Is oversharing a bad habit? How do you stop oversharing your personal information?
Some people think that oversharing information helps to promote healthy relationships. On the contrary, oversharing makes the other person anxious and feel uncomfortable. If you share your personal stories with someone, you cannot take them back. Even if you regret exposing the information, it is impossible to reverse what has already been done.
Oversharing will also cause other people to question your self-esteem and your boundaries. It also makes the people you are sharing with feel awkward around you. Oversharing can also be detrimental to your reputation, especially if you overshare on social media. If you share something online, it will remain there forever. As such, if you overshare your personal information, it may hurt you forever.
So, how can you stop oversharing your personal information?
Learning How to Stop Oversharing
If you don’t have boundaries, you may find yourself oversharing your personal information with the wrong person, co-workers, a trusted friend, etc. Do you want to avoid oversharing your information and become a good listener? You can start by finding out why you overshare and then seek to stop the habit.
Hypnosis Downloads
Do you sometimes speak without thinking? Do you feel your openness about your personal life makes other people around you uncomfortable?
You may get uncomfortable when around people, and you tend to share too much personal information in an attempt to make people like you. Or maybe you feel that sharing your intimate information will also make others open up to you.
Hypnosis is a safe method you can use to deal with oversharing. You have two options for undertaking hypnosis, including self-hypnosis and doing it with a hypnotherapist. If you go for self-hypnosis, you can use hypnosis audio to hypnotize yourself.
Hypnosis Downloads offers you hypnosis audios that you can use to hypnotize yourself. Stop Oversharing is hypnosis audio by experienced hypnotherapists that will help you deal with oversharing. It puts you in a deep relaxation state where your subconscious mind is ready to accept positive suggestions. While you are in the deep relaxation mode, you realize that:
- You become better at slowing down and listening keenly
- You can read the room and context while speaking
- You’ll find that people are more comfortable with you not sharing intimate details
- You deal with the feelings of low self-esteem, and you abide by the implicit social rules
You can download the audio and listen to it with your friends and relatives. You can listen to the hypnosis audio on your computer, mobile device, or the free app that you receive after completing the purchase.
Why Do I Overshare Too Much Personal Information?
People overshare their private information for various reasons, including:
Poor Boundaries
Boundaries refer to the limits you have within your relationship.
Sometimes, the boundaries with your partners can be explicit. A person may tell you outright what they are and are not comfortable with.
If you are in relationships with no boundaries, you may find yourself oversharing your personal information. The person you are speaking with may feel uncomfortable when you reveal private information, but they may not say it. If they don’t say it, you may not realize you are doing it.
Poor Social Cues
If you don’t have enhanced social skills, you may not have the ability to read the social cues. “Reading the room” is the ability to read how other people in the room feel and think. Although nobody can read the social cues with perfection, it’s essential to read the nonverbal communication cues in the room.
Nonverbal communication refers to posture, eye contact, tone, etc. When you learn nonverbal communication is not favorable, you can stop talking.
Anxiety
Anxiety is a significant reason why people overshare their information. If you are uncomfortable around a group of people, you might find yourself oversharing your experiences. The habit can be due to the need to connect with other people.
However, you may realize later that you’ve overshared your information, and you are forced to start apologizing and attempt to correct the mistake. The need to apologize can make you more anxious, making a frustrating vicious cycle.
A Family History of Sharing
If your family has a history of openly talking about anything, you might find yourself oversharing your information even with the wrong people. Sharing the information may be what you think is the appropriate thing to do.
A Desire for Intimacy
You may find yourself oversharing your intimate information because you need to be close to someone else. You can share the information with the other person hoping that they’ll also do the same. Or you hope the story will pull the other person close to you.
However, intimacy is not something you can rush. It requires patience and building trust with your close friends.
Being Under Drugs Influence
Being under alcohol or drugs influence can cloud your judgment. Being under the influence makes it easy for you to overshare your personal life story.
The drugs and substances lower your impulse control and inhibitions. They can also reduce your feelings of social anxiety, increasing the likelihood of oversharing your details.
Frequent Use of Social Media
If you follow someone on social media who tends to share every detail of their life, you may find yourself oversharing.
Is Oversharing a Response to Trauma?
Oversharing can be a trauma response. If you are going through some trauma in your life, the stress and negative feelings can spill out of you as you speak with others. Most people will share their traumatic experiences with co-workers, close friends, family members, and other acquaintances without knowing the intensity of what they are sharing.
Oversharing about your traumatic experiences means making your emotional setbacks and painful experiences the point of your conversation. Perhaps, you want to gain sympathy from the other party. Additionally, oversharing traumatic experiences about others may not help in building relationships.
Social media encourages trauma dumping. It may feel easier to post about your traumatic frustrations on social media instead of talking about them to another person. You may feel safer sharing your emotions behind a screen. If you are going through a traumatic experience, it’ll be best to avoid social media.
How Is Oversharing a Symptom?
Experts say that oversharing is a symptom of subconsciously controlling our anxieties in a process known as self-regulation. As you try to hold a conversation with the other person, you can use a lot of energy trying to manage the impression the other people have of us.
How Do You Stop Oversharing?
If you realize that you overshare your information, there are several ways you can use to deal with it. Awareness is an essential step towards getting help. Recognizing that you have a problem enables you to identify how to deal with it.
Fortunately, hypnotherapy is an effective method that you can use to deal with your oversharing problem. Hypnosis puts you in a deeply relaxed state where you can bypass the cognitive part of the brain and use your subconscious. Hypnosis works when our subconscious mind is ready to accept positive suggestions to help us deal with the negative thoughts that force us to overshare.
Avoid Taboo Topics
If you want to stop oversharing, one of the rules you should follow is to avoid culturally taboo topics. Such topics include medical and mental health conditions, sex, politics, religion, and personal details about your co-workers.
It would help if you also avoided money topics, including how much something costs or how much you earn. Such topics are emotionally-charged and tend to be controversial. You shouldn’t pay attention to such topics as they may have serious consequences.
Practice Active Listening
Active listening means paying a lot of attention to what the other person says in a conversation. You don’t listen so that you can talk, but so that you can understand the other person.
As an active listener, you are less likely to overshare your personal information as you read social cues.
Note Down Your Thoughts
Writing is an excellent activity to help relieve your anxieties. When you feel like oversharing your experiences, write them down on your phone or notebook. Ensure you don’t send it to the other person.
Avoid Social Media
As mentioned earlier, it is easier to share your experiences on a platform instead of sharing them with someone else. The platforms offer an ideal space for oversharing. Therefore, it will be best to avoid social media when you feel like oversharing.
Designate a Sharing Place
If you don’t have anywhere to relieve your emotions, you might find yourself oversharing to anyone who dares to listen. Therefore, you can create a space to share your emotions openly without the risk of oversharing.
Some of the options you can use include journaling your emotions, having a therapist or a willing friend, venting your frustrations on your pet, etc.
Conclusion
Oversharing puts you in an awkward position, especially if you overshare sensitive information. It also makes the other person feel uncomfortable. In dealing with your oversharing issue, you should start by finding out why you overshare. You can also use other techniques such as writing your emotions down, being an active listener, designating a place where you can vent, etc.