How can I stop thinking so much?

A friend told me today ‘don’t think so much”. I understand that I often way overthink things, finding conspiracies, implications and underlying intentions that very probably don’t exist but I’m not sure how to shut that off. It’s the way my mind works. I analyze everything. I never want to be caught off guard so I try like hell to stay one step ahead. Often this actually leads to the very thing that I am trying to avoid. I end up so caught up in the analysis that I’m blindsided by something that hadn’t occurred to me yet. My solution is to add this found thing into the arguments I have in my head, with myself of course but also with countless known or unknown people. None of whom are arguing with me at all. The arguments all exist inside my head. Still I try not to be caught unaware so that I’m not the fool. This becomes a problem when I push away or keep others at a distance because that actually is the intention of all of those arguments I have with myself. If I don’t let others in then I can avoid being hurt. I know this will never lead to any real long living happiness but I am compelled to do it any way. I don’t want to stop thinking or analyzing but I’d like to turn it into something constructive that will help me find a true kind of happiness that really comes from allowing myself to care for other people and more importantly to allow them to care for me. I don’t think I ever understood the expression ” No man is an island” Sometimes I get the feeling that I do understand but that quickly goes away. I’m not sure that it fits here at all but for some reason it popped into my head as something that could be pertinent but I really don’t understand why. Maybe it will reveal itself. Maybe it won’t. I do believe that my obsession with analysis could be used for good. I think I have used it for good. I think it’s where my stories live. I just don’t know how to let it go on a personal level so that I might let someone in. I’m beginning to think that is one of the underlying reasons for distracting myself from writing. To put yourself out there in writing for all the world to see is also allowing yourself to be open to judgement and praise both of which are extremely terrifying to me. It’s so much easier to let my stories live in my head where the worst critic and judge also lives. That seems a funny thing to say but it’s true. It takes a bit of courage to allow even just one person inside to see where I live, let alone into the rooms where my stories reside. I am as fiercely protective of them as I am of my children. I don’t want them to know disappointment or hurt or ridicule and try to keep them from ever knowing that. But if I protect them too much then I doom them to never becoming everything that they could be. The stumbles & the sometimes resulting embarrassments are all part of the journey and without them they can not grow and become who they will be. So, there comes a time to turn them loose.Let them figure out what they are going to become and sometimes that means getting hurt by real or imagined events. But without it they can never feel the joy of being alive and they never get to experience the triumphs of overcoming such unfortunate events or the triumph that exists when trying something new actually turns out well and just as hoped. I think I should stop now. I’m starting to sound like a whole lot of trite or tripe as I initially wrote and made me laugh when I read the sentence over. I’m not sure which fits better. Haha. This is the extent of my writing for tonight. But I am happy with it and I chose not to address that past few non writing days.