Break Free (feat. Zedd) - Ariana Grande
“Courage isn’t a predisposition — it’s a habit. It’s born the moment we step over the edge, and strengthened with every small act that breaks the loop.”
Download the “Loop de Loop” playlist here
One More Try – George Michael
Before I was old enough to step into the world of latchkey kids, I used to shuttle between both sets of my grandparents’ houses. The schedules of who watched us alternated, but the setting was always the same. At my dad’s Italian-speaking parents’ home, the TV was always tuned to Spanish telenovelas — the closest thing to Italian my grandmother could find. She’d sit on the edge of the sofa, knitting needles paused mid-air, hanging on every overdramatic twist in the dialogue.
At my mother’s father’s house, the TV belonged to a different universe entirely: black-and-white reruns like My Three Sons, Leave It to Beaver, and his favorite — the technicolor Western The Big Valley. I spent most afternoons doing homework in front of that old television while the show played in the background. I don’t remember much about the plot or the characters, but I always remember the tumbleweed.
It would roll across the screen in those long, quiet moments — the wind, the dust, the sound dropping out. The tumbleweed always appeared right before something shifted: a reckoning, a truth rising, a choice being made. It carried that feeling of emptiness or isolation, a kind of emotional quiet before the story remembered where it was headed. A drift. A disconnection from whatever big emotion was about to break open.
And it doesn’t matter if you’re 45, 34, 21, 16, or 10 — we all recognize the device. Tumbleweeds show up in Westerns, cartoons, sitcoms — anywhere a director wants to signal stillness, tension, or the space between what was and what’s about to be. That loop of uncertainty. That quiet What happens next? rolling down the dusty path until the screen finally cuts to stage left and the next chapter begins.
But for so many of us, the tumbleweed isn’t just on a screen.
It’s in our minds — the thoughts that roll around and around, freezing us in place. Not because we’re indecisive, but because we’re afraid. Unlike in the movies, our inner tumbleweed doesn’t politely exit the frame. There is no clean cut, no dramatic pan, no shift in soundtrack. It keeps rolling until we consciously decide to step out of the loop.
Drowning (Avicii Remix) – Armin van Burren, Laura V, Avicii
I grew up in a typical suburb, but our street wasn’t filled with kids riding bikes or playing tag. It was mostly elderly neighbors — a quiet, accidental retirement pocket. Across the street, the house with the swimming pool once hosted a neighborhood party. Since there were no kids my age, I wandered off to the edge of the pool.
I’d taken swim lessons at five, but I wasn’t what anyone would call a confident swimmer. I had this fear of jumping into deep water — terrified I’d drown. I stood at the edge, debating the pros and cons with all the seriousness of a child who thinks her entire life hinges on one decision: stay dry and safe, or leap into the unknown.
Finally, I said screw it and jumped.
The water swallowed me whole.
Seven feet deep.
Too deep for my toes to find anything solid.
I remember sinking. A flash of panic. A bright light bursting behind my eyes.
Out of nowhere a hand grabbed me, pulling me back into the air.
My father.
I don’t know where he’d been standing or how he knew, but he was there the exact second I needed someone. He acted. No hesitation. No loop. No fear running circles in his mind.
Years later, that same pattern followed me into adulthood.
Tainted Love/Where Did Our Love Go? – Soft Cell
Transitioning from radio advertising to pharmaceutical sales felt like jumping into another deep end. I went from sleazy bar owners handing me wadded-up dollar bills to physicians with Ivy League diplomas and diagnostic vocabularies that made me feel like an impostor.
Most of them turned out to be less intimidating than I feared. But then there was Dr. Kelly. Harvard undergrad. Mark Zuckerberg’s family doctor. One of Facebook’s first friends. Friendly, but distant.
According to my counterpart, he had sworn off our company years earlier after a conflict — which I later learned was extremely common in big pharma. It meant I’d walked straight into a dead-end territory without even realizing it.
Perfect.
(That was sarcasm, in case it wasn’t obvious.)
I tried everything I’d been trained to do. Adjust the language. Reframe the data. Shift tone. Nothing landed. So I focused on his partner — a younger female physician who at least listened.
On a field ride, my manager flipped through the sales data and said, “You know, Dr. Kelly used to be a speaker for us.”
“Yeah,” I said. “I’ve tried everything.”
Ira looked up. “What if you call a Hail Mary?”
“What do you mean?”
“It’s a last-ditch effort — tear up the script and go rogue. Something like:
‘Dr. Kelly, do you know what insanity is? Doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result.’”
I stared at him. I couldn’t say that. What if I offended him? What if I ruined any chance at connection? What if I embarrassed myself?
But that night, I couldn’t shake it.
The tumbleweed rolled.
Back and forth.
What if?
What if?
What if?
And then — just like the girl at the edge of the pool — I reached the point where the loop became louder than the fear.
What could I lose?
Or more importantly: What could I gain?
On my next visit, my heart raced, but I went all in.
“You know, Dr. Kelly,” I said, “they say stupidity — yes, I changed that word after obsessing over it ad nauseam — is doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result. I could go through the detail again, but we both know it won’t change anything. So… what can I say that would?”
He looked at me.
A slow smile crept across his face.
He shook his head… and walked out.
A few weeks later, I saw it — the first prescription he’d written in years.
I guess honesty was the only language he actually understood.
And here’s what I learned from all of it, from childhood pools to intimidating doctors to my own nervous system spirals:
So many of us get caught in the endless loop of overthinking.
Ruminating.
Predicting.
Protecting ourselves from imagined outcomes using old, outdated pain.
But what’s meant to keep us safe so often ends up limiting us from everything.
Overthinking isn’t overthinking — it’s your nervous system bracing for impact.
Fear disguised as preparation.
Uncertainty disguised as logic.
And here’s the part no one tells you: Your passion isn’t a hobby — it’s a regulatory system.
When you reconnect with what lights you up, your nervous system shifts out of fear and into flow.
That’s why the loop finally loosens.
Because to break a mental loop that freezes the body, you need one thing:
the heart — the place where passion actually lives.
Break My Stride – Matthew Wilder
So what can we do to prevent overthinking in ourselves or our kids? Because let’s be honest — this happens to everyone. And if you tell me it doesn’t happen to you, you’re a bald-faced liar.
Shock the system — but shock it the right way.
Not with yelling.
Not with shame.
Not with the emotional equivalent of slapping the tumbleweed across the screen.
I learned this while watching the evolution of John’s coaches.
His first coach, Sam, was a well-meaning Temple undergrad — sweet, earnest, barely older than the boys. Practices were loose; games were kickball dressed up as soccer.
The next coach had actual D1 experience — mid-30s, Drexel alum, coached U19s. Kind, observant, but quiet. Too quiet for a group of nine-year-old boys buzzing like live wires.
Then came the new club.
His coach was 24, in his third year coaching this age.
And he was a yeller.
“The coach screams a lot,” one parent said.
Yes. He did.
And I yelled too — and it’s embarrassing to admit that. It was the only way I felt I could get anyone to hear me. When I spoke normally, my words dissolved into noise. By the second or third attempt, frustration surged and I’d raise my voice. It wasn’t about anger — it was the only tool I had to break through the static in John’s head.
It wasn’t yelling so much as trying to interrupt the frequency of his internal loop.
Sometimes it worked.
Most of the time it didn’t.
Because here’s what I eventually understood:
A startle doesn’t pull a kid out of overthinking.
It pushes them deeper in.
The tumbleweed keeps rolling because nothing disrupted the pattern.
In movies, what cuts to the next scene?
Not the yell.
The reframe.
The shift in story.
The repositioning of characters.
The tilt of the plot.
So what if we applied that same principle to our own mental tumbleweed loops?
What if the way out isn’t force — it’s a reset of the frame?
Here’s what actually reframes the scene: movement, grounding, passion, presence, naming the fear instead of outrunning it.
And I know what you’re thinking —
Okay, but how do I do that?
Let me show you. Not in theory, but in action.
Stressed Out – Twenty One Pilots
For so long, I wasn’t happy. I couldn’t name it, but it started long before adulthood. I feared the unknown and overthought every choice, terrified that one wrong move would disappoint someone. Overthinking doesn’t start in adolescence — it starts the first time we make a mistake and aren’t given the safety to know we can come back from it.
So we form internal contingency plans:
Option A if this happens.
Option B if that falls apart.
Option C if everything goes sideways.
My own loop began the day I jumped into that pool at seven and almost drowned. After that, I stepped back from the edge of everything. I became careful. Responsible. Acceptable. I picked schools close to home, chose jobs that made sense, stayed in lanes that didn’t require risk.
I didn’t choose what lit me up — I chose what felt safe.
Sure, I fantasized about something wilder. Driving to my radio job, I would sometimes imagine skipping the exit and heading straight to California to start over. But I’d talk myself out of it every time. Too expensive. Too unpredictable. Too wild.
So I’d park my car and walk into the office again.
But turning 45 did something to me.
Life is too short to negotiate with fear.
I didn’t have the answers — I barely had the courage — but I decided to align with my truth anyway. I booked a solo trip to Sedona. Justin asked if I wanted to take my mom or a friend.
No,” I said. “I’m doing it on my own.”
That was my first pivot point.
During those four days — without noise, without responsibilities, surrounded by the red rocks — I finally had space to ask myself what I wanted. What actually lit me up.
I signed up for a few sessions at a spiritual retreat, hoping I’d finally find an answer. One practitioner looked at me and asked, “What do you want to do?”
“I don’t know,” I said. “I used to write. I bought a domain and named it The Wild Rising. I thought maybe I’d start a gardening blog with parenting insight.”
She laughed and said, “I just got chills.”
My next session was something called DNA Light Body Activation. I didn’t know what it was. I half expected her to shine a light on me and reveal a roadmap for my life. Instead, she looked at me and said:
“You have a great capacity for love. People feel instantly recognized and warmed by you.”
My passion was… passion?
She told me to start writing again. To get on Substack. To speak my truth.
And in that moment, everything clicked into place.
The loop didn’t break.
It dissolved.
Daylight – Shinedown
Because when you reconnect with the thing that lights you up — you’re not fighting the tumbleweed anymore.
You’re walking out of the valley entirely.
And here’s what we forget:
We all have something that lights us up.
Something that glowed before the world dimmed it.
And that thing — that passion — is the map out of the mental loops we circle like vultures.
Every age has its own loop, and every age has its own way out.
At ten, the loop forms around safety — believing mistakes make them unlovable. Passion at ten is freedom without fear.
At sixteen, the loop tightens around comparison. Passion is remembering no one else’s path can be a template for your own.
At twenty-one, the loop is fear of the future. Passion is movement — taking one step without needing the whole map.
At thirty-four, the loop whispers misalignment. Passion is honesty — naming what you actually want, even if it shakes things up.
At forty-five, the loop becomes ache — living for everyone else. Passion is reclamation — resurrecting the parts of yourself you buried.
At fifty-five, the loop becomes reflection — wondering if you missed your moment. Passion is wisdom — knowing your experience itself is valuable.
At sixty-five, the loop turns to legacy — what will remain? Passion is imprint — letting what you love become what you leave behind.
The ages change.
The loops change.
But the way out is always the same:
Passion roots us.
Presence steadies us.
Truth frees us.
And once something inside you lights up again, the tumbleweed finally stops rolling.
Here’s the thing — you’re not alone. You might feel you’re climbing that mountain alone, but you’re not. I never realized overthinking was a thing until recently — I thought it was just me. Then I watched a YouTube video, read the comments, talked to my kids and my friends, and made a startling, painful realization:
Everyone deals with it.
Everyone wants an answer.
Let’s Go Crazy – Prince
So here’s your Hail Mary:
Admit your passion.
Reclaim it.
Revive it.
Begin there.
It doesn’t have to burn away everything you’ve already built — mentally, emotionally, physically. But when you tell the truth to yourself, the grip loosens. The tumbleweed drifts off stage left.
Because so often, the hope of what if keeps us stuck.
We stay on the hamster wheel — moving but not progressing, circling the same fear disguised as possibility.
And sometimes the most loving thing a person can do —
for you or themselves —
is create the break in the pattern.
Not to punish.
Not to abandon.
But to interrupt the loop that’s keeping both people stuck.
Because every once in a while, it takes a shock —
a disruption, a boundary, a brave “this isn’t working,”
or a momentary exit, stage left —
to reset the scene.
Not the kind of shock that startles you deeper into fear.
The kind that shakes the tumbleweed loose,
clears the static,
and gives you back to yourself.
That’s how the loop dissolves.
That’s how the next scene begins.
That’s how you reclaim the path that was always yours.
That’s how you become the light in the dark.
And maybe I learned that long before I ever had words for it.
I’ll Be There – Jess Glynne
Years after the first swimming-pool incident, I was at my cousin’s cottage. A storm hung on the horizon, but we went down to the water by ourselves anyway. I stepped onto the slick rocks, and the waves hit harder than I expected. They knocked me back again and again. I could hear my cousin shouting, but I couldn’t get my footing. The current pulled me under. My lungs burned. The water filled my mouth.
And then — a hand.
Grabbing me up and out.
My dad.
Again.
Somehow always knowing where to be when I needed him most.
That moment stayed with me — not just because he saved me, but because it taught me what it feels like to be lifted out when you’re drowning in uncertainty.
When you feel that way — when the waves of your own overthinking pull you under — you’re not alone.
Let The Wild Rising be that hand on your shoulder.
The one that pulls you back into breath, into truth, into yourself.
Because after all — my passion isn’t just passion. It’s helping others reclaim their own.
