Rabbi Says What Many Are Afraid To Say About Life

I have a tremendous amount of respect for Rabbi YY Jacobson however he had recently shared online a solution to an important mental health issue and I believe there is a much more healthy and efficient way to deal with this issue take a listen to what he had said why do I overthink everything so usually this is a coping mechanism that we develop early on in life one example may be if I overthink everything my system is going to believe that I'll be safe it's trying to protect me you know imagine if I overthink everything I won't say anything stupid if I overthink everything I'll make sure that I'll only say things that will make me likable if I overthink everything I won't be spontaneous and therefore nobody will figure out how ugly and weird and strange and nerdy I really am what a loser I am how filthy I am how Despicable I am so these are our coping mechanisms brilant and clever coping methods to be able to keep us safe can you have compassion for this Insanity that develops in our psyche in order to keep us safe so somebody who has a problem with overthinking and this is true with any issue by the way they want something different right if somebody comes to their Rabbi to their therapist to their parent or whatever it is and say hey I have this issue they want something different and research shows that it's much more efficient to highlight the difference that they're looking for rather than the reason for the issue highlighting the reason for the issue trying to isolate the issue and having compassion toward the issue is a very efficient approach when it comes to physical health somebody breaks their arm you have to figure out why they broke their arm how they broke their arm and you have to treat their arm but when it comes to a broken heart you don't actually have to treat the issue you can treat the person who has the issue and when you treat the person who has the issue is a lot more healthy so when somebody comes and says hey I'm overthinking instead of saying hey this is why you're overthinking I'm going to have passion toward you which is a wonderful thing by the way what you could say is what would you rather be doing instead what type of person does it take to become the type of person who's doing something instead it's a lot more empowering and although the issue is very real but what that person wants instead is also very real and while you want to have compassion for the pain that the person's going through we should also have compassion and encouragement for the better identity that they're trying to assume I think this is a lot more in line with the isas model of focusing on a deeper sense of self and there's also a lot of research behind this that shows that when you focus on what somebody wants instead of the problem rather than the problem itself they are empowered to confront the issue in a more efficient and healthy way