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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Thanks for the reply Mike! By not paying attention do you mean doing other stuff like playing ball or talking to my friends? Again my anxiety is so deep that now I get scared to be with my friends or other guys just because I will look at them and imagine myself attracted to them. I feel no attraction at all but that thought is bothering me so much that I am avoiding everybody in my surrounding. I am in college and I failed my calculus midterm because of that. Please tell me how to meditate. Thank you Mike.
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Hi Sandaga,
It’s the thought that the thoughts may be true that feeds anxiety too, giving the whole thing meaning that it doesn’t warrant.Thoughts aren’t true, they mean what you say they mean and they come back with the quality and meaning you previously wittingly or unwittingly gave them.
So get really clear about this… you just don’t want any thoughts to do with being gay… they are just not there, and you’re not even aware they’re not there, they’re just not there. In other words you’ve FORGOTTEN all about it.
If you doubt or question, project difficult scenarios (like not being able to have sex, not being able to be around male friends), try to fight, try to hold it down, giving any meaning to it whatsoever, it will repeat and what repeats becomes habit.
So be clear… you want to FORGET, and you can’t forget what you give meaning or attention to.
OK… so the main tool is IGNORE. This has “don’t care” built in and you know how to ignore. Now some tricky stuff…
Can you be with your friends???
Immediately you think of this and imagine all sorts of difficulties… that’s a lot of meaning and attention. So you need to think LONG TERM. And that means getting to forgetting asap.
SO… if the thought of being with male friends is freaking you out right now, then SET IT FOR REVIEW. That means make a DECISION to drop it for x time… could be a few days say.
So you’ve decided, that’s IT, forget about it, and follow through.
Because the alternative is that you’ll worry about it, put yourself under pressure, be in a state of high anxiety and ramp the whole thing up. That’s going in the WRONG DIRECTION.
Don’t put yourself under unnecessary pressure unless you’re confident of a WIN. And you will know when the time is right. Relax.
It’s the same process for any decision you need to make… your goal is NO attention, so if something comes up that raises a red flag and you start feeling anxious, then DECIDE, quickly, YES, NO or REVIEW, then GET YOUR MIND OFF IT.
DO NOT mull over having to avoid things because that is more attention. Just be content that things WILL settle, the anxiety will go, the thoughts will die away and stop coming and then your life will expand again.
But DO IT RIGHT or you put yourself back.
ALL you need to remember is NO ATTENTION. So do what you need to do to make that happen.
IGNORE mainly, set things for review, make quick decisions, keep your ATTENTION OFF the subject completely as much as possible to the best of your effort — that is the ONE THING REQUIRED, you cannot THINK your way out.
OK so as the days go by, the thoughts will begin to die away, but may be triggered by random things as your life starts to expand again… ignore, always, they will go. By this CONSISTENT attitude you tell your mind “this means zero to me.” Keep giving your mind the SAME consistent message because before you gave it massive importance, even fear, so your mind will not let you forget right away what you said was DANGEROUS! You see that? So keep clear and consistent.
Bear in mind that your thoughts will not be logical if you are anxious. For anxiety, I recommend exercise asap because it’s a FIGHT or FLIGHT state, a state designed to save your life in extreme danger. So exercise = flight, what your body expects and it will calm you down in the shortest possible time.
Click the link below to start meditating…
You can use this any time, any place, any where (but obviously not while driving, stuff like that). The more you practice, the better you get and the saner and happier you’ll get too.
Mike
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Oh… btw… yes playing ball would be great… activities that distract attention away for long periods of time are ideal; watching movies, reading etc also great. Sports probably number one! :-)
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Hi mike! I really need your help on this one. For about three weeks now I’m having this thought that what if I’m gay.
In my mind I love girls n just by thinking about that irrational thought make me doubt myself and I cannot live my life like this. Anytime I try to fight it the thought just keep on coming back over and over. I have my beautiful girlfriend that I love and now when I see her I’m troubled and anxious because I am scared that I might not be able to have sex with her when I’m anxious. Please help me I am having thoughts of killing myself even if I know that I will not do it I am just scared.
I thought maybe it is because I was homophobic, but I do not know what to do. I am doubting myself while I am 20 and very confident. Help help help what to do???
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Hi Sandaga,
It’s all about attention and a big part of attention is “meaning.”
“Thinking irrational thought make me doubt.” Doubt is meaning.
“Fight the thought it comes back over and over.” Yes, fighting is lots of attention. Way to grow thoughts.
“Troubled, anxious, scared”… fear is the biggest form of meaning. Massive ramp up. What you fear will appear vividly and frequently.
“Scared I might not be able to have sex”… we create what we fear.
I suggest you do the opposite… Don’t doubt or dither, be clear and confident about your choices, don’t fear… love, don’t fight… instead don’t care, let go, ignore.
Once you have all that clear, then DO NOTHING because anything else is ATTENTION. Then if the unwanted thought pops, have a don’t care attitude, smile and remove attention. Repeat… be consistent or you’ll confuse your mind.
Learn to meditate so you know where the OFF switch is and improve your ABILITY to choose attention. Look after your whole lifestyle so you have a happy biochemistry and a healthy body = happy thoughts.
Apply the same, to anything unwanted your whole life and be happy :-)
Mike
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This was so helpful, thank you so much!
I always seem to get these unwanted thoughts like ‘I don’t really love my boyfriend’, when in actual fact I do, otherwise why would I stay with him for 2 years? Yet I feel like if I try to rationalise my thoughts I’m making excuses and maybe I don’t want to admit that I dont want to be with him.
Whilst reading this post I felt myself almost wanting to cry. and constantly I feel like I’m making excuses when I think of why I get these thoughts. But after reading your post, I looked out my window, closed my eyes and asked myself how I felt, I instantly had an inner knowing that said, ‘I do love my boyfriend, so much’
I have heard this advice before, my brother, my boyfriend even! But I am definitely going to take it on board this time and start meditating! Push those feelings to the surface
Thank you!
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Hi Angelique,
What a lovely comment, thank you! You wanted to cry because some tension, suppressed emotion was being released which is beautiful in itself. People often cry spontaneously when doing yoga because of the same reason. Yes, look to how you’re feeling to get to the truth, and be a constant witness to thoughts, don’t identify with them.
Talking about all this always makes it seem complex when really, meditation is all you need, then you see it all so clearly in your own experience.
Good luck! :-)
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I concur with Tom – 100%
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Hey Mike!
i read your suggestions to ppl and wonder you are such a nice person who is helping a no of ppl. i also need your help
my name is suresh & i am from India. i have problem of lack of concentration. it started by the end of my xii std(2006) when i realized that i can no more concentrate like my earlier days. i tried to overcome it during my college days(2006-10) but couldn’t improve anything and problem further aggravated, concentration further degraded.
After graduation i opted for preparation of civil services instead of going for job because that’s what i badly want — to be an IPS
i have been preparing for this exam for last one & half yr but guess what failed in prelims itself. you must have understood why? because of inability to concentrate couldn’t perform well. sometimes i wonder that’s what i badly want in both my personal as well professional life-to be an ips- and still cant do it. till now i was determined that i can over come it but now i really feel helpless and don’t know what to do as even after failing in prelims i am unable to concentrate
i ll mention few symptoms to explain my problem…
1) random unwanted thoughts keep on encircling in my mind, very similar to metaphor of snooker you have already mentioned
2) there is chain of thoughts running in my mind unconsciously where one thought give rise to 2nd, 2nd to 3rd an so on.
3)urge to imagine is very strong. had i been in that situation i would have responded in that way or when i ll face that situation i ll respond in that way
4) imagination with a girl to to seek romantic and sometimes physical pleasure is also quite common
5) my family members often say i keep on talking to myself
6) all the time something keeps on going in my mind while i am studying, traveling, taking bath and even during exam etc except watching movie. i can concentrate only when i am watching movie and really feel good with peace of mind for few moments after watching it and wish that i my mind always remain like this but soon random thoughts will capture my mind
7) its like i am drowned in ocean of thoughts
8) probably you may be wondering that how much would i write so i end with a last metaphor to explain my situation. i am like a magnet who is trying to repel iron particles(thoughts) but doesn’t matter how hard i try cannot overcome it
plz help me i have tried meditation but couldn’t succeed…
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Hi Suresh,
The more difficult the meditation, the greater the need. So please understand that you need to gain peace of mind and control of your mental field. Meditation is the cure for your troubles, along with looking after yourself properly so that you are functioning the best you can… quality sleep, exercise, diet etc.
If your mind is whirling then listen intently for the next thought to pop, or rivet your attention onto some external object. Do it for 10 seconds… this will stop thoughts. Now to stop thought habits endlessly repeating on and on, you need to maintain that level of awareness. At first, very hard to do but with practice, it gets easier and easier. It’s simply returning to you natural state of being, simple awareness of being.
That is your place of power… the power to think on purpose, the power to choose attention, the power to notice arising thoughts and decide if they mean anything or are useful.
So the first step is to figure out the OFF switch. That I’ve explained. Now…begin to slowly bring your attention to what you’re doing. Not split attention; half thinking, half doing, all semi-consciously automatic, no. Full attention to your doing in this moment.
Then again, with practice, this becomes a meditative flow, so that all your doing is with full choice, full awareness. It’s a great habit to say “I AM reading this book” “I AM washing dishes” etc as you start a new activity, state your intention to your mind. This gives a solid anchor and reference for your attention which is very helpful at first; easier to see your mind drifting once you have set your intention clearly.
These simple things have the power to totally transform your life, a totally different, better, direction.
So it takes clarity of intent, and commitment to the way, and then you will see the difference in your own experience.
Practice “no-mind” to stop thoughts, then “flow” — practice your doing with full awareness. And then look after every aspect of your well-being and make sure you are super-organized so that worry does not trigger the old way of thinking.
You can use the no-mind method as a sit-down meditation practice too if you want to get really good and speed up the process. 30 minutes-a-day works wonders.
Mike
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