Hi Hereandthere
What you're facing sounds so incredibly stressful. When I think about the handful of skills we're taught in life, growing up, 'How to stop thinking or over thinking' is definitely not one of them. 'How to manage making decisions' can be another. With life seemingly a 'Learn as you go' experience, there are hundreds of skills we're not taught from a young age and we can definitely suffer through that while being forced to develop them at some point.
Whether it's about how to make the big decisions or how to make the small ones, there can be so much involved in decision making. How to make thoughtless ones (aka 'Simply going with your gut or gut instinct) is a skill worth exercising. How to make a fearful decision can be another. How to decide fearlessly, another. How to give our self no choice in the matter is another. How to decide as a group (friends, family, work colleagues etc) another skill. Knowing when to sit back and take a break from decision making/challenge is yet another skill, especially when we're being overwhelmed with challenge and having to make choices. Sometimes, not having to make decisions is the relief we need. How to take a step back and let others decide is another skill.
I've found a strange one to manage is when various facets of myself are in battle. To offer an example: If someone was to ask me to drive them to the airport and I have to decide whether I'm going to do it, cue the people pleaser in me, the sage, the stresser, the commander and whatever else pops in. Btw, I fear driving to the airport. The people pleaser in me will dictate 'You have to drive them, it's the nice thing to do'. The sage in me will dictate 'Simply suggest you'll drive them down the road to catch the airport bus. The bus driver will take them through all that traffic'. The stresser in me will dictate 'You can't take them. It's a terrible drive of hypervigilance and stress, through all that traffic and with all those turn offs'. The commander may dictate 'Get your sh** together soldier and stop behaving like a baby. Make a goddamned decision!!!'. While the sage offers some good advice, when the person asking me to drive them starts to beg or lead me to feel bad about not taking them, cue the people pleaser in me and it all ramps up to next level stress and indecision with it all going 'round again. Inner dialogue can be a mongrel, that's for sure.
I've found a good and strong imagination can be a truly brilliant and liberating thing but not always, especially when it gets in the way. Imagining the best case scenario is great but when you're also imagining the worst and every possible scenario in between, it becomes time consuming, fearful, confusing and it can make it so hard to decide on the best course of action. How to manage the imagination/our vision of things can be a massive challenge and something we may never have been taught to do before in strategic ways.
