Intrusive Thoughts
How to eliminate Intrusive thoughts
In
almost all cases of general anxiety‚ the driving factor
fuelling the sensations is anxious thinking. Without addressing
these intrusive thoughts‚ there can be little success
in eliminating the root of the anxiety.
People
who experience anxiety and panic attacks frequently have
to deal with the negative side–effects of unwanted thoughts
that creep into their minds. These thoughts can range
from worries about health‚ concern over loved ones‚ or
even fears that do not make any rational sense at all
but continue to linger in the mind.
Sometimes‚
the unwanted intrusive thoughts come from previous experiences;
other times they are simply bizarre‚ leaving the person
worried as to why such strange thoughts are occurring.
In all these cases‚ the person is upset by the anxious
thoughts because they are causing distress and worry.
I will guide you through a simple two–step process that
is in part related to the One Move which I teach but tailored
specifically to dealing with anxious thinking.
Anxious
Intrusive Thoughts
Tackling anxious intrusive thinking effectively requires
a two–pronged approach. To eliminate the negative thinking
patterns‚ there needs to be a shift in attitude along
with specific visualization tools.
The
Attitude Shift
It
is not the intrusive thoughts in themselves that cause
you distress. It is how you are responding to those thoughts.
It is the reaction you are having to the thoughts that
enables them to have influence and power over you. In
order to better understand how unwanted thoughts come
about‚ it helps to paint a playful visual picture of how
this happens. This is a fictional example and will help
you better understand how to deal with the issue.
Imagine
yourself standing on a street and all around you thoughts
are floating lazily by. Some of the thoughts are your
own‚ other thoughts are from outside sources you access
such as newspapers‚ TV‚ magazines‚ etc. You notice that
when you pay attention to a thought it gravitates nearer.
The thoughts you ignore float on by.
When
you focus and examine a thought up closely‚ you notice
how it connects to another similar thought‚ and you find
yourself jumping from one thought to the next. Sometimes
these are practical‚ day–to–day thoughts such as bills‚
chores‚ etc.‚ or the thoughts can themed by the past or
a fantasy/daydream.
In
our imagined scenario‚ you unexpectedly notice a thought
hovering in front of you that scares you. This thought
is called “Fear X.” X could be panic attacks‚ ill health‚
or something bizarre. You find it impossible not to look
at the thought‚ and as you give it your full attention‚
this causes it to come closer and closer. When you examine
the thought‚ you begin to react with fear as you do not
like what you see. You further notice how that initial
scary thought is connected to more worrying “what if”
thoughts that you also examine in detail. The more you
try to escape from the thought by pushing it away‚ the
more it seems to follow you around as if it were stuck
to you. You try to focus on more pleasant thoughts‚ but
you find yourself continuously coming back to the fearful
thought.
Intrusive
Thoughts…
There
is an expression of “thoughts sticking like glue.” The
very act of reacting emotionally to the thought glues
the thought all the more to you‚ and the more time you
spend worrying and obsessing about the thought‚ the more
that glue becomes hardened over time. The thought and
all its associated connected thoughts are there in the
morning when you wake and there at night when you are
trying to get some sleep. The thought becomes stuck to
your psyche because your emotional reaction to it is its
sticking power. Thoughts are a form of energy‚ neither
good nor bad. It is how we judge those thoughts that determines
how much impact they have on our lives. Thoughts need
firstly to be fed by attention‚ but what they really love
is a good strong emotional reaction to make them stick!
Thoughts
that stay with us are first attracted to us by the attention
we pay them and then stuck firmly in place by the level
of emotional reaction we have to them.
This
is an important point. A thought–even negative intrusive
thoughts–can only have an influence over you if you allow
it to. The emotional reaction from us is a thought’s energy
source. What’s interesting is that either a positive or
a negative emotional reaction is fine for the thought.
Energy and attention is what it is attracted to. Once
you are having an emotional reaction to a thought‚ you
will be regularly drawn to that thought until the emotional
reaction has lost its energy and faded away.
For
example‚ if someone you know pays you a very positive
compliment‚ you may find yourself unintentionally drawn
to that thought anytime you have a spare moment. You probably
find it improves your overall level of confidence and
mood throughout the day. Sadly however‚ we tend to focus
less on the positive and more on the negative. We seem
to forget those positive compliments all too easily and
are drawn more frequently to what might upset us. Taking
the opposite example‚ if someone you know insults you‚
I am sure that you find the emotional reaction to that
thought much more intense and probably very long–lasting.
So
the basic pattern of thinking is as follows:
If
you are not engaged with an activity or task‚ your mind
will tend to wander to any thoughts that you are having
a strong emotional reaction to. In general‚ as they are
the ones that you are probably reacting most strongly
to‚ angry or fearful thoughts seem to surface quickly.
What
I am suggesting is that the most ineffective way to eliminate
intrusive thoughts is to try and suppress them. Thought
suppression studies‚ (Wegner‚ Schneider‚ Carter‚ &
White‚ 1987) have proven that the very act of trying to
suppress a thought‚ only results in a higher frequency
of unwanted intrusive thoughts occurring. This reoccurrence
of the thought has been termed the ‘rebound effect’. Simply
put: the more you try suppressing a thought‚ the more
the unwanted thought keeps popping up (rebounding).
So
how do we begin to tackle this problem of intrusive thoughts?
There
needs to be a change of attitude. By a change in attitude‚
I mean a change in the way you have been reacting to the
intrusive thoughts. A change in attitude will quickly
disarm the emotional reaction you are having to the fearful
thoughts. Once the emotional reaction has been significantly
reduced‚ the anxious intrusive thoughts will dissipate.
In the past you have probably tried to rid yourself of
the thoughts by attempting to struggle free of them.
The
trick‚ however‚ is not to attempt to be free of them but
to have a new reaction to them when they run through your
mind. We can never fully control what goes through our
minds‚ but we can control how we react to what goes on
there. That is the key difference between someone who
gets caught up in fearful thinking and someone who does
not.
The
thoughts that terrify us are not fuelled by some unknown
force; they are our own. We empower them and equally we
dismiss them. When you have an uncomfortable thought you
would rather not be thinking‚ your first reaction is usually
to tense up internally and say to yourself‚ “Oh no‚ I
don’t like that idea. I don’t want that thought right
now.” The very act of trying to push these intrusive thoughts
away and then understandably getting upset when that does
not work causes the thoughts to become more stuck to your
psyche.
It’s
like saying to your mind over and over again “whatever
you do‚ do not think of pink elephants‚” and guess what?
You can’t get a single thought in that is not related
to pink elephants.
As
long as you struggle with the thought‚ your mind‚ like
a bold child‚ will keep returning to it. This is not to
say your mind is maliciously working against you. It is
better to compare the mind to a radar scanner that picks
up on thoughts within us that have high levels of emotional
reaction connected to them.
To
not react emotionally to intrusive thoughts you need to
learn to disempower the “fear factor” of the thought;
then you must accept and be comfortable with whatever
comes to mind. Don’t hide from or push the anxious thoughts
away.
So
to take an example:
Say
you have fear “X” going on in your mind. That fear can
be virtually anything your mind can conceive. You know
the thoughts are not a realistic fear‚ and you want them
to stop interrupting your life.
Next
time the fearful thought comes to mind‚ do not push it
away. This is important.
Tell
yourself that that is fine and that the thought can continue
to play in your mind if it wishes‚ but you are not going
to give it much notice and you are certainly not going
to qualify it by reacting with fear. You know in your
heart that the thought is very unlikely to happen. You
have a deeper sense of trust and will not be tossed around
emotionally all day by a thought. Say to yourself:
“Well
that thought/fear is a possibility‚ but it is very remote
and I am not going to worry about that right now. Today
I am trusting that all is well.”
What
is of key important is not to get upset by the thoughts
and feelings as they arise. To avoid any fearful emotional
reaction to the fear/thought give the fear some cartoon
characteristics.
Imagine‚
for example‚ it is Donald Duck telling you that “Something
awful is going to happen. Aren’t you scared?” Give the
character a squeaky voice and make it a totally ridiculous
scene. How can you take seriously an anxious duck with
his big feet? This use of cartoon imagery reprograms the
initial emotional reaction you might have had to the thought
and eliminates any authority the thought may have over
you. You are reducing the thought’s threat. When that
is done‚ move your attention back to whatever you were
doing. Remember‚ you are not trying to push the thought
away or drown it out with some outside stimulus.
This
takes practice in the beginning‚ but what will happen
is that you will find yourself checking how you think/feel
less and less during the day‚ and as it does not have
a strong fearful emotion connected to it‚ your mind will
not be drawn to troublesome intrusive thoughts. To put
in another way‚ the thought becomes unstuck and fades
away because the emotional reaction has been neutralized.
In fact‚ that is the first step to moving away from anxious
thoughts — neutrality. It is as if your mental energy
was spinning in a negative cycle while you were caught
in the anxious intrusive thoughts. Now‚ you are learning
to stop the negative cycle‚ and move into neutral (see
illustration below).
From
this new position of neutrality‚ you will experience a
much greater sense of clarity away from the confusion
of an overanxious mind. Moving into this mindset of neutrality
is your first step. Thoughts generally lead us in one
direction or another — a positive cycle (peace/sense of
control and order) or a negative cycle (anxiety/ fear/
disorder). The next step is to adopt a relaxed peaceful
state of mind and move your energy into a positive cycle
of thinking.
You
might have wondered why it is that some people seem more
susceptible to worries and unwanted intrusive thoughts
than others. You now know the answer to that. The difference
is that the people who seem carefree are the ones who
are not reacting with a strong fearful emotion to an anxious
thought. These people see the same array of thoughts as
an anxious person‚ but they do not make a fearful thought
a part of their lives. They dismiss the thought or laugh
it off and have a sense of trust that things will work
out fine. They see no point in reacting with fear to these
thoughts‚ and that ensures the thought has no power or
authority over them.
You
may feel that you are by nature an anxious person and
that you will always react with fear to these thoughts
because you have done so for years. That is not the case.
Continuous or obsessive anxious thinking is a behavioral
habit‚ and just like any habit it can be unlearned. I
have outlined the quickest and most effective way to do
this by using a unique shift in attitude. You can undo
years of anxious thinking and reduce your level of general
anxiety very quickly. All it takes is practice.
