The Hidden Power of Letting Go: Pearls of Wisdom from Joseph Nguyen
Pro tip: don’t believe everything you think 🧠
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If you’re anything like me these days, you could use less thinking and more calm. As a doctor, I see it daily: patients struggling to manage their anxiety, cut back on alcohol, or commit to an exercise plan because they’re trapped in cycles of fear, self-doubt, and overthinking. Heck, the news these days has our brains on overdrive. And it’s only February.
It turns out that overthinking is one of the most common barriers to adopting healthier habits, settling the mind, and living in the present moment. In this Q&A, I sit down with Joseph Nguyen, author of the international bestseller Don’t Believe Everything You Think, to explore how overthinking can sabotage our best intentions and how to overcome it. Joseph’s work helps people go beyond their conditioned thinking to find freedom from psychological and emotional suffering. With insights from his million-copy-selling book, he offers practical strategies to help us reclaim control over our lives.
Join us!
ON THE ROOTS OF OVERTHINKING
Lucy McBride: I commonly talk with patients who want to change a habit but they end up getting in their own way. Take, for example, someone who is trying to cut back on alcohol. They might fear the consequences of that behavioral change (for example losing their ability to enjoy social events or not fitting in with a social group), and it’s the overthinking itself—not their inability to cut back on a alcohol—that holds them back. How would you approach a conversation like that?
Joseph Nguyen: First, it’s important to acknowledge that alcohol use disorder is a complex medical condition that often requires support beyond mindset shifts alone. You have written about taking an appropriately holistic approach to your patients' alcohol use. But to the extent that overthinking can be part of why someone has difficulty controlling a habit they want to change, this example is a great place to illustrate the potential harms of overthinking.
Overthinking is often rooted in fear. Fear itself isn’t the problem. Fear is a natural, healthy emotion—our body’s way of signaling that something matters and needs our attention. It’s an invitation to explore something we haven’t yet examined. The issues arise when we resist fear and attempt to avoid it. What we resist persists and often grows stronger. But when we learn to sit with fear, meet it with compassion and curiosity, we can transform it into courage and hope. Exploring our fears with gentleness can open up new possibilities. My goal in this conversation would be to walk alongside them as they explore what possibilities await.
In this scenario, I’d approach the conversation with curiosity about what’s driving the fear. Why do they believe they can’t enjoy social events without alcohol? Can they remember an example of an event they enjoyed without it? How did they approach that event differently, and what allowed them to enjoy it?
What defines an enjoyable social event for them? Do they really feel that if they do drink, enjoyment is guaranteed? Probably not! So, what are the other factors that could contribute to their enjoyment? If all those factors were present, would alcohol still be necessary? What particular aspects of events do they enjoy? How could they focus on creating that same experience without drinking?
ON FIVE STEPS TOWARD LETTING GO
LM: Let’s talk about my patients with health-related anxiety. This is super common - where the anxiety around a specific health problem can take on a life of its own and cause emotional or physical distress. (Of course it is normal to worry about health problems; what I am talking about is when the worry itself is debilitating.) But for me to tell a patient with health anxiety simply to “Stop worrying!” not only is inappropriate, it’s ineffective. In other words, overthinking isn’t a choice. It’s much deeper than that. So- my question to you is, how do you help people see the role of their thoughts in shaping their reality in order to change them?
JN: Another caveat before I answer: I’m very aware that in the case of clinical anxiety, the person may require professional support, and that’s well beyond my level of expertise! When I write and speak with others, I’m coming from the perspective of a fellow-sufferer, sharing what’s worked for me.
As humans, we have evolved a sophisticated ability to rationalize, analyze, and think because these are key to our survival. The mind’s job is to alert us to potential dangers in our environment—or illness in our bodies—that may threaten our lives. But while our minds do an incredible job of keeping us alive, this same ability does not allow us to thrive.
Here is a simple five-step process to help let go of this kind of hyper-vigilant thinking, the kind that keeps you in fight-or-flight mode and can cause anxiety.
Step 1: Pause and begin taking deep breaths to help calm our nervous systems. Deep breaths pull our focus away from the thinking mind and into our bodies, anchoring us in the present moment. This allows us to become aware of our emotions and also detach from them. Pausing creates space between our emotions and actions, giving us the opportunity to choose a new response rather than repeating the same conditioned reactions that keep us in the cycle of suffering. Without this space, change cannot exist. Space has the illusion of emptiness on the surface. It is not empty but filled with infinite possibilities for us to choose a new experience of life. Within the space between your thoughts and your thinking lies the peace you’ve been seeking.
Step 2: Ask yourself, “Is this thinking making me feel the way I want?” or “Do I want to keep suffering?” These questions remind us of the power we have to choose whether we want to emotionally suffer or not. If we want to keep feeling the way we do, then we can choose to do so. We’ve all had times when we are not yet ready to let the negativity pass, and that is okay. But if we want peace, we can choose it by letting go of the thinking that is causing our suffering.
Step 3: Understand that you have the choice to stop and let go of your thinking. At this moment, you must decide what you want. This can be scary, but if you trust yourself and that you will be okay no matter what happens, it becomes easier to let go.
Step 4: Say and repeat to yourself, “Thinking is the root cause of suffering.” Reminding yourself of this disempowers your negative thinking, making it easier to manage because you begin to see through it. Repeating this phrase to yourself like a mantra when you begin experiencing negative emotions is a powerful practice. It is difficult for our minds to have multiple thoughts simultaneously, so repeating a single phrase forces the brain to focus only on it rather than something else. The reason mantras are effective is not just because of the power of words to influence our beliefs but because they reduce or even stop our minds from thinking.
Step 5: Experience your emotions fully. Most of our destructive habits and behaviors come from the avoidance and suppression of emotions. When we ignore or fight our feelings, we only make our suffering worse. We are not trying to bypass our emotions. Rather, we are trying to accept and feel them fully without judgment. Suffering comes not from our emotions but from the thinking we attach to the emotions.
What would it feel like to experience your emotions without judgment? Can you feel how there’s less resistance to them? Can you feel how much easier it is to let them go? How much more liberating does that feel?
We unnecessarily create our own suffering by trying to make our mind do a job it’s not designed to do. Your mind’s job is to anticipate threats. Your body’s job is to regulate the resulting emotions.
ON THE LIMITATIONS OF WILLPOWER
LM: Many people rely on willpower to stick to New Year’s resolutions like dieting or exercising. Willpower, to me, means leveraging our conscious and rational mind to effect change. But oftentimes when February rolls around they feel they’ve lost the willpower to make changes - and sometimes give up. What role do you think willpower plays in making sustainable change?
JN: Willpower is not a cure-all. It rarely works as a long-term solution because it demands a constant expenditure of energy to resist the natural tendencies of the body and mind. This can feel exhausting and even defeating, especially when you’ve tried over and over without seeing the results you want. However, willpower does have its place, particularly as a catalyst for initiating change. It often takes a measure of willpower to make the decision to seek help or to take the first step toward addressing a challenge.
One of the best uses of willpower is to make leveraged decisions that simplify or eliminate future choices. For example, committing to cooking meals at home instead of eating out establishes an optimized default, reducing decision fatigue and keeping you aligned with your goals. While this one step won’t solve everything, it illustrates how small, intentional changes can build compounding momentum toward the life you desire.
Willpower becomes less necessary once you establish clear boundaries and raise your personal standards for how you want to live. Your values serve as a framework for these decisions, guiding you in situations where willpower might otherwise be required. When your identity aligns with this new way of being, you no longer rely on willpower to sustain your actions—it becomes an occasional tool, used only when needed to ignite the next phase of growth or change.
This approach can help you navigate any challenge that requires change—whether it’s improving relationships, managing stress, or building new habits. When you stop relying solely on willpower and start building decision-making systems that align with your values and identity, the process feels less like a battle and more like an evolution.
ON INTEGRATING THE UNCONSCIOUS & CONSCIOUS MIND
LM: When I’m helping patients make behavioral changes, I stress the importance of being curious about our unconscious drives. In other words, I don’t think people can make real and lasting changes - whether it’s starting a weight loss program or leaving an unhealthy relationship - until we have integrated our unconscious and conscious minds. For example, it doesn’t work for a doctor to tell someone, “Eat healthier!” when their chaotic eating habits stem from buried and unmet emotional needs.
You’ve written about the unconscious mind as a powerful driver of behavior. Do you think it is important to access the unconscious mind to make lasting changes?
JN: Like you, I am fascinated by the unconscious mind and how we access it. The unconscious mind is one of the most crucial elements to access if we want to change our lives. Carl Jung captured this perfectly: “Until you make the unconscious conscious, it will direct your life, and you will call it fate.”
While the unconscious mind can seem like a vast, unknowable void, it becomes more practical when we engage with curiosity—specifically, curiosity about why we react the way we do to events and thoughts in our lives. By questioning everything, especially our own minds, we begin to make the unconscious conscious.
Just as an object in motion stays in motion unless acted upon by an external force, our thinking patterns and behaviors will continue in the same trajectory until we intervene. Questions serve as that external force, breaking us free from the cycle of overthinking and allowing us to “look under the hood” of our minds to uncover what drives our behaviors. When we become aware of the root cause of our emotional suffering, it becomes far easier to address and let go of it.
CLOSING THOUGHTS
Overthinking can feel like a mental maze with no exit. But as Joseph reminds us, the way out isn’t to think harder—it’s to pause, let go, and create space for new perspectives. By shifting our relationship with fear, building systems instead of relying on willpower, and exploring the unconscious mind, we can break free from cycles of overthinking and embrace meaningful change.
So tell me, what might happen to you if you paused, let go, and trusted yourself? What is holding you back? What has helped you in the past? I would love to hear your tips and tricks.
❤️ Lucy
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I have just finished reading 10 PERCENT HAPPIER by Dan Harris and have recommitted to a daily meditation practice. Meditation gives me the space to pause and as he puts it, get behind the waterfall of thoughts. With practice , I’ve learned I can observe my fears, my anxieties about the future or regret about the past while staying fully present. It’s a powerful tool especially in these dark times.
I have two different thoughts about this — a personal one and one that moves outside of my own circumstances. On a personal level, I have been helped in dealing with insomnia by using a mantra (or sometimes more than one) to interrupt and replace anxious thoughts about sleeping. The mantra is “this problem was created in my mind so my mind can uncreate it.” (I’ve also used “I’ve conquered this before and I will again.”) Saying this “out loud” in my head is both a reminder of the truth and also a way to displace scary thoughts. It opens up a different and more hopeful future. (I haven’t had insomnia in a long time but I know what to do if it ever returns.). That said, there are people facing genuine and legitimate fears for their futures that no amount of thinking can take away — like parents worried about being separated from their children or returned to a country where they are in danger. Just because I can use these strategies to reduce worries that, in effect, I have created myself, doesn’t mean that others are in a position to do that. And I worry about that!