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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Really appreciate your response Mike. It means alot that I got such a lenghtly and useful response in such a short time. Thanks for your support.
In relation to your reply; we’re in a fairly peaceful situation at the moment. She knows that I love her, she knows my situation. The bf/gf feelings I have for her have been reduced quite a bit. I think that until I’m on my feet mentally again, I can consider being with her. I don’t know how long that will be however. My problem has being placing too much significance on little thoughts. Like I think every thought has an underlying message. It is comforting that she said that it didn’t matter for the moment as in a number of days, months, years etc. we eventually will get back together. Between now and that time, who knows what will happen. But she agrees I have to get back on my feet, mentally; no matter how I feel.
The more I think about my feelings, the more there’s a chance for distortion. I saw my counsellor tonight, and said similar things to what you suggested. It’s all down to not placing so much signifance on thoughts, and live to some extent not so analytical and be a bit more carefree.
I’m not longer going to be discussing my mind with X. Simply because it’s not helping either of us, and ultimately I want us to have fun as best friends.
What are your thoughts on this?
Thank you so much once again.
God Bless
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Anon
I dwelled on this some more;
What would I actually do if I was you right now? Clear and simple solutions — bearing in mind that we both agree that the thoughts themselves have no validity and are simply a product of your attention.
Being in such a crisis state has one simple effective solution and that is walking, mindful walking.
It’s cheap and you can do it by just stepping outside your door. It will burn off adrenaline and the rythmic nature of walking can calm you down. You’ll also sleep better.
So I would walk walk walk keep doing it ’til you feel better!
Don’t dwell on your problems — just be present. Solutions can come from a calm and open state.
So anyway, that’s the result of my dwelling and that’s what I would do in your situation right now.
I’d walk — ’til I dropped if necessary :-)
Mike
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Dear Anon,
Firstly I’m quite surprised at the lucidity and insightful nature of your description of events.
The intensity of unwanted thought problems is related to your general level of consciousness and it really seems to me that you are a highly conscious person i.e. not fully identified with thoughts.
Your problem is actually a wonderful description of how a little, fairly innocent thought can become insidious if given enough attention.
It seems to me that an additional layer of pain is heaped on by the fact that you really love this girl. Losing soneone you love is hard at the best of times but when it’s your own self destructive thoughts that cause it, it’s no suprise you’re confused and depressed.
I don’t know all the subtleties of your situation so please bear that in mind;
I think a massive factor in this could be the impending exams. Stress — the fight or flight mode puts us in a physiological state really not meant for calm rational thinking. Low level stress is low level irrationality.
The exams are there, they’re real and need to be faced so I feel it would be good to line things up in the best way to get over what is a big mile-stone in life and then deal with relationship fall-out later on.
Lining things up means making peace with your girl. Tell it was all your fault, tell her you love her, tell you still care for her but that with the exams coming up and your head all over the place, you can’t think straight. In other words, try to “pause” that. Put on hold if possible so you can sort yourself out and your head out,
Second, get your health on track. Get a solid sleep pattern, listen to chill-out music and relaxation tapes, have warm baths, gets some exercise and eat some fruit and veg.
All these things play into the situation you’re in and therefore you can affect how you feel about everything by being calm and well rested. Get out of fight or flight asap, then you’ll see things in a different way.
As far as specifics to do with the thoughts: If your anxious… you need exercise. You have zero chance of getting clarity or thinking sanely whilst even in a mild state of anxiety.
Anxiety can become a trigger to RUN. Burn off that adrenaline asap.
After that… listen to your heart. You love this girl, i know it. Trust your heart, and so these thoughts by contrast seem silly and incongruent.
I think you can recognize them as conditioning, you have that awareness to see you created this, by playing around with one little thought. That’s the power of attention.
The beautiful thing is that this awareness will now be with you for life and you’ve learned a powerful lesson about how dangerous it is to play about and give attention to dysfunctional thoughts.
Anyway, I think I’ll leave it there just for now because you may be able to shed some more light by reading this.
There is great hope here I think. Get rid of adrenaline, relax, speak nicely to your girl, pay no attention to dysfunctional thoughts and trust your heart.
Oh and get some early nights and eat fruit! :-)
That’s a job list for you :-)
I know you have a crisis here — the sooner the better for getting on top.
I’m here for you.
Mike
p.s. the advice about mindfulness is spot on.
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I also feel very hopeless right now..
I can’t seem to get out of this spiral. I’m so exhausted and worn out.
GAH
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Hi Mike,
I am currently in a horrid state of anxiety, obsessive thought and depression.
I’ll try and tell my story as simply as possible.
Around 3 months ago I started ago going out with my best friend (whom for privacy reasons we will name X). Before then, she was my best friend for over 2 years. She knows absolutely everything about me, my deepest secrets; which if were to be exposed on a widespread level, would cause me much pain and embarrassment. I know everything about her as well. This really set the foundation for a good relationship, which we both agreed would be long term (i.e. eventual marriage). I have always been one to analyze my thoughts in the past, but around 3 weeks ago a thought of doubt came into my mind concerning her. She did nothing to trigger this off. We have a very stable, honest, open relationship. I held onto that negative thought and latched onto it. I was scared and concerned that it was the truth. I then continued to combat that thought with good thoughts of X. These would only assist in giving it further ammunition. And it did.
Eventually I was thinking thoughts such as feelings for my other best friends (who are friends with X as well), I began to mock her (attack her qualities) in my head from time to time, then that advanced to having thoughts of being violent (I am a very peaceful and caring person), I would also silently in my head mock my family and have violent thoughts there as well, evil thoughts basically. These thoughts were basically against my very core, but my analytical nature forced me to consider them. Later that week I went to my counsellor, and I had really dug a hole from where I started. She advised me on mindfulness and living in the moment. She didn’t go into too much detail. I felt fairly good after this and continued my day. But then the thoughts entered again over the weekend. I couldn’t stand the thoughts which were entering my brain and attacking her and ultimately my core being. I ended up breaking it up with her (keep in mind that I told her every single thought that went through my head, I was completely honest). We were both still in love with eachother, but I was so lost in my thoughts that it was bringing us both down.
Whilst we agreed to be best friends, we couldn’t resist our closeness and intimacy. We continued to be intimate. We began to get confused why we broke up in the first place. The negative thoughts to some extent were a bit weaker because I had been practising mindfulness and living in the moment. I thought I would be strong enough to be with her again. I put it down to that I hadn’t really a clue that weekend previously on how to manage the obsessive thoughts.
We got back together around a week ago. It was good for the first couple of days, I still had the negative thoughts but not to such a great extent. They came from time to time and then suddenly one day they really ripped at my core. I began questioning what these thoughts meant. I thought maybe they had some underlying reason. A big question which has been on my mind – how can you differentiate negative feelings, with the truth? For weeks I had told myself – ‘I know what’s in my heart. I love X. Don’t analyze as it only creates doubt’. Eventually my mind began to attack my heart, and questioned whether I really loved her at all as more than a friend. She has cute mannerisms you see, and before these all came in I loved them, I never gave them a second thought. But the way my mind was building up it started to attack those. I couldn’t stop the thoughts coming in. From time to time my mind was slipping and I felt I needed to combat these by thinking positive thoughts about her. I began to struggle when I thought about her in a good way, because the thoughts would come and attack that. I also started to question – what is the difference between best friends and bf/gf? Is it just physical love? I feel so strongly for my best friends, that I ended up so confused.
I broke up with her again two days ago. It was fairly mutual. She could see that I wasn’t strong enough to go on and that it was hurting me and also her. We have exams around this period and she was struggling to cope with my problems. It was becoming a bit much for her to constantly be helping me. Exams are a very stressful time so this is entirely understandable, and relying on one person too much has it’s drawbacks.
So we agreed to be best friends again. I thought maybe this would cease thoughts a little so I could get back on track. Even though, my feelings of bf/gf love weren’t as strong my mind is still attacking her core and her mannerisms. It’s almost been telling me that I should severe all ties. Which is not what I want. I feel sick thinking about my life without her. My mind has been linking back to other events in my past, where people would frustrate me. I ended eventually severing ties with them, but there were other facotrs there (both of those people I thought about from my past treated me poorly). Because I gave in to some extent, through breaking up, I’m in a state of mind where I’m capable to continue giving in. I need to combat this.
I don’t want this to continue anymore. I’ve been seeing my counsellor twice a week for the last couple of weeks. I’m just afraid, that these feelings are the truth and are linked with my past. I’v tried to some extent to relax, but with exams pressing, my brain is having difficulty distracting itself. I know what’s truly in my heart. But my mind is running rampage at the moment.
Please help me get rid of these thoughts. I can’t see an end to this at the moment, and I feel sick that I’v given in to these thoughts, which originally had no meaning. But now they continue to play on my mind.
Thank you so much. It would mean the absolute world to me to hear your advice.
God bless.
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