Stuck in your thoughts?
As overthinkers, our minds hold our thoughts in high regard. It makes sense, because as overachievers, our thoughts have brought us a lot of success.
But sometimes, our thoughts paralyze us.
To illustrate how we get stuck in our thoughts, try this experiment:
I’m sitting at a chain family restaurant with my husband and another couple and their 12-month-old baby. The baby is enjoying the little pieces of food his parents are giving him, gobbling them up and asking for more. Then he spies the lemon wedge on his father’s water glass, and begs for it. Laughing, his father says, “If you insist!” and hands the lemon to his boy. The baby puts it in his mouth, and as the sourness hits his tongue, his expression changes from happy and victorious, to puckered up and grimaced.
Our minds symbolize our experiences in thoughts, images, & feelings.
Did your mind recognize this feeling? Did your mouth water? Even though you did not directly experience this lemon on your tongue, your mind can read the above words and create that experience for you. Just reading symbols on a page can replicate an experience. Pretty cool.
Yet we often confuse a symbolic experience (words, thoughts, images) with direct experiences (like actually sucking on a lemon). Using our example, it's like believing we just sucked on a lemon because our mind recreated the experience for us. And get hooked by them, we do ourselves a disservice. “Getting hooked by them” means believing:
· All of your thoughts are important;
· Your thoughts are absolute truths;
· Your thoughts are commands to be followed;
· Your thoughts are reality.
If I had believed the thought, “I have nothing to offer because I’m not as good/experienced/smart as other therapists,” you wouldn’t be reading this blog. But I value disseminating knowledge and helping people. So, I recognized that thought as just a thought, “unhooked” from it, and I put a blog post out to the world every month.
Just because we think it, doesn’t make it true.
When we take our thoughts as truth, directives, or reality, we tend to act in a way that keeps us stuck. We play it safe and act in ways to avoid feeling anxious, even if this pushes us further away from the life that we want or the person we want to be.
Sita attends one of the country’s top universities taking a medical degree. Each time she’s faced with an exam, presentation, or an assignment, Sita has the thought, “I can’t handle the pressure.” Believing that thought, she avoids studying until the last minute, and then crams. Her grades are suffering and she’s worried she has gaps in her knowledge as a result of her cramming.
Sita wants to be a well-educated, skillful doctor. However, she gets hooked by her thought, and behaves in a way that moves her away from the professional self she wants to be. Sita needs to disentangle herself from that thought, so she can act in a way that’s consistent with the person she wants to be.
How to Disentangle or “Unhook”
I’ve discussed a few ways to unhook from thoughts on my youtube channel. Unhooking takes a bit of practice, and there are so many ways you can practice it. The goal of these skills is to recognize that thoughts are just thoughts, and not something that necessarily need to be believed or followed.
1. Notice the Thought – This is where I start with my clients. When an annoyingly persistent thought pops into your mind, notice the thought. Write it down. You’ll start to see patterns.
2. Name the Thought – Is this an “I’m not good enough” or “I’m worthless” or “I’m lazy” thought?
3. Helpful or Unhelpful? – Is the thought helpful to living the life you want to live or being the person you want to be? Or is it unhelpful – moves you away from what matters to you or has you avoid feelings?
4. Name the Narrative - Our brains love to create stories so it can make sense of the world. These stories are also just thoughts. You’ll have common self-narratives that come up frequently. Give them names. For example, “There’s the I’m weak story,” or “Ah, I’m getting hooked by the “I’m a failure story.”
5. Personify the Thought – What does the thought sound like? Your voice or someone else’s? Is this your Critical Coach or Snarky Sibling talking to you? Politely (or not so politely) ask them to step aside, because their comments are getting in the way of you living the life you want to lead.
6. Be Pragmatic – Think it through. If you do let yourself get hooked by the thought and let it affect you, where does that take you? What do you start or stop doing when the thought shows up? Can you follow the more helpful thought regardless, even though your mind is offering something else?
Remember that these unhooking strategies are not one-offs (check out my post on persisting with strategies) and are not designed to “get rid of” the thoughts (because we can’t get rid of thoughts!). They are meant to create some distance, or unhook from the thoughts. Think of a marionette – right now your thoughts are controlling your strings, influencing what you do. Using the above strategies helps you snip the strings, so you are observing thoughts and you get to decide how to act in response to them.
Kira
The information on this website is for informational purposes only. It is not intended to be a substitute for professional medical advice, diagnosis, or treatment or to replace your relationship with your health care provider. Always seek the advice of your physician or other qualified health provider with any questions you may have regarding a medical condition. Never disregard professional medical advice or delay in seeking it because of something you have read or seen on this site.