“When something feels uncomfortable, the mind can suddenly go into full meerkat mode: scanning the horizon, looking for problems and trying to firefight things that have not even happened yet. But you do not need to solve every thought in order to be okay. “

Have you ever noticed how quickly one uncomfortable moment can become ten different problems?

Perhaps somebody sends you a slightly irritating email at work. You know you have done everything you can do. Maybe you made a small mistake, apologised, rectified it and moved on as best you could.

But your mind has not moved on.

Suddenly, you are wondering whether you are actually terrible at your job. You start replaying the conversation. You imagine what that person might say to somebody else. You wonder whether everybody secretly thinks the same thing.

Then, while your mind is having a little rummage around, it remembers another concern. Perhaps it is your relationship, your health, your finances, your children, your sleep or something you need to do next week.

Before you know it, one difficult email has somehow become a full investigation into your entire life.

And you think: Why do I overthink everything?

I was talking about this recently inside my membership, and I realised that the image I have always used to explain it is not really a lizard brain at all.

A lizard feels far too slow.

It is more like a meerkat.

You know the ones. Popping their little heads up, looking from side to side, checking the horizon and making sure nothing dangerous is sneaking up behind them.

Your meerkat brain is constantly asking:

👀What is going on?
👀Is there a problem?
👀What else might go wrong?
👀What have we forgotten?
👀What else should we worry about while we are here?

It can be exhausting.

Why Does My Mind Look for Problems?

Your meerkat brain is not trying to ruin your day.

It is not evidence that you are broken, dramatic, incapable or destined to spend your life trapped in overthinking. It is simply trying to help.

The problem is that it does not always know the difference between something that is genuinely yours to deal with and an uncomfortable feeling that you are trying desperately to climb away from.

Something happens. It feels unpleasant. Perhaps you feel embarrassed, shaky, unsettled, frustrated or out of control.

Your mind interprets the discomfort as a sign that something must be wrong.

So it starts searching for a solution.

But when there is no obvious solution, perhaps because you have already apologised, already taken action or you are worrying about something you cannot control, the mind does not always quietly put its feet up and admit that its work here is done.

Instead, it scans for the next problem.

And the next one... And the next one.

It is almost as though the mind decides: “Well, we feel uncomfortable, so there must be something else we need to fix. Let us have a look around and find it.”

That is often how one worry becomes ten.

Overthinking Can Feel Like Responsibility

This is where it gets a little bit sneaky.

Because overthinking does not always feel like overthinking. Sometimes it feels like being sensible.

It can feel like planning ahead, being caring, taking responsibility or making sure everybody is okay.

You tell yourself you are only thinking about the situation because you want to be prepared. You are trying to prevent a problem. You want to get ahead of it. You are making sure nothing has been missed.

And, of course, sometimes there genuinely are things we need to think about and deal with. I am not suggesting that we all ignore our responsibilities and wander through life hoping somebody else remembers to pay the electricity bill.

But there is a difference between calmly dealing with the thing in front of you and mentally trying to firefight every possible future problem before it has even happened.

There is a difference between responsibility and fear dressed up as responsibility.

One tends to feel clearer and steadier.

The other feels urgent, noisy and exhausting.

Read more about why you can stop trying to control your thinking here

When One Worry Turns Into a Whole Life Audit

The meerkat brain loves a theme.

If something has made you feel uncertain at work, it may start searching for all the other things in your life that feel uncertain too.

If you feel uncomfortable because somebody is unhappy with you, it might remind you of every other relationship where you do not feel completely secure.

If you notice a physical sensation in your body, it might start analysing that, then remembering another symptom, then wondering whether you should search online, then imagining every possible outcome.

You can go from feeling slightly unsettled to mentally reorganising your entire existence before you have even made a cup of tea.

The original problem may have been relatively small. But the discomfort has made your mind believe that there must be something bigger to solve.

This is why overthinking can become so convincing.

It does not feel like you are choosing to spiral. It feels as though you have stumbled across a list of urgent problems that require your immediate attention.

But a thought feeling urgent does not automatically make it true.

A feeling being uncomfortable does not automatically mean something has gone wrong.

Discomfort Does Not Mean Danger

This is one of the biggest misunderstandings I see.

We become frightened of discomfort.

We think that feeling shaky, unsettled, tense, emotional or unsure must be evidence that something is wrong. So we start trying to get away from the feeling as quickly as possible.

We analyse it. We search online. We scroll. We ask for reassurance. We try to control the people around us. We imagine every possible scenario so we can prepare ourselves in advance.

But often, all that searching and fixing simply tells the meerkat brain that it was right to be concerned.

We accidentally give it more jobs.

The invitation is not to force the feeling away or perform calm perfectly. It is simply to begin understanding the experience differently.

Sometimes something feels uncomfortable because being human is uncomfortable.

Sometimes somebody is annoyed with you and you cannot change their perspective.

Sometimes there is uncertainty and you do not get to know how everything will unfold.

Sometimes you have done all you can reasonably do, and the next step is to leave the situation alone.

That does not always feel instantly pleasant.

But discomfort is not the same as danger.

Physical Symptoms - what do they mean?

You Do Not Need to Solve Everybody Else

A busy meerkat brain often has excellent plans for other people. It wants to control how they behave, how they respond, what they think, what they do next and whether they are making the choices we believe they should make.

It may convince us that we are simply being helpful or caring.

But trying to control another person is a bit like trying to push water uphill. You can put an enormous amount of energy into it. You can exhaust yourself completely. You can become frustrated that the water is not cooperating.

But it was never yours to push in the first place.

You are allowed to deal with what belongs to you.

You can take responsibility for your actions. You can apologise when needed. You can set a boundary. You can communicate honestly. You can make a decision based on what feels right for you.

But you do not need to manage everybody else’s perspective in order to be okay. You do not need to make sure everybody understands you.

You do not need to get another person to behave differently before you allow yourself to settle.

People pleaser? Read more about that here!

Your Meerkat Brain Does Not Need More Jobs

I want to be really clear here: this is not another thing to get right.

You do not need to notice every thought, stop every spiral or become cross with yourself whenever your meerkat brain pops its head up.

Because it will.

Mine still does.

We are human. We get tired. We become overstimulated. We get caught up in our thoughts and temporarily lose sight of what we know.

The difference is that when you begin to recognise what is happening, you do not need to follow the meerkat around all day taking notes. You do not need to turn every thought into a task. You do not need to solve your entire future because you feel uncomfortable in this moment.

You may simply notice:

“Oh, my meerkat brain is busy today.”

And then come back to what is actually in front of you.

 

Just this moment.

This cup of tea. This email. This walk. This conversation. This next small thing.

You Do Not Need Certainty to Be Okay

The meerkat brain wants guarantees.

It wants to know that everybody is happy with you, that nothing will go wrong, that you have made the right decision and that the future will unfold exactly as planned.

But life has never offered us that kind of certainty.

And the wonderful news is that you do not actually need it.

You are built with resilience.

You can meet life as it arrives. You can respond to real problems when they are genuinely in front of you. You can trust that clarity becomes easier to hear when the noise begins to settle.

Fear speaks loudly. Wisdom rarely needs to.

Your mind may tell you that you need to figure everything out before you can relax.

But perhaps you do not need to clear the entire horizon today.

Perhaps your meerkat brain simply needs a gentle reminder that it is allowed to sit down.

You are not broken.

You do not need to fix every feeling.

And you do not need to solve every thought.

There is wellbeing underneath the noise.