Kufungisisa, or the danger of overthinking Bantu psychology

That mistake you made years ago that still haunts your mind, presenting itself as a pang of anguish every time you remember it…

That problem that looms threateningly on the horizon and takes your breath away every time you remember you’ll have to face it…

That relationship that’s draining your psychological oxygen and that you don’t know how to deal with…

That unpleasant pending task that you keep putting off but can’t get out of your head…

Like most people, your daily life is likely marked by a series of ruminative thoughts, worries that keep you from resting and generate a pang of anxiety every time they strike. These may be minor worries or bigger problems, difficulties you see on the horizon or past mistakes you can no longer undo.

The consequences of overthinking in Bantu Psychology

In the Shona language, a Bantu language native to Zimbabwe, there is a term for the anxiety that comes with this tendency to overthink: Kufungisisa, explains anthropologist Noemí Villaverde.

The word kufungisisa refers to when we think excessively about current life problems or traumatic events from the past, to the point that these thoughts become recurrent and obsessive.

However, this term goes further because it also encompasses the consequences of overthinking: from worry to anxiety, which often turns into anguish, to depression and, of course, the psychosomatic symptoms that this state brings, such as headaches. In fact, in the Shona language, the saying goes, “My heart hurts because I think too much.”

This small detail is revealing, since many ancient cultures made no distinction between reason and emotion, between mind and body; they knew that everything was interconnected. Today, we have forgotten that our thoughts not only determine our mood but also influence how we see the world.

Thus, we allow the voice in our head to take control and dictate the rules, robbing us of our inner peace.

How to stop overthinking according to Bantu Psychology?

Sometimes, the wisdom of other cultures can surprise us. In the Shona language, there are three words that serve as a kind of self-help path to escape kufungisisa and stop overthinking.

In fact, some psychologists working in the area are trying what they call “Vazukuru” therapy, following the three steps of this ancient wisdom to help people accept adverse situations, stop overthinking, and move forward:

1. Kuvhura pfungwa (opening the mind)

This involves developing the state of open-mindedness necessary to understand what is happening to us. If we keep our minds closed, we will remain tied to the ruminative thoughts that harm us, in the vicious cycle they form around us that becomes increasingly narrow, draining away psychological oxygen.

Opening the mind means accepting that we can do things differently, even if we don’t know exactly how to do it, and understanding that there is no single way to deal with problems. It involves being willing to change some of our most deeply rooted patterns and ways of thinking, knowing that doing so will help us improve. This is a fundamental step without which it is impossible to move to the next level.

2. Kusimudzira (rising)

At this stage, we need to go a step beyond the problem; we need to break down the barriers that ruminative thinking has created around us in order to make the qualitative leap. If we have truly opened our minds, all we need to do is ask ourselves a series of questions, such as: “What’s the worst that could happen?” This will reveal that we are nurturing excessively catastrophic thoughts.

It’s also worth questioning the veracity of these thoughts: “Does this thought have a basis in reality, or is it just an exacerbation of fears?” Another alternative is to question the usefulness of these types of thoughts: “What’s the point of worrying so much?” At this level, the key is to climb out of the black hole we find ourselves in and develop another perspective that allows us to maintain a more detached attitude.

3. Kusimbisa (strengthening)

At this point, we need to master psychological techniques to become more resilient, to prevent overthinking from playing tricks on us in the future. It involves deep psychological work to detect the early symptoms that indicate we’re worrying excessively and stop these thoughts before they obsess us and ultimately affect our emotional balance.

Strengthening ourselves also means turning the experience into a treasure, learning the lessons, and using them to generate a change in the way we relate to ourselves and see the world. In this phase, we make sense of what has happened to us by looking at the positive side, as it has allowed us to grow and become more resilient.

Through these phases a circle of experience is closed.

Reference:

Chibanda, D. et. Al. (2017) Lay Health Workers’ Experience of Delivering a Problem Solving Therapy Intervention for Common Mental Disorders Among People Living with HIV: A Qualitative Study from Zimbabwe.  Community Ment Health J; 53(2): 143-153.