Annie Croner:
Welcome to The Whole Assistant Podcast, where assistants come to embrace their badassery and discover how to show up more strategically for their careers, their executives, and most importantly, themselves. I'm your coach, Annie Croner. Join us as we dive into the skills, strategies, and mindset that will help you unleash your full potential. Let's go. Welcome, everybody, to this very special episode of the Whole Assistant podcast. I have a guest today, which I know is rare, but I'm super excited. Savanna Symons. Did I say your last name right?
Savanna Symons:
Symons.
Annie Croner:
Symons. Jeez, we've been friends for a while now. I'm like, really? I don't even know how to say your last name. That's about right. Is a coach, and she has also become a fast friend of mine. Savanna, will you please introduce yourself before I talk about what we're going to be talking about today?
Savanna Symons:
Sure, Annie. Thanks so much. My name is Savannah Simons. I am a life and leadership coach and I work primarily with high achieving type A women who want to feel more competent and calm in their work, in their businesses and in their lives so they can achieve the results that they want and really just feel better as they move through the world and do the work they're here to do.
Annie Croner:
Awesome. And as one of those high achieving type A women, I totally appreciate the work that you do, Savanna. Same like it is much needed, especially the calm piece. I've noticed that as a recurring theme in my life that I could use a bit more calm. And what we're going to be talking about today in this episode is really how to release overthinking. Overthinking is something that I've struggled with personally in the past, and I think a lot of my listeners, especially as executive assistants, do tend to overthink a lot as well, and we tend to get stuck in kind of analysis paralysis. So as we start out this podcast episode, I'd love for you to share kind of your background and history with overthinking for those who are listening.
Savanna Symons:
Yeah. Yes, I would be so happy to. Overthinking is not something I am new to. It's in any stretch. Throughout my life, I have navigated periods of high anxiety and I feel like when I'm the most anxious, that is when overthinking really rears its head. And I like to define overthinking for listeners. So if you're like, I don't know if I'm doing that, I'll just speak to what that looks like. Overthinking is sort of that dwelling Looping, excessive thinking causing you distress.
Savanna Symons:
So another word for it is rumination, which is the habit of trying to mentally replay or predict the future in a way to get control. So we're spending a lot of time ruminating on a topic, either something that's happened or something that could happen in a distressing way, in a way to feel better. So for me, when anxiety has been high, I notice my brain go to that pattern of overthinking, and I get locked in. If I don't use the tools that I have, my brain will just loop. And it tells me the classic lie, as it does for so many people, that if we can just get to the bottom of this, if we can just think our way out of this, if we can just find a solution, problem solve, figure this out, everything's going to be better and we're going to feel better. And that is the lie that I've really seen my brain do. And it will keep offering these ideas or, or keep pulling me back in. And I.
Savanna Symons:
If I'm not paying attention, if I'm not using my tools, we'll get pulled in, like all of us, right? We don't try and overthink. We. We sort of get pulled into that high emotional state, and then our brain loops and loops and loops. So a lot of the tools that we're going to get to talk about, and I love this discussion because it's so rich with tools and things we can do differently, are things that I've practiced and things I think we don't get taught to help us pull out of that cycle of looping, excessive thinking, problem solving, even when it feels like it's not going anywhere.
Annie Croner:
So I love this, and I can't wait to get to those strategies. But before we get there, I'd really like to talk about the hidden cost of overthinking. I know that for a lot of my clients, it affects their productivity because they'll just sit at their desk and stare at their screen and their brains will be going a million miles an hour as they try to wordsmith an email. That should take two minutes and it takes 20 minutes. And all the things in addition to kind of like the, the time cost of overthinking and the productivity cost of overthinking, what other hidden costs are there to this overthinking kind of thing that.
Savanna Symons:
We tend to do that is so good? Annie? Yeah. Productivity and time are. I feel kind of. I feel like those are obvious, but I'll offer that research also shows us that chronic rumination that chronic overthinking not only costs us productivity and time, it also keeps the body in a prolonged stress response. So that affects our ability to sleep soundly and it affects our cortisol levels and it affects our ability to have emotional reactivity. Increases our emotional reactivity. All that is to say, it disrupts our lives, it disrupts our peace. So not only does it make us less effective at our jobs and at our work, it also is something that we can take home with us that can affect our entire selves.
Savanna Symons:
So we tend to think of overthinking as a mental experience, which it is, but it leads to a physical experience. Right. Because it is affecting our whole system. It is affecting our nervous system as well as what's going on in our head. So there's so many repercussions we can speak to that are much beyond just like, how efficient are you being and how fast are you getting that email? It's like it's taking it into your day and into your night, into your next morning and into your weekend. And that sucks. That is something we can do something about.
Annie Croner:
Yeah, I also love this too, because you're basically saying the same thing that I try to drive home with my clients and that is that good productivity is the exact same thing as good self care because it addresses the same underlying issues. Right. Like, I think that we often try to pit productivity against self care. You can either work really hard and get lots of things done, or you can take exquisite care of yourself. And what I'm always trying to drive home is that. No, actually taking good care of yourself is good for your productivity as well. The two can work in harmony together. And prolonging that stress response by overthinking is a great example of this.
Annie Croner:
So, so then how can we kind of change the narrative here? How can we interrupt that loop?
Savanna Symons:
Yeah. Yeah. Well, I think before we jump into the the how, I want to offer an analogy that might drive home this idea. If you're like me when you're in an overthinking loop or where you're in that overthinking and you're trying to get everything just right, or you're trying to figure it out, or maybe it's 8 o' clock at night and you're ruminating about what's going to happen or what has happened, I want to offer that the story your brain is offering you is that if you just think hard enough about this, you're going to get out of it and then you'll feel better, and then Everything will be good again, right? That is certainly the lie my brain offers. And that is sort of like trying to eat your way out of being full, right? It's like, I'm too full. I'm just going to eat a little bit more and maybe that'll. That'll fix it. It's like we can't think our way out of overthinking.
Savanna Symons:
It is the equivalent of trying to eat your way out of being full more. Thinking is not what we need. What we need when we're up in our heads trying to think about every little thing that could go wrong or how we can problem solve or what's going to happen or this uncertainty or that is to actually come out of our heads and get into our body. And I think that's what we get to talk about today. And this is. These are the skills we didn't learn. I certainly didn't learn these. It took me years to learn these and training and being a student of this work to be able to finally see how we could make a change.
Savanna Symons:
But I'll offer that when we're in that place where. When we're in that overthinking place, we are usually coming, I would say we're, we're universally really coming at this from a place of a high emotional experience, an intense emotional experience that is distressing, right? We're not usually overthinking when we're in a joyful or relaxed state. It's like we're, we're anxious, we're angry, or we're afraid, or we're uncertain, some flavor of some intense emotion. And when we're in that place, the emotional centers of our brain are firing. We're in a fight or flight state, right? So our nervous system is not in that rest and digest. It's not feeling relaxed. It's in this heightened look around for the threat state. And what we want to notice is that the actually the analytical part of our brain, the part of our brain that's like the best at being creative and a problem solving and it being logical actually goes a little bit more offline because the emotional part of our brain is coming online and is like, oh my gosh, we got to.
Savanna Symons:
We got to figure out how to navigate this threat. You're smiling, Annie. Is there anything you want to add here? Because you.
Annie Croner:
No, I mean, I just so relate to this. I just so relate to this. And I also just. It's part of like the human condition. But then when you are also in a role that is very detail oriented, and it's very much about serving and supporting others. The line with others can be blurred, but then also the line with ourselves can be blurred around, like, the amount of energy that we actually want to invest in our roles and then the healthy kind of energy that we invest, and then also like the less than healthy, less than helpful energy that we invest. When I'm in that overthinking state, it just takes so much energy. I'm physically drained when it kind.
Annie Croner:
When I. When it wraps up, right. It's just like my whole body is just kind of done as well. So I'm smiling because I think a lot of my clients will relate to this. I think also a lot of the listeners who I've not worked with yet will relate to this as well. I think that there's not an executive assistant out there who has not been or who has not dealt with exactly what you're talking about here. Savannah.
Savanna Symons:
Yes. And I want to add for the listeners, once upon a time, I was also an executive assistant. So I know this firsthand. This experience of having to be on top of everything and the pressures that can mount and how your brain can be in a million different places, and then it can kind of get stuck and loop and loop and loop. And we want to just talk about and notice that that is often a fight or flight response. That is our nervous system feeling activated, maybe because there's a strong emotion present. What we think, right, as we go back to that idea, is more thinking, we're going to figure this out, and then the feeling will go away. I want to offer a different perspective, that when you're in that fight or flight, when you're in that high emotion, and you notice that it's actually harder to find solutions again, because that creative or logical part of your brain goes a little bit more offline.
Savanna Symons:
I think the first thing we can. We can do for ourselves is to name the experience we're having, which is another word for saying affect labeling or emotional labeling. Affect labeling is the simple practice of labeling our emotions as a way to take care of ourselves. And studies show us that affect labeling, naming our emotions in a distressing moment can put space in between us and our feelings. And that can do things like regulate us ourselves, regulate our emotions. It can increase awareness into our emotional state, and it can even decrease the intensity of emotions. And awareness is our first step. Instead of trying to go into this deep, right? I'm digging, digging, digging, trying to dig my way out.
Savanna Symons:
It is noticing, oh, I'm in this, like, distressing State I'm in this. I'm feeling anxiety, or I'm feeling really afraid, or I'm feeling really upset, or I'm feeling really stressed. That first is going to give you your first sign that this is where I actually need to be, not in my head trying to figure out the solution that my mind is offering me. So that's the first step I always like to. To offer to clients. And, Annie, I'm sure you've done this work with your EAs about affect labeling, Whether you called it that or or not, is there anything you want to add to that around the value of naming your emotions?
Annie Croner:
Yeah, I think for me in particular, I think probably for a good number of my people, my clients, my listeners, it can be so uncomfortable to acknowledge the emotion, and it can be so uncomfortable to actually allow for the emotion. And we were just talking about this in another context before we hit the record button. But it's like getting good at experiencing our emotions and letting the feeling, which is kind of a somatic experience, pulse through our body, allowing ourselves to experience it fully, and then at a certain point, it will release on its own. But I think we often try and negotiate our way around the emotion instead of walking through the emotion. And what I love about labeling that emotion is that it's a good way of actually pausing long enough to acknowledge what it is you're actually feeling. And then if you can actually be with that emotion, even for a brief time, even just setting a timer. I know I've got a timer, a meditation timer, setting it for 10 to 15 minutes and just getting curious about how it's showing up in your body, getting curious where you're experiencing it. I tend to experience anxiety in my chest.
Annie Croner:
My shoulders go up around my ears. My chest kind of tightens. I have a hard time taking a full breath because I'm not breathing into my belly anymore, Just very shallow breaths. So if I can actually allow myself to experience that and experience the fullness of that, the emotion will dissipate a lot faster. Yes, you'll be experiencing more intensity with it. But I'm a firm believer that that's part of being human, and that's part of this human experience, is actually experiencing the broad range of. Of a human emotion, which is so challenging for us with all the distractions. Right.
Annie Croner:
Because we could turn to our phone. We can turn to call a friend. We can turn to food, we can turn to Netflix. We can turn to any of these things that are just literally at our fingertips, as opposed to actually sitting with the challenging emotion and just allowing it to be there and be present with it. This is very different from wallowing. I think most of my people are not wallowers. Wallowers is like mopey, complainy. Like, it's.
Annie Croner:
It's a vibe, it's a. It's an attitude. But most of us, most of my clients just want to circumvent. They don't want to experience it at all. So that's why we negotiate. And I find for myself that if I'm actually able to sit with it, the overthinking goes away. Because I'm not trying to solve for the emotion that I'm feeling. I'm just allowing myself to feel whatever it is I'm feeling.
Annie Croner:
I'm also not putting judgment on top of that either. It's just like, this is a sad moment. This is a challenging moment. Last week, I spoke with you all about, like, the fact that I'm getting a divorce and going through all of that. And it's had sad moments, it's had moments of elation as well. But it's been very fascinating to kind of watch myself navigate those things. And I think the reason I've been able to navigate them so well is because I've had years and years of practicing actually allowing for emotion when they come up.
Savanna Symons:
Yes. And you and I talked about that actually right before this, right before this call. I think that's so juicy. If listeners are listening to this and they're like, okay, that's not me. I don't even know where I would start. I don't know what it feels like to feel my feelings. Like, what does that even mean? The first step is this is affect labeling is simply naming your emotions. And I can't tell you how many high achieving women I have worked with who look like they have it all.
Savanna Symons:
And look, they're smart as can be and are struggling internally and how challenging they find this part because they don't want to be with their emotions, so they don't even want to name it. And this is where we start with, with just simply becoming aware. Oh, I'm noticing I'm doing that thing where I'm overthinking what am I feeling right now? It can be as simple as that.
Annie Croner:
So can I just. Can I just reject something here? So there's this thing called the feelings wheel.
Savanna Symons:
Yes.
Annie Croner:
That I would encourage. You can just Google it. Feelings wheel. And there will be this wheel that will come up that will talk about the different types of feelings there are. And I think For a lot of us, especially those of us socialized as women, because we show up in service of others so frequently, we often don't even know what we want. I remember my first speaking event I ever did was in front of a small group of executive assistants in Seattle. And I talked about knowing what you want. And this gal raised her hand.
Annie Croner:
She's like, but how do you know what you want? I'm like, that is like a brilliant question because many of us have never paused long enough to consider that. In the same vein, many of us have not paused long enough to actually consider what it is we're feeling. So I do think that it would be really helpful and valuable for my listeners to just go online, Google a, like wheel of emotions or something like that, print it out, have it present with you, have it on your desk, and that way whenever you are wondering, like, what is it that I'm feeling, then you can read through the emotions and you can actually see, oh, this is what I'm experiencing right now as a kind of a tool to be able to help with this as well.
Savanna Symons:
Annie, I love that so much. I sent the feelings wheel to a client and I sent like three days ago, four days ago. And I send it regularly when I'm, when I'm inviting clients to do this work. You can literally type in feelings Wheel. I think it's feelings wheel.com or maybe it's.org, but it will just. It's just a website with a big wheel that has all these different emotions. I can't tell you how valuable this skill is. It's so valuable.
Savanna Symons:
And if you don't know, you're like, I have no idea. I feel good or I feel bad. Go look at this wheel and just practice putting a word to your experience. It is such a valuable skill. I could talk at nauseam about this skill, but it is a really first, a really juicy first step and life skill that you can use to improve your, your life, but also to really help with overthinking. And Annie, you made such a good point and I want to just go back to it. You know, you're talking about being in your body and overthinking is when we're up in our heads, we're like, oh my God, did I send the wrong email? What are they going to say? Think about it. Are they mad at me? What am I? What did I do the wrong thing? Is tomorrow going to be okay? What's going to happen next week? Right.
Savanna Symons:
We're either in the past or we're in the present, we're up in our heads. And what the solution to overthinking really gets to be about is getting back into our body. Which a word for that is somatics, which is the, the, the body work that focuses on the internal sensations and experiences of the body being in your body, which by the way, most of us are doing in different ways throughout our week probably anyways. It can look like things like exercise or meditation or dancing or even taking a hot or cold shower. Right. These are experiences that are inviting you to be in your body instead of your head. And that's what we want to practice more of. And I'll can give kind of specific grounding examples to that, but that's what we want to practice more of, more somatics to help us get out of our heads.
Savanna Symons:
When our brain is like, stay up here with me, stay up here. We're like, okay, how can I drop back into my body to be present in this moment versus the future or the past?
Annie Croner:
Yeah, yeah. So what are your best strategies for staying in touch with the body? I know you mentioned meditation is one. I know for me there again, because I do carry so much anxiety. I carry my anxiety in my chest and shoulders. That even just dropping my shoulders, sitting back in my seat and taking a full belly of air. What that also does is it kind of hits the vagus nerve and calms that part down as well. So the vagus nerve is this massive nerve that runs through your, I think, torso or something like that. Anyway, I'm not quite sure on all the logistics, but it's been really helpful at calming me down is to just take a full belly breath of ar.
Savanna Symons:
Yes, yes. That one of the easiest and simplest one is slowing down your breathing. Like if nothing else. And I'll offer some ideas, but if you're like, oh, these feel too technical for me or they take too much time, breathing and getting into your body is a beautiful way. Right. When we slow our body, our breathing down, we are literally sending the signal to our body that we are safe, that we don't have to run, we don't have to flee, or we don't have to fight. We can just be here now. So there's a.
Savanna Symons:
It is a beautiful way to ground yourself. And to help slow overthinking, I'll offer some grounding exercises. And I like to think about grounding exercises as helping you get out of your head and get into the present moment. When we're in our head, we're usually thinking again about the past. Or about the future. We're somewhere else other than where we are in this moment. Right. We're, oh, my God, what are they going to think? Or did I say the right thing? Or is this going to go off without a hitch? Is this going to be a disaster? Is someone mad at me? We're somewhere else.
Savanna Symons:
And what grounding exercises allow us to do is just be where we are again, sending the signal that we're safe. So two grounding exercises I really love and that I offer to clients are the first one being what I call where's the tiger? And I actually learned this from a therapist who spoke about when we're in that fight or flight. Overthinking, looping, spin. Orienting ourselves to the room we're in, to the space that we're in, consciously helps us remember not only where we are, but also takes us out of our head and be in the present. So what I mean by that is, how many of us have been sitting in our room or sitting in our home or sitting in our office, and we've never actually slowed down to look around and be in this space. We, like, were up in our head, and then we were doing the thing, and then we were sending the email, and then we were talking to the person, but we've never actually, like, slowed down enough to be present where we are. What? Where's the tiger? This exercise, this grounding exercise does is it asks you to look around your space, look around your room for the first time, maybe today, maybe this week, is to notice your space, notice the colors of things, notice what is present, what's on your desk or what's on your bed or what's around you. And then start to name if there are any dangers.
Savanna Symons:
Do we see any tigers? Do we see any threats? What we're doing is we're telling our brain what is really present. Because in our mind, our brain is saying, there is a tiger right outside this door or right behind you. And we're slowing the process down to orient to where we are and notice what is really here and noticing what is present. Okay, I see my desk. Okay, I see my window. I see my plant. Are there any tigers in the room? No. Are there any threats in the room? No.
Savanna Symons:
And it starts to help us be where we are versus what our brain is saying, which is like, don't think about the color of your desk. Think about what you're doing tomorrow, because we need to figure that out. Slows us down.
Annie Croner:
Yeah.
Savanna Symons:
The other one I'll offer is one of my favorites. And there's different variations of this, but it's the five senses, and it's something I always offer clients because it. It really asks you to get into your body in the most basic of ways. It is tuning into the five senses, I.e. touch, taste, smell, sight. And what's the one I'm missing?
Annie Croner:
Sound.
Savanna Symons:
Sound. Sound. Which is my favorite one, funny enough that I would. I would miss that one. Yeah, it's. It's tuning into the five senses and going through each one at a time just to close your eyes and pull all of your focus to that one sense. Okay, what can I hear in this moment? What's far away? What's close by? Right. Maybe you give that two minutes just to notice what you can hear.
Savanna Symons:
Okay. What can I smell in this moment? And whether or not you have an answer or a good answer or not is not the point. The point is you are directing your focus on being with yourself present in your body as a way to ground into the present moment and slow your system down, which in turn slows your thinking down. So those are two of my favorites. Are those something you've ever tried? Are you brand new to them? What's your take on that, Annie?
Annie Croner:
I mean, I really love the tiger exercise around, like getting in touch with your space. This is where I am right now. I haven't so much done either of those exercises, but I will start to incorporate them for sure. But I think for me, what I like to tell my clients to do is to put their hand over their heart and to just sit back in their chair. I love that because, like, that's. That's a good posture. And it's reminding me anyway, whenever I put my hands over my heart that I am safe. It's like a way of holding yourself.
Annie Croner:
It's a way of reminding yourself, is putting, you know, like a way of comforting that anxiety which there again, I carry in my chest. So I really like that, like putting pressure and it's like reminding myself that in this moment I am safe. And yes, maybe in the next I won't be. Another exercise that I like to walk my clients through. I actually got from a priest that I was working with at St. John's Episcopal Cathedral here in Denver. He was a mystic style priest. And so he was very much into kind of incorporating different ideas and modalities into worship.
Annie Croner:
And he went to man, I want to say Thailand, and he would sit with the Buddhist monks and pray, but he was always the first to get up and leave. And he had a monk friend who Called him out on it one day and he's like, if you leave, what does that mean for your conversation with your dragons? You aren't giving yourself enough time actually to speak with your dragons. And what he meant by that was like, you aren't having conversations with yourself. You are not addressing the underlying things that you need to address in this moment. And so ever since I heard him talk about that, I'm like, oh man, I actually visualize a dragon. If I, if I'm coming up against a wall or I'm dealing with something really big or it feels really big, I will pull the dragon up and I'll visualize it and I will start talking to it. I'll be like, why are you here? What were you sent to teach me? Like, tell me, share your wisdom with me. And I've just found that to be a hugely profound practice.
Annie Croner:
And I actually have walked my clients, some of them anyway, through that as well, around their anxieties, around different things. And what's really fascinating is that when I first started doing this, I wasn't quite sure how it land with clients, but what they would tell me they heard. We both have our eyes closed as we were doing that exercise. But what they would tell me they heard was actually really profound. Like, especially around anxiety and stuff like that. Most people's anxiety is there for a reason. And so if you can have a chat with your dragon and figure out why it's there, then that's enough oftentimes to allow it to dissipate or at least then you kind of understand why your brain is responding the way it's responding. So those are a couple exercises that I've walked my clients through, but I've never done the room exercise.
Annie Croner:
And I love this because my room is really pretty and I genuinely love everything in my rooms. Like I've curated each room to be beautiful. And so actually pausing long enough to admire the space and long enough to be like, everything in here is chosen by me to be in the space with me. And to even realize the gravitas of that and to even realize how profound that can be of just like, this is my space, I get to own it. And I think even if you're working in an office environment, allowing yourself the luxury of having a nice glass on your desk, allowing yourself a luxury of having beautiful pens or something like that can go a long way in helping you own your space and bring you back to yourself. Even if you're working in an environment that is fast paced or challenging in any way. So I will offer those things.
Savanna Symons:
So good. I, I never heard that dragon story before or tool. I love that and I love the idea of bringing you back to yourself. That is the idea here is when we're up in our head, we're somewhere else. We're not where we are. And what this allows us to do is to come back to ourselves. So even the idea of a glass, if you have a hot cup of coffee and you can just slow down enough to feel the hot coffee in your hand, the hot cup, right Your, your, your mug, that is being in your body, there are so many ways, but in today's world, we spend so much time up in our heads and so all of these practices, whether you go with the where's the tiger? Or the five senses or you're like, I'm gonna, I work from home. I'm gonna take a five minute dance break just to move my body and be in my body.
Savanna Symons:
Meditation, whatever it is, talking to your dragon, it is coming back to yourself and being with yourself instead of ruminating, getting lost on the topic in a state where it's actually harder for you to even problem solve or be analytical or be creative enough to find a solution in that state. So it's like getting into your body and just being with yourself so that the part of you that can actually problem solve and that can be analytical and logical and creative can come back online with time.
Annie Croner:
I love that. This is so great. I feel like all these strategies are really going to help all my listeners to really kind of release the overthinking. Thank you so much, Savannah, for being with me here today. Can you tell people where to find you?
Savanna Symons:
Yes. And Annie, thank you so much. I feel like we could talk so much about this topic. It is such a good one. This is work I do with clients in a way that helps them feel more confident and calm in their jobs, in their careers and in their businesses. So if you want to find me or learn from me, you can find me at savannahsymons.com Symons is spelled S Y M O N S. And you can also find me on LinkedIn @SavannaSymons, Instagram @savannasymons and I have a weekly newsletter called the Shift and it is all about helping everyday high achievers and people who are, who are wanting to feel more confident and calm in their work and businesses achieve just that. So you're welcome to join the Shift.
Savanna Symons:
It's free and it comes out each week.
Annie Croner:
I will also link to all these links in the show notes. And Savannah, I think I also want to include a link to the Shift in my newsletter. So yeah, if you are subscribed to my newsletter you will also be receiving that link in the newsletter. So keep an eye out for that and please reach out to Savannah. She's great. I wouldn't hesitate to work with her at all. So thank you so much for being here Savannah and to the rest of you I hope you have a wonderful rest of your day and I hope that it will be free from overthinking. Talk to you soon.
Annie Croner:
Hey before you go, don't forget to grab my free Strategic Planning Session guide. This stealthy playbook will help you and your executive find clarity on their priorities so you can make a greater impact. Go to wholeassistant.com/guide or click the link in the Show Notes to snag your copy. And if you're loving the podcast, please subscribe, leave a review and share with another assistant ready to level up. Thanks for listening and until next time, keep embracing your badassery.
