Overprocessing Ruins Relationships So Try Self Resolving Instead
So there’s something I’ve been thinking about a lot over the last, gosh…10 years or so? And then recently a few clients brought it up and then I saw a reel on social media about it. So I knew I had to write about it.
A lot of growth-oriented community types loooove to process. And overprocess. You’ll hear a lot of different definitions of overprocessing, but what I mean by this is sifting or combing through each emotion or experience, continuing to pull at the threads, overtalking conflict, feelings, needs, or what happened, and talking about it far beyond what is productive, though not knowing you’ve crossed that line because it feels productive.
It’s anxious (and anxiety provoking), exhausting, cumbersome, and masturbatory. And I have seen it become an identity—hijacking other ways of relating and taking over peoples’ lives to the point where processing is what you do with people you’re close to when you get together instead of making memories, going places, doing activities, talking about other things, and living life.
I understand the initial impulse, though. When you first become more self aware and learn some skills to handle conflict, it’s great to use these “authentic relating” skills to make these conversations more effective. These are teachings that are wonderful for people who have never acknowledged or talked about their feelings before. They’re for those who maybe only ever handled conflict by brushing it under the rug or getting passive aggressive or yelling.
So learning how to process has its place. But just like so many ideas in the personal-growth zeitgeist, it gets adopted as a regular practice or worse, a lifestyle. Then it becomes culty and if you’re at all in proximity to this, you know it’s got its own entire language and set of norms.
“Before we talk about this further, I’d like to set a container. “
“I’d like to share with you what my nervous system needs.” (While misunderstanding what their nervous system actually needs).
“What I want when I’m with you is to be able to be in my feminine.” (I already wrote a post on this one).
“I’d like to have a clearing.”
If you get the ick, you’re not alone, even if these are the types of sentiments you hear all around you. Overprocessing is a form of anxiety, it breeds codependence, and it’s what happens in stress response (sympathetic nervous system state). It can also be correlated with coercion, control, and narcissism because of how boundaryless it can be and because it’s so often coupled with a norm where people are encouraged to be individualistic about their needs and preferences and to hold those as necessary and precious to a degree that’s antithetical to reciprocal relationships.
I suggest you use your relational processing skills (knowing what you feel and how to talk about it, listening, making requests) only in times when it’s absolutely necessary, which, let’s say, might be about 5% of the time.
The rest of the time? Self resolve. Do what you need for yourself. Go exercise. Get in nature. Let go. Pet the dog. Pet the cat. Journal. Take space. Do a creative project. Live your life. Restrain yourself so that you don’t say something hurtful or damaging to someone else simply because you believe that being able to share everything you think and feel means you’re close.
Why? Because overprocessing serves to dictate and control the way you want someone else to show up, the way you’d like to be treated, and it gives the false idea that if you juuuust say it the right way, you’ll get what you need from the person you’re relating with.
But actually, this doesn’t breed healthy relationships. It breeds ones where it’s ok to try and change each other. Instead, if you look for partners who already are the type of people who care about you and your needs, you won’t have such a heavy lift in front of you.
Most importantly, don’t heap the heavy weight of regular emotional processing onto your relationships. It will erode their strength, their fun factor (part of what makes up the glue between people), and it will form unhealthy attachments to the intensity (stress) of processing.
Instead, cultivate closeness by learning how to forgive without punishing them. Build it by letting go and trusting. By sharing experiences and letting closeness happen organically without pushing. Let yourselves find out if you connect well by not trying. Cultivate closeness by giving someone the benefit of the doubt. By protecting them from the worst things you think about them. If you do choose to process something with someone, do it after you’ve self resolved so that you can come to that conversation with less charge.
The nervous system doesn’t need processing and to comb through granularity. Again, that’s stress response. What we do need in order to build maturity and the ability to sustain healthy, long-term relationships are the things I mentioned above. It’s the ability to self resolve most of the time for the small and medium things (no, not always). It’s learning to not say the thing. It’s learning how to move on without needing this, that, and the other thing from someone else.
It’s learning how to see the ways that someone behaves on their own without you having to teach and train them and seeing if you two can work as a couple together. Yes, of course, in being together each of you will have to change and grow because relationships ask that of us organically. But each person choosing that growth on their own is very different than processing and overprocessing to try and get each other to be who you want them to be.
This topic weaves in the SomaField principles of Attachment Awareness and Nervous System Literacy, and if it’s interesting to you, you might also want to read my posts on Couple’s Work.
I hope this helps you!
Please forward this to anyone that comes to mind if you think they’d enjoy it. :)
