your partner? Do you
feel safer and more secure in your relationship? If so, then the
goals you have chosen are clearly the right ones for you, and
the best thing you can do for yourself and your relationship is
to keep going as you are. You may still be skeptical, of course,
and wonder if setting relationship milestones really works that
well. If that’s the case, all you have to do is take a look at the
copious amounts of research that has been conducted on the
matter. Over the years, studies have found that couples who
set relationship goals for themselves are happier and more
satisfied than couples that don’t. Partners who do set goals
tend to feel closer to their significant others, all while feeling
greater sexual desire toward them. They also get into fewer,
and less severe, arguments in general. The goals that you set
for yourself can deliver these exact same results to you too, so
long as they are clear, well-communicated, concrete, and
measurable.
Case Studies
Studies and research can be a great way to prove the effective‐

ness of techniques, such as goal setting. No technique is quite
as fool-proof, though, the way case studies—success stories—
can be. There are a staggering number of couples out there
that can be considered the walking-talking poster boys of rela‐
tionship milestones (Cassano, n.d.). The first such couple that
pops into my mind is Ryan Reynolds and Blake Lively. You’ve
likely encountered posts about them on social media, followed
quickly by the hashtag #couplegoals. How could you not, when
they’ve been married for over a decade, have three kids, and
are considered to be everyone’s favorite celebrity couple?
So, what’s the Reynolds-Lively couple’s secret to happiness?

Put simply, it’s that they set the right relationship milestones
for themselves. The couple’s particular relationship goals are
built on five factors:
Gratitude
Friendship
Trust
Communication
Humor
As part of their relationship goals, they strive to always be

grateful for one another and to always express their gratitude
either in words or actions. They make a conscious effort not to
take one another for granted, which is only possible because
they set relationship milestones for themselves. Their second

milestone is to always endeavor to foster their friendship.
Studies show that friendship is one of the essential founda‐
tions of a good, long-lasting relationship. Understandably, it
goes hand in hand with trust. Hence, the couple seeks to
always foster the trust that they share, even—and especially
when—they challenge one another. In fact, it’s this trust that
makes them effectively able to challenge each other and, thus,
continue growing both as individuals and as a couple.
One of the most important relationship milestones Reynolds

and Lively seem to have set for themselves is communication.
If something happens that bothers them, they will immediately
pick up the phone, call their partner, and tell them what
happened and why it bothered them so much. They will ask
for advice if they need it or simply state that they needed
someone to silently listen to them. Their partner will then
either give advice or just be there for them, depending on what
their significant other’s need is. This probably sounds like a
very simple thing to do, yet it can be difficult to accomplish
without setting targeted relationship goals for it.
Communication is a rather tricky thing to master and, some‐
times in your haste to help your partner, you may end up
reacting in the wrong way or doing the wrong thing. Setting
goals to determine the way you want to communicate with
your partner can help you to avoid this. In the process, it can
save you from spending hours upon hours thinking of what
you should have done or said to your partner but didn’t.
Reynolds and Lively’s last relationship milestone is an often

overlooked, yet no less important one, as it centers around
humor. More specifically, it focuses on making one another
laugh. Life is full of ups and downs, as are relationships.
Arguments, disagreements, and tense moments will always
occur. It is, therefore, vital not to let those moments cast a
dark cloud over your relationship. It’s important you don’t see
only the tense or negative parts of your relationship. This is all
too easy to do, especially if you give into overthinking. Set a
goal to prioritize humor and make each other laugh, and you’d
be surprised at how quickly your relationship can change.
Soon enough, you’ll start noticing the positive sides of your
relationship and all the little things that you love about your
partner. The more you notice these things, the more balanced
and accurate a view you’ll form of your relationship. Thus,
you’ll become less likely to sabotage or run away from it, and
you’ll be far more likely to keep working on strengthening
your relationship. After all, the good and positive sides you’re
able to see will help you understand that it’s all worth it.
Setting relationship milestones, then, is integral for building a

healthy and happy relationship. These goals, however, must
not be ones that cause you to overlook your own needs,
emotional or otherwise. Rather, they should be ones that
ensure that both your and your partner’s needs are met. For
this to be the case, though, you’ll need to be aware of your own
needs and who you are as an individual.
Interactive Element: The Relationship Checklist
Deciding on which relationship goals to set for yourself can be

a bit of a challenge. Given that, here are some things to keep in
mind as you’re writing down your very own goals:
Does this goal help me to maintain my emotional

connection with my partner?
Does this goal help me to navigate arguments and
disagreements in a healthy way?
Does this goal help me communicate my needs,
emotions, and thoughts to my partner clearly, openly,
and honestly?
Do I have a goal about spending quality time together
regularly?
Do I have a goal that makes me a better listener?
Do I have a goal that helps me to manage my stress and
regulate my emotions better?
Do I have a goal that will help meet my needs for
physical intimacy?
Do I understand what’s really important for my
partner and am I able to give that to them?
SPREADING THE CURE
“My mother said the cure for thinking too much about your‐
self was helping somebody who was worse off than you.”
— SYLVIA PLATH
Overthinking is alarmingly common. Research indicates that

it affects 73% of adults between the ages of 25 and 35, and 52%
of those between the ages of 45 and 55. Not every one of these
overthinkers finds themselves doubting and second-guessing
their relationships, but for many people who have a chronic
tendency to ruminate on every mistake they make or argu‐
ment they have, it’s natural that this makes its way into every
area of their lives.
Whether you end up sabotaging your relationships because

you overthink them or you end up trapped in situations that
aren’t good for you, it’s clear that this tendency is a problem –
and as it’s one I’ve overcome myself, it’s important to me to
help as many people as I can to break the cycle.
You know how destructive overthinking can be, and you’ve

picked up this book because you want to put an end to it. You
understand what it’s like to second-guess everything and lie
awake at night catastrophizing — so I’m sure that, like me, you
want to help other people move away from that exhausting
state.
This is your chance!
By leaving a review of this book on Amazon, you’ll show

other overthinkers where they can find the guidance they
need to break the cycle and find true joy and fulfillment in
their relationships.
Simply by letting other readers know how this book has

helped you and what they’ll find inside, you’ll show them how
they can acquire the tools they need to break free from their
negative thoughts and move forward.
Thank you so much for your support. It often feels like you’re
the only one who struggles with this, but it’s amazing how
many people overthinking affects, and the more we can help
each other, the better.
7
KEEPING “I” IN MIND
If you want to be happy, set a goal that commands your

thoughts, liberates your energy, and inspires your hopes.
— ANDREW CARNEGIE
R elationships are ever-evolving dynamics because you

are an ever-evolving being. You go through innumer‐
able changes as the years go by, so it’s understandable—even
expected—that your relationship changes right alongside you.
The keyword in that sentence is “alongside” because a rela‐
tionship in which you remain stagnant or stuck cannot evolve.
Such a relationship, therefore, cannot go on. Change is a scary
concept in general, mainly because of the uncertainty it brings
with it. Yet, it’s a concept that should be readily embraced, as it
can be a very positive force for you. It can foster a great deal of
individual growth, which is something you can actively
pursue. It’s also something that you should consciously pursue
by nurturing your own personal interests. Pursuing your own
interests, independent of your partner, is one of the best
things you can do for the well-being of your relationship. You
see, you don’t want to end up in the kind of dynamic where

you spend 24/7 with your partner and end up losing your
individuality. Rather, you want to bring that to the forefront
and let it enrich your relationship. You want your partner to
do the exact same thing too.
I NT RO D U CTION TO INDIVIDUALITY
Why exactly is it so important for you to retain your individu‐

ality in your relationship? There are a legion of reasons for
this, but the simplest one is that it’s the only way to ensure
your relationship is a successful one. This makes sense when
you think about it. When you retain your individuality in your
relationship, you become better able to support your partner
when they need it. You get to cultivate your own strengths
after all, then lend them to your partner when they need
support, and your partner is able to do the same for you
(Firestone, 2018). Beyond that, retaining your individuality
prevents you from associating your sense of self-worth solely
with your partner. It helps you see the value in yourself and to
turn inward for validation. Someone who’s able to value them‐
selves as they should is someone who will spend less time
questioning every move and decision that they make.
Likewise, they’re someone who will feel more comfortable and
secure in their relationship and be less likely to take every
mistake, mishap, and minor argument as a catastrophe.
One of the many benefits to retaining your individuality is

that it makes you better able to regulate your own emotions
and cope with stress and anxiety. This further enables you to
act maturely, recognize your own triggers and trauma, and
then be able to put in the work to resolve them. By retaining
your individuality in your relationship, then, you can learn
how to change the reactions and behaviors you want to
change, like your tendency to overthink, for example, and
build the kind of life for yourself that you want and deserve.
The question, then, isn’t whether you should retain your indi‐
viduality in your relationship. It’s how you can do so. The first
thing you need to do for this is to commit to retaining your
identity and pursuing self-growth, even when you’re in a rela‐
tionship. Your relationship is important, but it’s not any more
than you are. If you ever feel hesitant to pursue your personal
growth, remind yourself that by losing your identity and
stunting your growth, you would be putting your relationship
at risk and stunting its growth, too. Say that your relationship
was a tree. A tree grows taller and taller every year, as you
know. For this to be the case, though, both its trunk and its
roots need to grow. The tree cannot survive if its trunk keeps
trying to grow but its roots remain miniscule. Yes, in this
analogy you’re the roots and your partner is the trunk. Does
that make sense?
Once you’ve committed to preserving your sense of identity,

the next thing you need to do is ask yourself how to keep the
peace in your relationship (Joshi, 2021). Say that you struggle a
great deal with anxiety issues. If you ignore them and focus
solely on your relationship, then they will start poisoning your
mind, emotions, reactions, and behavior. Thus, they will sour
your relationship. What if you were to address and work on
them, though, by adopting relaxation techniques such as medi‐
tation and maybe even going to therapy? In this case, you
would not only be doing something that’s very good for your
own peace of mind but you’d also keep your anxiety problems
from affecting your relationship. Meanwhile, you’d keep
growing as an individual, adopting coping mechanisms that
work for you, and achieving the kind of inner peace that fits in
well with the peace you’ve obtained in your relationship.
As you may have gathered from that, pursuing ways to grow as

an individual is an important way to retain your sense of iden‐
tity and pursue self-growth. This can mean doing any number
of things, like working to keep advancing in your career,
strengthening your friendships, expanding your social circle,
picking up new hobbies, and doing things that are good for
your mental health. Speaking of, your mental health should
always be at the forefront of your mind. It should be some‐
thing you look out for, just as you do for your physical health.
Otherwise, you not only would let your emotions and negative
thoughts drag you to dark—even depressive—places, but you’d
let them affect your relationship with your partner too.
One thing you can do to look out for your mental health and
sense of identity is to practice self-care regularly. Self-care can
look very different from person to person. Your definition of
it, for example, might include a bubble bath and some incense.
Another person might include putting on some relaxing
music, lying down on the couch to read a little, meditating,
doing yoga every day, or doing their skincare routine.
Whatever your personal definition is, self-care is important
because it’s a way of showing that you, as an individual, are
deserving of care and love. As such, it’s a way of reaffirming
your value and identity. Other ways of doing this include
spending some quality time with yourself, which will make
you feel more connected to your emotions and your core. It
will also give you and your partner some space, which will
make retaining your individuality a whole lot easier to do.
If you’re hardly spending any time apart from your partner,

then that’s a significant sign that you may be losing your indi‐
viduality. It’s not the only one though. According to Sperber
(n.d.), other signs that you might be losing your individuality
might be that
your friendships, even close ones, have begun to fade.

you’ve stopped using words like “I,” “mine,” and “me.”
you’ve stopped engaging in your hobbies.
your near and distant future always revolves around
your partner.
you can’t tell if you’re doing something for yourself or

for “us.”
you feel anxious and stressed all the time.
you’re talking about your relationship all the time.
you feel like you’re losing or have lost yourself.
you’re not sure which opinions are yours anymore.
you’ve become overly involved in your partner’s life.
you’re the only one who’s willing to make changes,
compromises, and sacrifices in your relationship.
you’re hyper-aware of your differences from your
partner, and you avoid drawing their attention to
them.
people keep telling you that you’ve changed a lot.
If any of these signs seem a little too familiar to you, then

taking a moment to pause and think about your sense of iden‐
tity and individuality might be a good idea. What may be an
even better idea is to start working to re-establish and regain
these things. There are a couple of ways you can go about this,
of course, but the first thing you need to do is to start
spending some quality time away from your partner, and
devote that time to reflecting on yourself and cultivating your
own personal interests.
Cultivating Personal Interests
Your personal interests or hobbies are things that you’re

passionate about and that you like doing, even if you aren’t
amazingly talented at them. You don’t have to be an amazing
artist to enjoy drawing, for instance. You simply need to like
doing it. If you want to re-establish your individuality, then
you need to discover or rediscover what these interests are for
you. To do that, you’re going to have to do some exploration,
which starts by reflecting on your past hobbies (10 Effective
Ways to Nurture Interests, 2022). What did you enjoy doing in
B R E A K FR E E F RO M OV E R T H I N K I N G YOUR REL ATIONSHIP | 121
your free time? What were you good at? What brought you joy,
even if you weren’t great at it? Make a quick list of these things
and consider which ones you could get back into right now. If
you live in a mountainous area without a large body of water,
and scuba diving is on your list, that probably won’t be some‐
thing you can get back into right now. If going on hikes,
pottery, baking, playing video games, or writing poems is on
your list, though, you can most likely pick these right back up.
Now, one thing you need to remember is that you can’t judge
your skill level when you get back into your past hobbies.
Odds are, you haven’t been doing these things for months, if
not years. So, while you may have been really good at drawing
or playing the piano, your skill level won’t be the same as
before. This shouldn’t dishearten you. Instead, it should give
you something to strive toward. Becoming a good piano player
can, thus, become a good personal goal to set for yourself—
one that you can steadily work toward.
What if you can’t think of any hobbies or interests that you’d

like to dive back into? That sounds like a great excuse to get
out of your comfort zone a bit and try new things. Never been
salsa dancing before? Why not go to a class and see if you like
it? Never tried your hand at sudoku or taken an improv acting
class? Why not do so now? Maybe it’ll turn out that this
activity just isn’t for you or, on the other hand, maybe you’ll
discover a brand new passion and skill—one you can keep
pursuing in your spare time.
While you’re doing all that, you can also start using your time
to refocus on the tasks that you already have. If you have
projects due that you’ve been neglecting, why not pick them
back up right now? Why not refocus your energy on them and
see how you can improve yourself. Say that you’re a freelance
graphic designer and you’re working on a logo. How can you
further improve upon it? What can you draw inspiration
from? What haven’t you considered or tried that might work
really well in this project?
Your decision to refocus on your tasks can also be a great

excuse to start learning something new. If you’re a graphic
designer, you can take some extra online classes in photoshop
to catch up with any developments you may have missed.
Alternatively, you can start learning how to play the guitar or
how to speak Korean for the fun of it. By doing so, you can
add both a new interest and skill to your toolkit—one that you
might make use of in the future.
Another thing you may consider doing is working on

expanding your network and reconnecting with your friends.
One sign of losing your individuality, as you’ll recall, was
having your friendships fade away. Why not dedicate some of
your time to reforging those connections then? Why not take
yourself to networking events or other places where you can
meet new people, like a drink and draw activity, dinner party,
or book club? Why not start chatting with the new people
around you and see if you can make any interesting
connections?
Now, there are two things that you need to do as you pursue
your newfound interests. The first is to ask yourself what your
personal values are. You need to do this to ensure that you
don’t end up trying activities that don’t line up with your
personal values. If you do, you’ll probably end up giving up on
pursuing new interests and revert to your old patterns in due
time. The second is to ask yourself what’s next and try to be
bold and honest in your answers. Only then can you get your‐
self out of your comfort zone, which you need to do to break
out of the trap you’ve put yourself in.
Balancing Growth and Commitment
Hang on a second. What exactly is the comfort zone? The

comfort zone is a psychological state you feel comfortable
being in. That probably sounds really nice, but the problem is
that it’s a state in which personal growth cannot occur. If you
want to grow as an individual, you need to put yourself into
new and, therefore, slightly uncomfortable situations. In other
words, you have to try new things. You might be somewhat
hesitant to do this because leaving your comfort zone means
experiencing some stress and anxiety. It means being a little
nervous, hence people’s desire to avoid it.
Yet growth cannot occur while you’re in your comfort zone.

So, you have to put up with some discomfort for the sake of
your individuality. A great way to start doing this is to pick
one activity you’ve always really wanted to try. That way, you
can give yourself something to look forward to that’ll balance
out the discomfort you’re feeling (Wooll, 2022). Once you get
started on that activity—say learning how to ski—the discom‐

fort will eventually go away. It’ll instead be replaced with joy
and excitement and, pretty soon, you’ll have developed a new
skill and hobby.
A second thing you might try is to do everyday things a little

differently than you ordinarily would have. If you’re in the
habit of watching a show as you have lunch, for instance, turn
off your computer, take off your headphones, and head to the
workplace cafeteria or a nearby cafe instead. This way, you can
slowly start breaking out of the mold you’re in and get used to
the discomfort of being outside your comfort zone bit by bit
(Page, 2020).
Another thing you might try is to challenge your existing

beliefs and try to be more honest to both others and yourself.
Challenging your beliefs means expanding your outlook and
looking at things from other people’s perspectives. This can be
a hard habit to pick up, especially if you’re unfamiliar with it.
One way of going about it might be to read books written
from different perspectives, making sure to keep an open
mind as you do. Watching movies with different perspectives
should help as well. You can also try talking and debating
things with people that come from a variety of backgrounds
and making a point of asking for their opinions on things. You
can, then, take this practice further by playing the devil’s advo‐
cate against your own beliefs and opinions. A journal might be
a very effective way of doing this. On top of that, it can
provide you with a private platform where you can practice
being more honest. Once you’ve gained greater clarity on your

thoughts and emotions, you can bring that honesty to your
conversations with other people as well.
One thing to keep in mind as you do this is that you’re never

going to 100% agree with other people on all things. This
includes your partner. Given that, you should accept that
disagreements are sometimes bound to happen between you
and your partner. You can neither avoid nor ignore them, not
so long as you retain your individuality, at least. You can,
however, learn to navigate these disagreements in a healthy
way, working to resolve these disputes without pointing
fingers.
Interactive Element: The Self-Reflection Journal Prompt
As previously mentioned, journaling can be a great way to

rediscover your individuality. That being the case, according
to Raypole (2021), here are a couple of journal prompts that
can help you with this, as you try to figure out who you are
and what your interests are:
What are my personal strengths and skills? How do I

use them at work?
What are my most important values and how do they
align with my actions?
When do I trust myself the most? Why?
My life would be incomplete without…
How do I prioritize my self-care?
What are 10 things that inspire and motivate me?
8
N O M O R E F I N G E R-P O I NT I N G
Accountability breeds response-ability.
— STEPHEN COVEY
T here is no such thing as a completely peaceful,

argument-free relationship, just as there’s no such
thing as a completely faultless human being. By nature, human
beings are prone to make mistakes and, sometimes, those
mistakes hurt others, even people we care about. There are
two things you can do when you make a mistake. Either you
can make excuses for it and lay the blame on someone or
something else, or you can hold yourself accountable for the
mistake and resolve to do better. Most of the time, you’ll feel
inclined to do the former, but this would be a mistake. For
one, it would prevent you from fixing things and would
increase the likelihood of you repeating your mistake in the
future. For another, it would upset the person you’ve hurt
even more, especially if you’re laying the blame for your
actions on their shoulders. What’s more, your mistake will

turn into a scenario that you play over and over again in your
mind, trying to either justify your behavior or reason it away.
None of this would happen, of course, if you were to take the
path that’s seemingly more difficult, which is to own up to
your mistake.
Holding yourself accountable for your mistake is vital because

it gives you the ability to understand why you acted the way
you did and then fix it so that the same thing doesn’t happen
in the future. Furthermore, it provides you with the opportu‐
nity to sincerely apologize for the hurt you’ve caused, and
make amends. When you do this, you become able to have a
deep, open conversation with your partner, to whom you have
hurt, rather than end up in a fight with them. By the end of the
conversation, you typically will have reached a greater under‐
standing, and you’ll often find that the two of you have grown
closer. Choosing accountability, then, is one of the best things
you can do for your relationship, as well as for yourself. So,
how on earth can you start holding yourself more
accountable?
U N D E R S TANDING PERSONAL ACCOUNTABILITY
When you hold yourself accountable in a relationship, you

take responsibility for both your actions and the way they’ve
affected your partner. According to the article titled
Accountability in Relationships (2022), you want to hold yourself
accountable in your relationship because it
makes you empathetic toward your partner.

makes you more self-aware.
helps you and your partner work better together as a
team.
Accountability makes you more empathetic because it drives

you to remember how your actions affect the person before
you. It makes you more self-aware because it makes you see
how you’re acting, why you’re acting like that, and what the
consequences of your actions are. Having seen these things,
you gain the ability to modify your behavior, as does your
partner in response to that, which is why it makes you work
better as a team, too.
Practicing accountability in your relationship begins with you

involving your partner in the practice. This may mean talking
to your partner about your actions and asking them to share
how your actions affect them. It may mean asking for their
help as you work to change your behavior, like calmly
pointing out when you’re acting how you don’t want to. It may
also mean revisiting these conversations when you’re both in
calmer frames of mind, as opposed to right in the middle of an
argument.
Once you have these conversations, you can move on to

assessing your actions with some self-awareness. To do this,
you’ll need to reevaluate moments that have led to major
conflicts and take a closer look at how you’ve behaved in them.
What actions did you take that exacerbated things? What did
you do that might have made things more tense or difficult?

You’ll need to examine how your partner reacted to your
actions and how they might have affected these actions too. Is
it possible they lashed out at you because you really hurt
them? If so, why and how? More importantly, how can you
change your behavior in the future so that you don’t hurt them
and drive them to lash out like that again?
Identifying how to change your behavior here will be the crux

of the matter. It’ll take a lot of self-evaluation, plenty of
conversations with your partner, and maybe even some jour‐
naling or therapy. After you have identified the behaviors
you’d like to change, you’ll be able to slowly implement a plan
of action. Say that you have a tendency to say really hurtful
things when you’re angry. Now that you know that, you can
start getting into the habit of asking for a minute pause—or
however long you need—to calm down. You can ask your
partner to point out when you need such a pause, too. You can,
then, use that window of time to calm down and recenter
yourself. Having done that, you can return to the conversation
and keep talking.
This is just one example of how you might change your

behavior through accountability, but there are others.
Sometimes the route you choose may require you to make
some kind of sacrifice, or it may necessitate that your partner
change their behavior in tandem to yours. Still at other times,
the two of you may need to reach some kind of mid-point
through mutual compromise. This is normal and to be
expected because relationships aren’t about changing every‐

thing about one person. Neither are they about one side
changing and the other side remaining completely the same.
It’s about mutual change, growth, compromise, and account‐
ability. So, if you’re willing to hold yourself responsible for
your actions and change certain things, so should your
partner.
Techniques for Taking Ownership of Thoughts and Actions
All that being said, there’s only one person whose thoughts
and actions you’re fully and completely responsible for: your‐
self. You cannot change your partner’s behavior for them. You
can only share how it affects you and how you feel. You can,
however, change your own behavioral patterns when you
notice that they are hurting others or even yourself. You can
start this process by doing a thorough and honest self-evalua‐
tion, which will help you to identify your problematic behav‐
iors and better understand the underlying reasons for them,
too. You might lash out when your partner points out that
you’ve made a mistake, for example, because you grew up in a
harsh environment where mistakes were viewed as personal
failings. You’ll then be able to start working on that underlying
issue to fix the behavior.
In the meantime, you’ll be able to set goals to improve your‐

self. These goals will point out the behavior you want to
change, establish what you want to change the behavior with,
and give you a set timeframe to do so. There will be a couple
of important rules to keep in mind while you work toward
these goals, lest you slip back into old habits. According to
Tovar & Criglow (2022), some of these rules are to
stop and apologize when you catch yourself engaging

in the problematic behavior that you want to change.
refrain from blaming others for your actions by saying
things like, “You made me do this by…” or “It’s your
fault I acted this way.”
be open and transparent about the reasons fueling
your problematic behaviors, if only so you can get help
changing them and keep your partner’s trust.
be open to compromise so that you can meet your
partner at a healthy half-way point.
be willing to consider things from your partner’s
perspective so that you can see how your behavior is
actually affecting them.
not make commitments that you cannot keep in that
moment.
seek professional help to change problematic
behaviors if, and when, you need them.
identify and acknowledge your role in a conflict
situation since it takes two people to argue.
make accountability one of your top priorities in all
situations and relationships.
learn to manage your time effectively so that you don’t
get overwhelmed and stressed, which can cause you to
revert to your old habits.
learn how to respond instead of react to powerful
emotions by taking a pause and questioning whether
your reaction is proportional to what’s going on.
Interactive Element: The Accountability Quiz
Even with all these rules at hand, holding yourself accountable

for your actions can be tough. Luckily, you can quiz yourself
every once in a while to see how you’re doing on the account‐
ability scale, like so:
1. How likely are you to take responsibility for your actions

when you make a mistake?
a. Very likely
b. Likely
c. A little likely
d. Not very likely
2, Do you usually blame others when you get angry and lash
out at them?
a. All the time

b. Sometimes
c. Seldom
d. Never
3. How likely are you to blame outside factors when you try
something and fail at it?
a. Very likely
b. Likely
c. A little likely
d. Not very likely
4. How often do you apologize to your partner for hurting

them?
a. Often
b. Sometimes
c. Not very often
d. Almost never
5. When was the last time you accused your partner of some‐
thing that wasn’t their fault?
a. Very recently
b. Recently
c. A while ago
d. I haven’t in a long time
9
U NTA N G LI N G T H E M I N D
We are our choices. Don’t let overthinking be one of them.
— ANONYMOUS
T he thing about practicing accountability is that it makes

you realize all your actions and behaviors are within
your control, even when it doesn’t feel that way. It’s easy to get
swept away by strong emotions, like anger and fear, and lash
out. Yet, it’s in your power to press pause on that reaction,
evaluate the feelings coursing through you, take a deep breath,
and take another course of action. This extends to everything
you do in your life, including believing in your negative
thoughts and overthinking them. By that logic, it can be said
that overthinking is a choice. It may feel like it’s a current that
drags you along, whether you want it or not, but it’s one that
you can not only resist but also get out of. The trick lies in
your ability to discern and decipher reality from the fiction
that your negative thoughts are creating.
D EC I P H E RING REALITY FROM OVERTHINKING
Overthinking is a dangerous habit to fall into because it

distorts your perception of reality. When you overthink, you
tend to focus exclusively on negative thoughts and the nega‐
tive sides of things. So, if you’re overthinking your relation‐
ship, overtime you become only able to see its negative sides.
When you picture the future, like the end result of an argu‐
ment you had or the state of your relationship a year from
now, you can only imagine the worst-case scenarios. When
you think back on the things your partner did and said, you
can only interpret them to mean negative things. Remember
the hand-holding example from before? In this case, your
partner not wanting to hold your hand because their hand is
sweaty and they don’t want to gross you out morphs into the
belief that they don’t want to hold your hand because they
don’t like touching you. What’s worse is that this belief rapidly
takes hold and you come to believe in it so much so that the
idea that there may be another reason why your partner acted
that way doesn’t even enter your mind (Powell, 2022).
A second, but just as important, problem with overthinking is

that it causes you to see only the things that seemingly confirm
your negative beliefs. If one of these beliefs is that you’re
unlovable, your mind starts finding evidence that supports this

idea. It even starts inventing “proof” that the people around
you, including your partner, don’t love you. If your partner is
late texting you back because they’re in a meeting, for
instance, your mind might quickly interpret that as, “They
don’t want to talk to me and they’re ignoring me.”
The false reality that overthinking weaves for you is one that
you inevitably end up becoming trapped in. Pretty soon, this
“reality” turns into the only thing you can see. Thus, you lose
your ability to practice self-awareness. Your empathic abilities
start shrinking—why should you relate to people who clearly
don’t care about you? Your curiosity starts dwindling too
because, again, why would you be curious about a world and
people that don’t care about you? Thanks to all this, your rela‐
tionships—from friendships to the relationship you have with
your partner—start breaking down. You become more and
more isolated and withdrawn. You become trapped in your
own mind, going through the same looping cycles. As your
mind searches for an explanation as to why all this is happen‐
ing, it turns to self-blame. This is my fault, you start thinking.
There must be something wrong with me. I must be unlovable.
Having had this thought, your negative mindset comes up
with all sorts of (untrue) reasons as to what’s wrong with you
and why you’re so unlovable.
Alternatively, your overthinking mind might start blaming

others. Something must be wrong with them, you might find your‐
self thinking. So, rather than analyzing your thoughts and

behaviors, you might start overanalyzing theirs. You might
start ascribing ill motives to your partner’s actions, thinking
they’re deliberately doing things to hurt you, when in reality
they don’t even realize you’re bothered by their actions
because you have never once told them that. Once you’re
convinced that your partner is deliberately trying to hurt you,
you become belligerent and defensive in an effort to protect
yourself. Sometimes, you also become vindictive. You reason
that it’s only fair that they hurt the way that they hurt you.
These are just two examples of the “realities” that overthinking

might weave around you, but there are others. For example,
overthinking might cause you to doubt every little thing that
you do. It can make you distrust your own perceptions,
thoughts, and emotions, which can be a maddening experi‐
ence. It can make you wonder whether you actually like your
partner or whether they really like you, even when they strive
to tell and show you that they love you every day. It can make
you question your choices unnecessarily and, thus, end or
sabotage a good relationship by thinking you’re making the
right call for yourself.
As another example, overthinking might cause you to become

excessively worried. It might convince you that something bad
is going to happen to your partner, even when they’re doing
something benign, like going off to work or climbing the
stairs. This worry can take hold of you and drive you to be
excessively communicative and controlling. It might, for

example, cause you to text your partner 50 times a day and
blow a gasket if they don’t respond within the first five
minutes. This behavior can understandably frustrate and turn
off your partner, causing the two of you to get into an argu‐
ment (at best) or break up (at worst). Of course, the thing your
overthinking mind makes you worry about may also be that
your partner is going to leave you. This can result in similar
kinds of excessive and needy behavior, which could, again,
result in the untimely ending of your relationship.
A final false reality that your overthinking mind can convince

you of is one that’s riddled with self-pity. This kind of reality
is particularly dangerous because it robs you of the power and
control that you have. It makes you feel like the victim in a
disaster movie where you’re trapped in one unfair situation
after another with no way out. It keeps you from seeing the
potential solutions and escape routes before you. It makes you
feel powerless and defeated, making it especially difficult to
get out of whatever circumstances you’re “trapped” by.
All of these false realities are dangerous in and of themselves.

None, however, are inescapable. You have the power and
ability to break free of these so-called realities and mindsets,
even if you do not feel like it at this particular moment. Before
we can go into the how of that, though, we must first recognize
that there’s a difference between false realities and actual
problematic realities. Sometimes, you might find yourself in
relationships and situations that really are troublesome. You
might, however, end up convincing yourself that you’re over‐

thinking and exaggerating things and that “it’s really not all
that bad.” This is an incredibly dangerous thing to do, which is
why you need to know how to recognize and handle the real
relationship red flags that can appear in your way.
Recognizing Relationship Red Flags
The first thing you need to understand when going into a new
relationship is that you deserve to be in one that is healthy,
balanced, and one that makes you feel good. You pursue a rela‐
tionship with someone because being with that person makes

you happy. You stay in it because being with them makes you
feel good and them being with you makes them feel just as
good. Sure, there’ll be some speed bumps along the way and
some things you both need to work through. If you love each
other and are in a healthy relationship, though, you will be
able to work through them.
The keyword here, of course, is healthy because not all rela‐

tionships can be considered that. In fact, some can be down‐
right toxic. A toxic relationship is one that can drain your
happiness from you. It makes for a very unbalanced and
unhealthy dynamic, which is not a situation you ever want to
be in. That’s why it’s important that you recognize red flags as
they appear in your relationship. Red flags are signs that
you’re in a very problematic dynamic—one that you need to
get yourself out of. The last thing you want to do is question
whether you’re overthinking things when you encounter these
signs. What you want to do instead is take a deep breath and
extract yourself from the situation you’re in immediately.
To that end, the most obvious relationship red flags that you
need to watch out for—and avoid—are situations when your
partner is
frequently lying to you, which is a sign that they either

want to conceal something from you or manipulate
you.
constantly putting you down in subtle or not so subtle

ways, which is a form of emotional abuse and a
narcissistic control tactic that whittles down your
confidence.
never willing to compromise, which is a sign that you
will be in a one-sided relationship where you’ll have to
be the one to change and make sacrifices, eventually
giving up your individuality.
prone to running away from difficult conversations,
which will show you that you will never be able to
fully communicate nor resolve any conflict.
excessively jealous and prone to controlling behavior,
which is typical of narcissistic and emotional abuse.
unable to have open and honest conversations, which
is vital for any healthy relationship.
without any real friends to speak of for the most part,
which is a sure sign that they push people away
through problematic behaviors and that you’ll end up
surrendering your individuality to them by staying
with them.
unwilling to support you—or your relationship, for
that matter—when you need it, which makes for a very
one-sided relationship.
If you encounter one or more of these signs in a relationship,

then you need to recognize that you aren’t overthinking
things. Instead, you’re faced with a real problem and you prob‐
ably need to get yourself out of that relationship immediately.
That being said, it should be pointed out that there is a differ‐

ence between red flags and green flags. Red flags are relation‐
ship-enders. Yellow flags are problematic behaviors but they
don’t have to signal the end of your relationship, so long as
your partner is willing to work on the behaviors you’ve
flagged. These behaviors, after all, are fixable. They just take
some dedication and commitment. If your partner takes feed‐
back poorly, for instance, this is something they can work on
to change. The key thing to remember here is that your
partner needs to actually be open to talking about these
matters and working on them. If they are, then the red flags
can absolutely be considered yellow flags, which means that
your relationship might work out. If they’re not, however, no
amount of prodding, pushing, and pleading is going to get
them to change. In this case, those yellow flags will rapidly
turn into red flags, prompting you to leave for your long-term
well-being and happiness.
Identifying Overthinking
Now that you know what relationship red flags look like, we
can go back to our original question: How do you know when
you’re overthinking, rather than staring at a red flag? The first
thing you need to do is hit pause when you’re experiencing a
particularly strong emotion or when your mind seems to be
running a mile a minute. Hit pause and fact-check your
emotions. Ask yourself whether the reaction you’re having to
the situation you’re in is proportional to the actual situation. If
it’s not, then you’ll have to find some way of slowing your
mind down so that you can think clearly. One way you can do
this is to do some deep breathing exercises. Alternatively, you
can start meditating or engaging in other mindfulness prac‐
tices. Doing such an exercise for the next 10 minutes or so or
until you’ve calmed down can slow things down significantly
and allow you to see things more clearly. Once you have, you’ll
have an easier time untangling your web of thoughts and
questioning their validity.
Something you can try if you’re unable to turn to mindfulness

practices for whatever reason is to find a distraction of some
sort for yourself. Distractions can be very helpful when you’re
overthinking because studies show they have the power to
quiet down your mind and slow things down (Nolen-hoek‐
sema & Morrow, 1993). Once your chosen distraction has
accomplished this, you’ll be able to turn your attention back to
the matter at hand. You should make sure to look at the bigger
picture as you do this. That way, you’ll be able to consider
things from all angles and perspectives and not just from your
own (which is likely still colored by all your negative thoughts
and emotions). You can work to look at the bigger picture by
asking yourself questions like this:
What is this situation actually about?

Does this situation deserve this much energy on my
part?
Will this situation matter in the next year? How about
the next five years?
Asking yourself such questions can help you to regain a more

positive and accurate perspective, which will fill you with
more positive emotions, like gratitude. These positive
emotions will, in turn, infuse your mindset, allowing you to
get a more positive and comprehensive perspective of what’s
going on. Paying closer attention to the kinds of thoughts
you’re having and trying to notice the negative ones that auto‐
matically pop into your mind should also help. Once you start
noticing your negative thoughts, you'll be startled by just how
many negative thoughts you usually have. You’ll then be able
to start consciously moving away and correcting them so that
they become more positive or, at least, neutral thoughts.
Meanwhile, acknowledging your successes as they occur and

practicing self-care and self-compassion should whittle down
your overthinking habits some. This is because they’ll infuse
you with more positive emotions and make it easier for you to
see the positive things in your life. This will effectively counter
the negative thoughts you’re having, making it easier for you
to think clearly and see reality as it is, instead of what over‐
thinking is trying to make it look like.
The final thing you can do to combat overthinking is to ask

for help when you need it and to embrace your fears.
Embracing your fears is important because it takes away the
power that they have over you. It strangely makes them less
intense too, which prevents them from dictating your
thoughts and behaviors. Asking for help from someone you
trust—be it your partner, a friend, or even a therapist—
achieves much the same result. It also gives such people the
chance to fully support you, making you see how loved you
really are and how deserving you are of it. As a result, you, at
last, become able to tackle the key, underlying issues fueling
your overthinking habits.
10
OV E R C O M E , N O T OV E R T H I N K
The only thing we have to fear is fear itself.
— FRANKLIN D. ROOSEVELT
O verthinking can be caused by a number of different

things, as you’ll recall, but one of the primary reasons
behind it is fear. We human beings have a great number of
things to be afraid of but relationships shouldn’t be one of
them. Yet, we often find a number of things to fear when we
get into a relationship and those fears kick our minds into
overdrive. Pretty soon, our heads become overcrowded with
negative thoughts, replays of our worst mistakes and fights,
and countless what-if scenarios. When you identify what it is
you’re afraid of, though, you’ll be able to dismantle it.
Dismantle your fear and you will have cut off the fuel that
your overthinking mind was feeding off of. Soon, your mind
will start to clear, and you’ll come to see that you had nothing
to fear, except maybe fear itself.
I D E NT I F Y ING REL ATIONSHIP CONCERNS
Every human being on planet Earth is a wholly unique indi‐

vidual. Given that, we all have our own unique experiences,
traumas, worries, and fears. The things we tend to be afraid of
typically fall into more or less the same categories, though. So,
according to Basu (2022), if you have a tendency to overthink
your relationships, odds are you fear one of these eight things:
intimacy
losing your partner
rejection
commitment
losing your individuality
infidelity
your partner not showing up for you
not being able to measure up to what you’ve imagined
Why these things specifically? Well, there’s a method to the

madness where each of these fears are concerned. If you fear
intimacy, you might have gotten this from a partner in the past
when you shared your emotional vulnerabilities. You may also
have trust issues or difficulty connecting with your own
emotions. If you fear losing your partner, then you might have
lost people important to you in the past and know how sharp a
pain that can cause. Fear of rejection can stem from similar
past experiences. It might also be rooted in determining your
self-worth based on whether others like you or not. Being
rejected by someone you like can, therefore, make you feel

worthless, which is what you’re actually afraid of.
Meanwhile, a fear of commitment may stem from feeling like

you won’t be able to get out of a relationship once you get into
one, even if it’s an unhealthy relationship or one that makes
you unhappy. Fear of losing your individuality, on the other
hand, can be born from your past experiences. The same can
be said with a fear of infidelity, though that may be attributed
to trust issues as well. Trust issues often also have to do with a
fear of your partner not showing up for you. As for the fear
that you won’t be able to measure up, this worry is often asso‐
ciated with self-esteem, self-confidence, and self-worth issues.
As you can see, each of these fears are deeply connected to

areas of self-growth—ones that you can actively work on. If
you have trust issues, then you will need to work on those
first, before you can start trusting your partner and stop over‐
thinking. If your sense of self-worth is tied to what others
think of you and whether they reject you or not, then you’ll
need to work on finding value within yourself in order to
conquer your fear. Working on your fears like this will take
some time and conscious effort, but that’s to be expected. You
won’t be able to vanquish them overnight, but you’ll be able to
make headway bit by bit. In the meantime, you’ll, of course, be
able to turn to an array of other techniques and support
devices that can help you face and assuage your fears.
Approaches to Facing and Overcoming Fears
Here’s an uncomfortable truth for you: If you want to over‐

come your fears, you actually have to face them. Otherwise,
the only thing you’ll succeed at doing is repressing them until
they inevitably resurface, typically in the worst way possible.
Facing your fears, though, is no easy feat. If it was, everyone
would be doing it all the time. It can be made significantly
easier—easier, mind you, not easy—by adopting some very
specific approaches. The first of these is avoiding avoidance.
As you might guess, your first tendency when faced with
something you fear, like commitment, is to avoid it. If it isn’t
there, it can’t hurt you, right? Well, not quite. Avoiding
commitment may spare you from a breakup, but it won’t save
you from the heartbreak you’ll feel by running away from a
relationship with someone you really like or maybe even love.
This is something you need to remind yourself when you’re
faced with your fears and feel the urge to run (10 Ways to Fight
Your Fears, n.d.). Ask yourself: Will avoiding this fear actually
spare me from pain or will I just experience it in a different,
potentially worse way? If you’re able to answer this question
honestly, then you will be able to get yourself to avoid avoid‐
ance. This will be easier to do if you can also remind yourself
of all the positive things you could experience, like genuine
love, by facing your fears. Overthinking might cloud your
view enough to keep you from seeing those, though, which is
why you need to promote positivity in your life. The more of
an effort you make to do and see the positive things in your
life, the more positive thoughts and emotions you’ll be able to
generate. Thus, you’ll be able to gather up more courage and

enthusiasm to face your fears.
Finding meaning in the thing that you’re trying to achieve by

facing your fears can help you with this as well. What is it that
you’re looking for in a relationship? What do you want out of
it? Is it companionship? Support? The feeling of being loved
unconditionally? Something else entirely? Most importantly:
Is the thing that you are looking for worth facing your fear?
My guess is that your answer to that question will be a
resounding “yes,” and it’s that “yes” that you have to remind
yourself of when you find yourself in doubt or hesitating.
I can almost hear you thinking, easier said than done, and that’s
a fair point. However, that is why we have techniques, such as
asking for support and practicing self-compassion, in our

toolkit. Asking for support from your friends, family, or a
therapist is one of the most effective ways you can overcome
your fears. These people are, by their very definition, individ‐
uals who care about you. Your friends and family value you
and want to be there for you, just as you value and want to be
there for them. They can’t properly be there for you, though, if
you don’t share what it is you’re struggling with. None of your
friends are mind readers, after all. When you share your fears
with them, you will be surprised at how ready—even eager—
they will be to help you through them. You’ll even be surprised
to see that a large number of them struggle with similar fears.
Knowing this fact will make you feel a great deal less alone.
Not only that but your friends might share additional tech‐
niques they used to help them overcome their own fears,
which you will swiftly be able to put to good use.
Then, there’s the last tool in your toolkit: self-compassion.

This is a more essential tool for ending overthinking than you
could ever know. The reason for this is that when you practice
self-compassion, you show care, love, and consideration
toward yourself. Thus, you end up generating a lot of positive
emotions and showing yourself that you are deserving of care,
love, and consideration. Now, it might be that you’re strug‐
gling with self-compassion. One trick you can try if that’s the
case is to ask yourself how you would talk to a good friend
who came to you and shared their fears with you. What would
you say to them in response? You probably wouldn’t be saying
the negative things that are currently going through your
mind, right? Well, then, why not write down exactly what
you’d say to your friend if they were in your shoes? Why not,
then, close your eyes and repeat those same words to yourself
anytime fears spike and you start berating yourself about
them?
A N O P P O R T U N IT Y T O H E LP
As you move further towards peace, it’s natural that you’ll

want to help others do the same – and this is the perfect
opportunity.
Simply by sharing your honest opinion of this book and a little

about your own experience with overthinking, you’ll show
new readers where they can find the guidance they need to
calm their minds and find all the joy and fulfillment their rela‐
tionships have to offer.
Thank you so much for your support. Just a few words from
you could help change someone’s life.
CONCLUSION
Overthinking is one of those things that seem less like habits

and more like character traits. In fact, you probably define
yourself as an “overthinker” and treat this habit as part of your
very personality. As addictive a behavior as overthinking
might be though, it’s neither a character trait nor a label you
can apply to yourself. Rather, it’s a behavioral pattern—one
that you can control, manage, and ultimately break free from.
What’s more, it’s rather vital that you do so both for the sake
of your relationship and for your own health, happiness, and
well-being.
Overthinking is a kind of toxic behavior—one that can over‐

take your mind all too quickly and insidiously poison your
relationships, your mental health, and your sense of self-
worth. It can cause all of these things to break apart in your
hands and slip through your fingers like grains of sand. This
162 | CO N C L U S I O N
can only happen, though, if you actually let it. As you have
seen throughout the course of this book, Break Free From
Overthinking Your Relationship, you hold the power to put a stop
to this. You have the power to pull the brakes when your mind
is running a mile a minute and remind yourself of your self-
worth.
You have the ability to calm your mind and heart down as they
race ahead, examine the thoughts and emotions that you’re
experiencing closely, and decide how you want to act, instead
of blindly reacting to these thoughts. As such, you have the
ability to not only build the kind of peaceful and happy life
that you want to lead but also to establish the loving, peaceful,
and caring relationship you deserve. All you have to do is take
a deep and relaxing breath, clear your mind, and take that very
first step. The only question left that you need to answer, then,
is: Are you ready to begin?
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BREAK FREE FROM

LEAVE BEHIND REGRETS AND NEGATIVITY TO EMBARK

Under no circumstances will any blame or legal responsibility be held against

1. WHY YOU’RE OVERTHINKING 9

Does any of this sound familiar to you? It probably does if

Another important issue with overthinking is that it gives rise

can curb your tendency to overthink. In the process, you can

There is nothing in this world that can trouble you as much as

I f you want to be able to halt overthinking in its tracks, you

D I G G I N G DEEP INTO YOUR THOUGHTS AND FEARS

So, how can you tell if you’re overthinking things or simply

and scenarios without being able to come up with an answer

Suddenly, your heart plummets to your stomach. Your mind

Overthinking isn’t just focused on the present moment, of

rumination. If your mind is generating future break-up

Alternatively, overthinking—particularly the future-oriented

know it, you’re writing one worst-case scenario after the

There’s yet another perhaps unexpected reason why you might

A mental health issue might also be responsible for your over‐

that came out rather awkward in front of your partner, for

Then there’s trauma. Trauma is something that people like ex-

A final underlying cause of overthinking, which is actually

criticizing yourself, which will result in you growing chroni‐

Fear, Insecurity, and Control: Major Triggers of Overthinking

making the kind of mistake that’s hard to come back from.

Escaping the kinds of negative thoughts that fear can generate

or to run away, and makes adrenaline course through your

As you might imagine, this is not a state you want to perpetu‐

As mentioned before, fear isn’t the only root cause of over‐

The way to overcome insecurity-fueled overthinking is pretty

Your inner voice can be shaped by a variety of different

partner doesn’t like me anymore? What if they say no? What if we

This doesn’t have to be the case, though. Gaining awareness

Interactive Element: Your Overthinking Patterns Worksheet

If you want to change your overthinking habits, then you have

How do I feel right now?

M anaging your overthinking habits begins with raising

What exactly is mindfulness and why does it work then?

The idea that mindfulness can be a good practice to improve

One of the most interesting findings of the study was that

you’re having an argument with your partner. If you’re a

Another reason why mindfulness makes for happier couples is

Mindfulness generally improves your communication skills,

moment to pause and consider what is being said, identify

I didn’t realize I was this stressed.

Mindfulness makes you realize all of these things and more in

feel better on both a physical and emotional level when you

Practical Mindfulness Techniques for Managing Overthinking

Of course, being able to do all this and reap these benefits is

One classic mindfulness technique you could try is basic

The key to mindfulness meditation is consistency. The practice

you do it every day. Just as your muscles won’t get stronger if

sensory meditation, where you focus exclusively on

Meditation can be a very effective mindfulness practice, but

• The Body Scan. The body scan is a fairly standard practice

able surface. Making sure to keep as still as possible, slowly

• The Raisin Exercise. True to its name, the raisin exercise is

• Mindful Listening. Mindfulness listening is a technique

• Mindful Seeing. This technique is a solo exercise and

window. Once you’re ready and comfortable, trace your gaze

• The Mountain Meditation. As you might have guessed by

• Breath Focus. The final mindfulness technique you can try is

Mindfulness Success Stories

of friends growing up, he had trouble connecting to others,