Sharon Kalimba Urusaro recently released "The Overthinker”, a poetry collection that shades light on overthinking and what it looks like in situations rooted in shame, anxiety and healing.
"Most of us identify as overthinkers from time to time but we rarely know what we are overthinking about or are unable to articulate what is going on in our minds while we do," she explains.
Urusaro notes that the book which encompasses 30 poems is a painting of what those thoughts tend to look like, adding that it also depicts issues the overthinkers are likely to have been through and still are.
In the book, Urusaro shares intimate details of mental battles she captured on her journey to embrace the freedom from her obsessive thoughts.
As she writes "why hide away from your emotions, isn't that just wild?", Urusaro encourages people to instead lean into their sensitivities even if that might just come off as overthinking, overanalyzing or overindulging in what their minds are trying to make them pay attention to.
"This," she continues. "Is a necessary nightmare we all need to have for us to let go of our own constant self-criticism."
As a celebration of womanhood, Urusaro brings a much-needed catalogue if not manual for all stages of girl-ness that there is.
She navigates love, heartbreak, women empowerment, mental health and self-love.
"This is a portrait you take time to visit repeatedly," she explains. "It will have you dive deep into what ordinary words might mean to someone, and hopefully will shine light on how you treat delicate issues around women. The over-thinkers."
The Rwandan poetess who is also an award-winning filmmaker, producer and director declared that the book was inspired by her own tendency to overthink herself and a high sensitivity towards the inequalities women face.
"I felt like writing a guide to younger girls, made up of such thoughts so that when they are much older, they will not have to overthink anything since they will have been warned about the reality awaiting them. Whether in school, love, career, society, anything really," she said.
Urusaro also declared that "The Ovethinker" highlights the perspectives of sexual violence, rigid tradition that is set up against women and relationship issues that tend to follow each chapter.
Poems titled "I don't wanna have to" and "undo" were her hardest to write. She said it's because she was afraid that the emotions in there were kind of raw, and might be triggering to the readers, especially to rape or sexual assault survivors.
Urusaro said it took her two and a half years to put the collection together, adding that the copies will soon be available at Ikirezi Bookshop and Charisma Bookstore.