The problem is that exposure must be done the right way. Otherwise, it can have the opposite effect and can actually empower and reinforce intrusions. Exposure that is done right must be willing and free of struggle. Many commonsense methods that seem to be helping you cope in the moment don’t fit these conditions. Specifically, your struggle with intrusive thoughts is what keeps them coming back. As a result, despite your best efforts and intentions, you are actually prolonging the problem.
There is a difference between coping with each unwanted intrusive thought as it occurs and embarking on a program to be done with them. You are reading this book because intrusive thoughts are making your life (or the life of someone you care about greatly) quite miserable. So you want to know what to do right now, as each intrusive thought crams into your mind. That approach makes perfect sense, and in this chapter we present the most effective ways of coping with each unwanted intrusive thought as it occurs. People have found this enormously helpful because commonsense methods of coping—as discussed in previous chapters—most often just empower the next intrusive thought.
When you are simply trying to make the best of each intrusive thought, your goal is to get through that particular episode of intrusions with the least amount of pain and distress. Learning to better cope with the next one is secondary to the main goal of just getting through the experience. As a result, there is often little long-term change. You have already learned that your old methods of coping are not helpful in the long run because they usually involve trying to avoid, reassure, justify, or argue with the thoughts. And each one of these techniques empowers the thought and makes it more potent and scary the next time.
But here is some great news for you. Every bit of information you learned so far has worked to change your perspective and understanding of intrusions. Every myth about thoughts you uncovered has helped change the way you relate to these thoughts. And you now understand why commonsense methods to cope actually increase the problem.
This chapter has two goals. First, to provide a better way of coping each time you experience an intrusive thought and second, to retrain your brain. These two work together. As you are coping better, you are automatically beginning the process of retraining your brain to be less fearful.
Six Steps to Reduce Distress Over a Thought
There are six essential steps for coping with each unwanted intrusive thought. If you practice them regularly, you will be breaking bad habits and training your brain to be less susceptible to future intrusive thoughts. You can remember the six steps by committing the acronym RJAFTP to memory:
R: recognize
J: just thoughts
A: accept and allow
F: float and feel
T: let time pass
P: proceed.
You can make up a sentence to help you remember the steps (for example, Robert just ate fries, tacos, and pie).
Step 1: Recognize
Pause and label. Say to yourself something like, “Right now I am having a thought that intrudes into my awareness. This is an intrusive thought. It has caught my attention because of how it feels.”
Worried Voice:What if I kill my son?
Wise Mind:This is an intrusive thought. You can tell because it feels so awful.
This is a process of observing yourself as you experience each intrusive thought. What emotions do you feel? What sensations make up the feeling that accompanies the intrusion? You are attempting to remain as mindful as possible, watching yourself from a curious and nonjudgmental viewpoint.
Both of these actions are counterintuitive since your alarm response is already labeling the thought as dangerous and pumping up your body to fight or flee the thought. So your goal is to be willing to allow these thoughts even when you are not expecting them and to try not to be blindsided by their appearance. That gives you the best chance of interrupting your ingrained response long enough to say to yourself, “Wait! This is one of those thoughts that feel dangerous, but isn’t. This is an intrusive thought.”
There is another element that makes this even harder. You can never be 100 percent certain that you are correct. There is always the possibility that you might be wrong.
Remember that whenever you experience the effects of anxious thinking, having even a 99 percent probability of certainty still isn’t enough. There is no risk that feels reasonable. You are looking for total and complete certainty. This fight for certainty fuels your Worried Voice and makes it harder for you to label your thought as an intrusive one. You focus on the content of your thought, rather than the result of a false alarm triggered by an eager amygdala. So the action of labeling helps you to practice the art of allowing reasonable uncertainty in your life. We will talk more about this important element when we discuss ways to practice in chapter 8.
Helpful Fact: Certainty is a feeling and not a fact.
Step 2: Just Thoughts
Remind yourself: dig up the information you already know—that these thoughts are automatic and you can safely leave them alone. Say lightly to yourself, “These thoughts are automatic and are best left alone.”
Simply stating these facts gently to yourself helps to disentangle yourself from your thoughts.
Worried Voice:Oh, no!
Wise Mind:Thoughts are just thoughts. Junk thoughts are still junk thoughts. No need to do anything.
Reminding yourself helps you differentiate between what you can and cannot control. As we have shown, the thought and the resultant whoosh of distress is automatic, which is what we call the first fear. This lies outside of your control. But remember: you have the capacity either to increase that fear into second fear or to leave it alone. Leaving it alone allows your natural calming process to take over.
Leaving these thoughts alone is a way to avoid entanglement. Anything you do at this point that involves effort tends to push first fear into second fear. This is the point where paradoxical effort prolongs the thought and makes it seem more dangerous. Think of the Chinese finger trap, in which you have to do the opposite of your commonsense reaction to free yourself. Leaving the thought alone may feel like the opposite reaction, but it is the best way to release the grip on the thought. Think of having a tug of war with thoughts and what happens if you just drop the rope.
Your job is to remind yourself of what you already know. Intrusions, whooshes of fear, and the tendency to label the thought as dangerous all occur very quickly. But you are working to remember at that moment to call up your Wise Mind and say, “I can sit this one out.”
Step 3: Accept and Allow
Accept and allow the thoughts in your mind. Do not try to push them away. This is a complicated suggestion, and many people ask questions about it and find it difficult to comprehend. We will talk about this later in more detail, but for the present, your job is not to distract, not to engage, and not to reason away.
Worried Voice:What if I kill him?
False Comfort:No, you won’t. You are just tired. Maybe you are unconsciously angry at your son. Maybe you ate some bad meat. I just know there must be some explanation for your bad thought.
Wise Mind:Accept and allow means leave them alone. Let them do whatever they do. Just observe.
Don’t allow yourself to start exploring the ideas or content of your thoughts. Don’t try to come up with a plan or solve any problem that appears to be created by your thought. When you do this, you are trying to figure out the answer to a problem that has no answer. Furthermore, it is not a problem!
What does it mean to accept and allow the thoughts? Accept does not mean “I am stuck forever with these thoughts and the misery around them, so I just have to put up with them.” It also does not mean “I have to accept the content of these thoughts that says I am bad, crazy, or flawed.” Accept and allow means that you are actively allowing the thoughts to be there, not wishing they were gone, because this attitude helps you grasp that the thoughts are unimportant. They do not require any attention or response. You might even welcome the
thoughts as another opportunity to teach the brain a different way.
Accept and allow also recognizes that you might very well get another intrusive thought. So when you are actively allowing the thoughts to be there, you are also letting yourself know that another one might follow.
There is a saying that goes, “The devil is in the details.” This refers to the truism that mistakes are usually made in the small details of a task. Sometimes apparently small details in your reaction can make the difference between allowing and engaging. There is a critical difference between thinking This is an intrusive thought or Thoughts are just thoughts as opposed to This thought is not true. The first two statements label the thought and disengage from its content. The second evaluates the content of the thought (Is it a true or false message?). It also adds a dash of self-reassurance about the content, thereby suggesting the content is worth considering. So the statement This is an intrusive thought allows the intrusive thought, while This is not true engages with it. The change of attitude from engaging to accepting and allowing can be very subtle.
Here is one way to understand what it means to accept, not push away, and also not engage with each intrusive thought: The voice of False Comfort always spurs on Worried Voice. Not engaging with each unwanted intrusive thought involves silencing False Comfort. That robs Worried Voice of the fuel it needs to keep spouting fears. Silencing False Comfort is one way of refusing to engage with your intrusive thought.
Remember that you can expect to feel the initial alarm. This is your amygdala doing its job. But right after that whoosh of distress arrives, your job is to keep False Comfort in check. Each of the following are habits of False Comfort, whom you are trying to silence. Stay away from them. When you notice False Comfort stepping forward, gently withdraw your attention and participation.
False Comfort wants you to
engage the thoughts in any way possible
answer any question the thought poses
push the thoughts out of your mind
figure out what your thoughts “mean”
try to determine whether the thought is “true” or “false” (but remember it is a thought, not a fact)
analyze why the thought pops up now
convince yourself that you would never do what the thoughts are saying
change your behavior so you avoid the possibility of acting on your thoughts
offer reassurance one way or another.
Every time you silence False Comfort, you minimize the commentary that follows your intrusive thought. As you are learning, the major problem with unwanted intrusive thoughts is not so much the thought itself, but the internal dialogue that follows. If you notice Worried Voice and False Comfort struggling with each other, find your way to Wise Mind, who will tell you it is a conversation not worth the effort.
Accept and allow is actually more of an attitude than a technique. It is an attitude that acknowledges that what you resist tends to persist. It is an attitude of willingness. When you allow thoughts to be there, you are no longer struggling. The thoughts lose their power. You have the attitude of Wise Mind. As you practice handling your unwanted intrusive thoughts with this new attitude, you will find that your old habits are initially hard to break. You are not yet at the point where you fully believe the thoughts are unimportant, but that is your goal.
Helpful Fact: Accept and allow is more of an attitude than a technique.
Step 4: Float and Feel
Float above the fray and allow the feelings to just stay there. Return to the present whenever you notice you are out front in an imagined future. Move from all that thinking into your current senses. (What can you see, hear, smell, and touch?) Concentrate on what is as opposed to what if. Surrender the struggle.
Worried Voice:I can’t stand this. I am having these thoughts. I won’t sleep tonight if I can’t get rid of them.
False Comfort:Can’t you push them away? You need to be relaxed and rested for the exam tomorrow. Just think about something else. A sleeping pill might get you to sleep.
Wise Mind:I’m watching you right now. You are entangled in your what-if thoughts. Imagining the future like this does not allow the present reality. Notice the floor under your feet or the sounds of the heating system. Focus on what you can sense right now. I’m sensing your frustration; feel it and let the thoughts just be where they are. Sensations change from moment to moment, so do thoughts.
Floating above the fray is a way to remove yourself from the turbulent experience. It is not about struggling with the thoughts. You will eventually observe your discomfort from a curious point of view, as opposed to immediately labeling it as dangerous or unendurable. Floating above the fray is connecting to your Wise Mind. Floating is an attitude of non-active, non-urgent, non-effortful observation. It is non-distressed, uninvolved, and passive. It is nonjudgmental. It is allowing thoughts to be there for as long as they happen to be. It is the opposite of entanglement.
Step 5: Let Time Pass
Allow time to pass. Don’t urge it on. Observe your anxiety and distress from a curious, disinterested point of view. Do not keep checking to see if this is working; just let the thoughts be there. They are thoughts. There is no hurry.
Worried Voice:I don’t know how much longer I can tolerate this. I’m freaking out; when will this be over?
False Comfort:Let me read the coping techniques again because they don’t seem to be working. Let’s do affirmations: I am good person; I am a good person; I am a good person. It says here that these bad thoughts usually pass in a few minutes; let’s count down the time.
Wise Mind:As far as I’m concerned, I could sit with these thoughts all day. My discomfort has nothing to do with being in any danger. These are just thoughts.
Allowing time to pass is one of the most important skills for recovery. Remember that any thought that produces a repeated feeling of urgency is a sign of anxiety. A feeling of urgency is discomfort, not danger. It comes automatically with the thoughts, but it is not a signal for action. Counting down until you feel better propels you into the future, increases your discomfort, and makes you fight the thought even harder. Checking to see if the steps are working is yet another way of stimulating them. Slow down. Let it be. You are dealing with discomfort, not danger. Time allows your normal calming reaction to take effect, on its own, naturally.
Helpful Fact: The feeling of urgency that comes with an unwanted intrusive thought is a false message from your brain.
While you are allowing time to pass, if you notice that you have reentered thoughts about the future and your usual catastrophic, worried, or judgmental commentaries, gently escort your mind back to the present. Notice that you are having some meaningless thoughts in the present. Whenever you notice that you are recoiling from the thoughts and struggling with them, go back to floating and letting time pass. There is no hurry. There is no danger. Pay attention to your feelings and sensations. Encourage your Wise Mind to stay present. Slow your pace. You can intentionally slow down, talk more slowly, and walk and act more slowly. You don’t have to crowd out thoughts or feelings. You might very well discover new sensations, new thoughts passing through your mind, and perhaps even new memories. Notice them as they pass through your awareness.
Step 6: Proceed
Even while you are having the thoughts, continue whatever you were doing prior to the intrusive thought.
Worried Voice:I feel really shaky. What if it comes right back?
False Comfort:Rest for a while. That should help. Take some time off. You just dodged a bullet. Don’t stress yourself too much. Take it easy.
Wise Mind:Feeling shaky is just distressing, not dangerous, and the thought that it might come back is just another thought. It does not matter if a meaningless thought comes back. I’m going on with my routine, my activities, and my life.
Remember that you are practicing new ways of relating to your thoughts. The most effective way to rob them of power is to continue doing the things you were
doing and had intended to do prior to the thoughts. Imagine that unwanted intrusive thoughts are terrorists of the mind. Just as terrorists work by making people change the way they live, feeling compelled to abandon what you are doing is giving power to the message of terror. Even if you are feeling afraid (that’s your amygdala doing what it is supposed to do) and even if your intrusions return, your most powerful response is to continue with your life as if nothing has happened.
You are in the process of learning a new way to deal with unwanted intrusions so there is no more empowering and reinforcing the next distressing thought. Your new attitude will rob it of its sting. Now let’s look at some of the most common obstacles to this goal.
Enemies of Acceptance
There are three reactions that typically occur right after an episode of intrusive thoughts. All are common. They typically provoke entanglement and paradoxical effort and undermine the ability to practice the six steps above. Understanding how these typical reactions interfere with recovery makes it much easier to practice acceptance when an unwanted intrusive thought shows up. They are guilt, doubt, and urgency.
Guilt
Guilt (and the reassurance-seeking it often stimulates) gets in the way of adopting the attitude of acceptance. After having gone through an episode of unwanted intrusive thoughts, some people experience a wave of guilt. They then ask others for reassurance that they aren’t a bad person or that no one was harmed by thinking such thoughts. We call this externalizing the commentary. It means that you are taking your internal interchange between your own Worried, False Comfort, and Wise Mind voices and playing that out with real people in your life. This is a form of reassurance-seeking: you are asking others to tell you that your thoughts are okay. And, like any reassurance, it provides temporary relief but ends up adding power to the intrusion.
Overcoming Unwated Intrusive Thoughts Page 12
