A friend of mine is plagued with unwanted thoughts.
He’s been diagnosed with OCD (obsessive compulsive disorder) and I can tell how bad he is at any given moment by the number of times he calls me — he says I say the same stuff as his psychologist but I’m a lot cheaper! :-)
I mean… this is a guy who is bordering on reckless in many areas of his life but is brought to his knees with fear from thoughts that are totally irrational…
If I told you what they were you’d think it was silly but these silly thoughts dominate his life completely.
I don’t believe in the OCD label, at least not in his case. What I see is an extreme example of the issues we all face — the inability to drive our own mental car, the inability to choose the focus of our attention, the inability to see thought for what it really is…
Roll up! Roll up!
My friend and I have the same conversation over and over…
“How do I get rid of these thoughts?”
“You have to not pay attention. There is only one method — distraction. Pay attention to something else.”
Sounds simple eh? It is simple! The question is — can you do it?
Say you’re walking through a fun-fair when one of the stall holders is giving you the hard sell. We’ve all been there. He’s in your face basically, but you know instinctively that any attention you give him will only make the problem worse. If you even look at him you know he just won’t leave you alone.
Some thoughts can be like that — they’re in your face, they urge you in the strongest possible way to act out a certain thing.
Thought becomes you… unless you watch
I was watching a video clip of Eckhart Tolle the other day… He said:
“We notice only the content; we don’t see the field in which the content happens.”
I remember too, a lecture by Alan Watts who drew a circle and asked his students what the circle was. Some said a ball, some said it was the sun and so on. They were all wrong… it was a hole! We don’t notice the background.
Thoughts and feelings can have amazing power. They suck your attention right in and you have no power to stop it. They suck you in so much that you no longer notice the field (you), only the content (thought/feeling).
That’s the problem my friend has. I’ve told him the solution to his problem a thousand times but he’s struggling to actually do it. His thoughts, backed by his belief have too much power.
And make no mistake; we’re talking a lot of power here. OCD = compulsive = no choice. We all have OCD to some extent. Little or no choice.
Thankfully, over time and with constant practice, things are getting better but it’s a tough road and progress is sure, but painfully slow.
Trauma — useful or dangerous?
In his case, a childhood trauma was the event that started all this mess. Traumatic events have amazing power to affect our unconscious minds and generate fear. This is a good thing.
If you’re walking though the jungle and get attacked by a lion, it’s this very same process that stops you repeating the same mistake again. You learn when to fear a lion attack and that is a good thing!
But if trauma is attached to insignificant events, then those insignificant events take on the fear that should be reserved for lion attacks. Say your parents always fought at the dinner table and caused you to be always in a state of anxiety at meals times, then food would become something to fear, by association.
This initial cause can then be strengthened over the years by your attention until life-stopping phobias can result. Now we have a deep problem that’s really hard to shift.
Still… not paying attention to unwanted thoughts is the true solution. But can you do it?
Finding freedom
First, you have to see the field in which the content takes place. There has to be space between your thoughts. When there is a gap, suddenly you notice the thought arising. There is more chance of your being able to choose, when there is space.
But the real bottom line, the true solution, the therapy of therapies is meditation. This is the practice where you learn how to get space between thoughts — where you notice a thought and can look at it with curiosity.
This is where you learn how to be free, where you learn to say “yes” or “no”, where you learn where the off switch is.
If you have no freedom over your thoughts, then you’re merely a physical puppet of mind-energy — a proverbial “leaf in the wind”, with no control over yourself or freedom at all. It’s like getting into your car, shutting your eyes tight and pressing your foot down on the accelerator…
No, we want to choose where the car goes and be able to steer, surely?
You’d have to be crazy…
The other component to my friend’s problem is belief. Of course, he believes his silly thoughts are true… it’s his own mind generating the fear, so if he didn’t believe his own mind he’d have to admit he was crazy.
There are two problems with this. Firstly, he is not the content of his mind and so secondly, he’s not crazy. His mind is working perfectly to the program. It’s the content, the program, the conditioning, that doesn’t serve him.
So, he is not the content. He would still be himself if he’d not had that trauma as a child. Identification with content is a big problem. We define ourselves by the content, by our experiences. But that’s not us.
Our beliefs, experiences and thoughts are often random programmings of life… interesting, often beautiful, sometimes ugly but they’re not us. They define our personality but that’s not us either. “Persona” is Greek for “mask” did you know?
While we identify with all these things we aren’t free to choose something else…
The solutions…
The belief part has to be dislodged as much as possible by reason. In my friend’s case, explaining to him at length why his fear is irrational opens the door to him letting it go and being motivated to do the not-work of distraction — not paying attention.
If he still truly believed his fear was valid, he would never do what’s required because he would still believe the fear served him. Once the understanding is there — that the fear, or the habit of thought does NOT truly serve your best interests, you’re free to try to get rid of it.
You uproot unwanted thought and fear by practicing meditation. It’s tough to see the process for what it is in everyday life when your mind is bombarded by triggers and sensory input constantly. By making everything quiet you see the process for what it is.
I am the background
Here you are… “I AM”
There is the thought.
The thought happened.
The thought has no power unless I give it more attention.
I have choice.
Unless you’ve ever tried to meditate, you won’t understand how little power you have over thoughts that happen to you.
When I first started meditating over 20 years ago, the very first morning, I had 30 minutes meditation planned — I started off just fine… then 20 minutes later I remembered I was supposed to be meditating!
Twenty minutes!
Lost in thought
Thoughts are somewhat like snooker balls. One crashes into another into another into another without ceasing forever and ever and each thought sucks you in — in a word… hell. There’s no peace to be found here, no now, no joy.
We reap what we sow and thoughts are seeds. If you’re not choosing what you sow, you won’t be reaping what you want.
I can’t meditate… it makes it worse!
My friend won’t do it. He won’t do the not-work. He admits he’s lazy but there’s more to it. When he’s having a few good days there’s no motivation. When hell descends on him he’s highly motivated but often in a state of high anxiety.
By the time the thoughts and feelings have escalated into anxiety it’s virtually impossible to rein it in. You have to nip unwanted thoughts in the bud. Spot them arising and withdraw attention before they trigger big emotions and fears.
By the way, if it’s gone pear-shaped and anxiety takes over, the best thing to do is exercise. You’ve got no chance of calming down when you’re pumped with adrenalin.
Also, when he tries to meditate, he has to face his inner demons close up through what feels like a big big magnifying glass and that feels scary at first. The solution to that is to start with relaxation techniques — get out of “fight or flight” and into “the relaxation response”.
So anyway, I can’t convince him and he’s chosen to attempt to just try and not pay attention. This is the slow route as I said, because it’s difficult to see the process with a thousand thoughts, sensory input and internal triggers going on.
You can’t fight the darkness
Meditation teaches you that attention is where the power is. You cannot try to suppress or fight any thought or feeling. That’s just more attention!
The solution is to notice it, let it be, let it go and choose a different focus.
Put your attention onto something else. As difficult as it is to ignore the fair ground stall holder, that’s what’s required. If you go up to him and scream and shout for him to go away, things are likely to get even nastier :-)
At first it takes every ounce of inner strength to hold your attention onto something else, to ignore the unwanted thought. But as you persist, it gets easier and easier until eventually, the thought has no more power over you.
Ignore thoughts you don’t want and hold onto thoughts you do want. That is power! It’s the power to say yes or no. And the same applies to feelings, which are emotional reflections of thoughts.
“I just wanted to say that since I read this article I have had no issues at all. What you wrote cured me and I am totally amazed by it. I am so impressed with the results, I feel totally different and peaceful.
I have seen so many health professionals over my problems, but none has ever come close to the advice that you give. Thanks Mike you have honestly changed my life.”— John Woods, Australia
“For the last week I’ve been practicing indifference towards unwanted thoughts + quick and intense shifting of attention to anything else.
When I started doing it, I got relief in few minutes as the quality of fear associated with these recurring thoughts was gone. Within hours I found calmness and peace growing within me.
It took an initial 3-4 days to have full grasp over the method and develop some more understanding. And now my thoughts have become very much reduced in frequency, and they have lost their power and don’t trouble me anymore. And it’s all because of one technique only.
I am sharing my experiences with other people having O.C.D. on internet and telling them about your website and trying to help them as I got it when I needed it the most. Sir, you have changed my life. and all that I can say is THANK YOU.”— Shivesh, India
Meditation is freedom…
…and that folks, is how you get rid of unwanted thoughts.
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Michael Kinnaird is the author of Happy Guide, the result of a 20 year exploration into what works for health and happiness.
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Well if by relating my story i can in some little way help someone else than it wil all have been worth it. It really is a scary path to walk on your own but i feel like i have turned a corner just by coming onto this site and opening up like i have done. I can’t thank you enough for your replies mike they have been of unmeasurable comfort and help! it’s always reassuring to know one is not crazy :D I gave the meditation a try last night and i have to say that while it was tough to focus my mind on one thing it did work. i pictured myself mountain climbing up a very tall and dangerous mountain. For me the mountain symbolised my struggle, my unwanted thoughts that i was trying to overcome inch by inch, step by step. Some days you are walking along and it isn’t very difficult and these symbolised the good days, but then you’d suddenly hit a sheer cliff face or fall down a crevase and these days naturally symbolised the bad days when every second feels like an immense struggle and you have to crawl inch by painful inch until you reach the ledge or reemerge into the open. It may seem silly but this analogy really works for me. Whenever i feel an unwanted thought coming on i will picture myself on the bad day and i will try and recreate the entire scene in my head. The tiredness in my legs, the freezing wind blowing against my face and trying to knock me from my perch, the feel of the crimpon as i wedge it into the ice to try and pull myself up. Of course by doing all of this it naturally takes my mind away from the unwanted thoughts and i return to a calm frame of mind. i will also give the passage meditation a try as it sounds like a great idea. I will keep you posted on how i’m doing and hopefully i can look forward to an unwanted thought free mind in 2009! Happy new year Mike! Hope you have a great time tonight wherever you may be :)
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Hi again Acm,
Thanks for sharing more of your story. I really think it will help other people through their own dark times.
Ironically, and my friend couldn’t see this when he was constantly struggling with unwanted thoughts, this whole process forces you to become more conscious. And that means more aware, more established as the real you, more free.
It feels that you are cursed but when you’re out, you see that it was a blessing because it forced you to take control of thought and not be enslaved by it.
I dislike the label OCD because the attachment and identification with the label is unhelpful attention that prevents the letting go of it.
I also find that OCD sufferers tend to be very intelligent and sensitive people. They have a ferrari mind–powerful and difficult to control!! So their “burden” in life is greater but also their potential is greater.
Yes you do seem to have a wise head on very young shoulders :-)
I can see there is curiosity to find what caused all the trouble and I can see how you could feel relief to discover the cause but I really don’t think it’s required and the danger is that all the “soul searching” is feeding the “problem” with more attention.
The problem becomes like a entity that grows and grows and takes over more and more conscious attention. More and more conditioned thought forms attach to other thoughts and the monster grows and grows.
To take away the monsters power you have to remove your attention from it.
Incidentally I saw a documentary about a girl with schizophrenia a while back. I saw another label which implies a real disease, covering up what is in reality, a normal brain where the wiring has gone wrong–the programming. Trauma starting a process of “monster building.” Here the monster is a seperate identity that the real person talks to. The monster also “talks” to the person. But it’s one brain, one person. One being.
It’s really easy to create two identities in one brain. Make up an imaginary friend and start having converstions.
The fascinating thing is that the identity we think of as “who we are” is just as false as the made up identity of the schizophrenic. Our false self talks to us constantly and we allow it because we created it and believe in it–believe it is who we are.
Thanks again Acm. Keep in touch–I’d love to know how you get on over the coming weeks.
Mike
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Thanks for the response mike it has really helped to put my mind at ease. For the most part i have tried to handle it on my own. I’m only 22 but i’ve always felt like i’ve had an old soul in a young man’s body :P I suppose i was afraid of what people would think of me if i told anyone, i had become ashamed of myself for even allowing myself to be so affected by these thoughts. I saw myself as having become weak and hated myself for it. I have someone to talk to now if it really gets bad but i haven’t needed him in a while. I found discovering websites such as this really helped me. They made me become aware to the fact that i wasn’t alone in my suffering and this was such a comforting thing to know. I feel as if i am on the path to recovery now. I never doubted for a second that these thoughts were not me and that i could become what my mind was trying to tell me i could become. Even at the darkest moments i knew that the voice in my head wasn’t the “real” me, but it really wares you out and brings you down to constantly have to battle with your own mind day in and day out. After all our minds are our last strongholds of defense against a crazy world. If we lose control over this then where will we be? i always figured that my condition was just a more advanced form of OCD that i used to suffer from as a child. It was never at the needing medication stage but i would obsess about being clean and also used to have a fixation with counting to the number 3 (rainman eat your heart out!) This went away and for many years i was perfectly oblivious to any form of mental struggle. I can only reason then that the depression that was caused as a result of the loss of my friend triggered this long lost form of OCD in my mind and then i really went to town on it! i suppose the mistake i have made is that i have tried to confront these unwanted thoughts head on. I have tried to discover where they have originated from to see if i could then dispel them from my mind. Of course having now read your excellent article i realise that this may not have been the best course of action. having said that i strangely feel a lot mentally stronger for having done that. I now feel as if i am capable of beating these thoughts through the power of meditation even though it is something i have yet to try. it is however not a route that i would even wish on my worst enemies. It was a very dark and lonely path and a lot of soul searching was done. For a long time i didn’t even know who the “real” me was and that was the scariest time. when i didn’t know who the man looking back at me in the mirror was. but through the power of prayer and a sheer defiance and unwillingness to be beaten, i have made it this far and i feel as if i am now ready to take the next step and to cure myself. Thanks again for the lovely reply it was much needed and appreciated.
p.s That’s great news about your friend by the way, i am really delighted for him. Hopefully some day soon i can find myself in the same position. Thanks again Mike… :)
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p.p.s. Do you have local support? A friend, relative or counselor who can help you if things get tough? It concerns me to think of you coping with all this on your own.
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Hi there “Acm”
I’m so glad you did open up and write in. I love the fact that we can connect, that you have an outlet for your pain and that maybe other folks can read your story and perhaps not feel so alone.
These are taboo subjects… thoughts of murder and rape and so on so I’m happy that you can talk about them here, anonymously.
It’s very disturbing, to have these dark thoughts “in us” and to feel we are maybe evil, bad, even capable of such things.
I feel relieved that like some other commenters, you are at least partially aware of your thoughts and not totally identified with them.
“You,” the writer of the comment, the connection you felt when writing it are able to distinguish the thoughts as “not you,” as content of your mind–albeit unpleasant and disturbing content.
Seeing the thoughts and “not you” is a vital first step but you need other tools to stop them arising.
Seeing the thoughts as “not important” is the next step. When they arise, as they will continue to do for a little while, shrug them off and give them no more attention.
You don’t need to examine why they are there. It’s enough to know that they are “not you,” they are conditioned by your past and your attention and giving them a quality of importance.
You don’t need to DO anything on a continuous basis. You don’t need to look out for them or hold them down or have mental conversations about them or worry if they will show up.
When they DO show up, attach a quality of “no importance” and put your attention onto something else. That is the simple method for removing all unwanted thoughts.
These thoughts have momentum because you’ve given a lot of attention to them in the past. You told your brain that they were important so you can reverse it by doing the opposite.
If the thoughts “insist” you pay attention then you INSIST on paying attention to something else. This is tough at first but it gets easier as you go. The “something else” can be anything but best to keep it simple and choose an external focus. Rivet your attention onto an external object.
I’m sorry for the loss of your friend. I’ve found it helpful to think of my losses as gains. You actually gained your friend for all those years you were close and all those great times and close connections were actually a gift no? Yes it ended but you still gained the wonderful experience of that person for all those years. It’s a different way of looking at loss that maybe could help you? It can help to feel gratitude for the gift of that person in your life although it may have been only a few years.
Like I said in the article, meditation is the ultimate therapy because your success at using the “simple method” depends upon your ability to see the thoughts as “not you” and also the ability to choose the focus of your attention.
It’s not easy to see how enslaved we are by our own thoughts until we actually attempt to meditate.
Meditation is the most wonderful process and has benefits that are really hard to put into words but it enables you to see thoughts for what they are and gives you freedom of choice. Your sense of identity also shifts from content–the quality and types of thoughts you have to the awareness behind the content–the real and true you. The more you practice, the more your sense of identity shifts into the real you, the more peace you have, the more joy and love comes into your life, the more choice you have.
Also, I would say that the quality your thoughts is affected by every aspect of your life–the movies you watch–which trigger old thought patterns, to your diet, exercise and sleep habits.
All these and more powerfully affects the quality of your thoughts.
To have more happy thoughts, create a happy inner biochemistry by leveraging the powerful lifestyle habits.
Ok, I best not ramble on too much but I’m happy to discuss any aspect of stopping this awful experience you’ve been having for too many years now. Btw my friend in the article is pretty much cured. The gaps between bad times are months apart now and he only triggers the old pattern because he forgets just how bad it is to go there! He is effectively cured–and he was very very lost.
I hope this, and the article and comments give you a booster and a good start in turning all this around.
Please let me know if you need clarification about any aspect of the simple method for getting rid of unwanted thoughts, or if I can help you in any way.
God bless
Mike.
p.s. I find “passage mediation” the most effective because the feedback mechanism is so clear. Pick your favorite prayer or scripture and repeat it slowly, in a meditation setting, one word at a time, like pebbles plopping into water.
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