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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Mike, if you have ever wondered if your words make a difference, trust me, they do. You just talked this old man down from the ledge. It will be a constant fight and check this check that sort of thing for a while, but at least I feel a little more confident that I’m not “totally” crazy. I will touch base with you in a week or so and let you know what is happening. What a kind soul you are to take time out of your life to help someone that you do not know. Who knows, maybe I can talk someone down someday. Best regards my friend…Jeff
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Wow, thank you. Constant low level anxiety can make you think you’re crazy Jeff, because anxiety is for running away or fighting danger. Logical thinking is suppressed, so when the danger isn’t real, we get drawn into this downward spiral. I’m glad I could help you Jeff. Stay Solid, don’t be tempted to dwell once you’ve resolved the issues that bring you to the point of letting go. If you can’t resolve those, talk to me, or just set them for review, so you can let go now. Good luck.
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Thank you Mike, so very much. I’m trying my friend….
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No Worries Jeff, just trust me, give it no attention at all for a week, see what happens.
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Thank you Mike. The MOST reassuring thing that you have said to me, (or that I am able to comprehend right now), is “you don’t want her to go away, you want the anxiety to go away”. That’s what I keep telling myself but after you have evaluated all that I have said to you and you say the same thing, well, it’s a huge help and I may be able to feed off of it for a few hours :-) I have but on more question; any thoughts on why I am filled with so much dread about actually seeing her again or about the next phone call?
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Yes, fear is very primitive, it tells you to stay away from the thing you fear, whether it’s lions or whatever. As I say, in a primitive way you see her as the cause, but she is not.
What would happen if I could hard wire your brain so you were unable to think an anxious thought about her? All I’m asking is that you make that happen, by consistently turning attention away, not thinking, analyzing, dwelling, looking for reasons, none of it. Nothing. Then the anxiety will subside, and you can have a great relationship again.
See… the mind easily creates habits, and what you fear you see everywhere, so to get rid, make the decision to stop thinking and then as soon as it comes, see it as irrelevant and rivet attention away. Just keep doing that consistently and don’t be sucked in.
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You get stuck in a never ending loop trying to think your way out of anxiety, it useful for lions, for this it won’t work, and the test is “if I hard wire your brain so it can’t think about this, is the problem still there?”
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I suppose that I have to believe that about myself, and how can I feeling like I do? I have dozens of her photos all around me, we talk on the phone / skype two or three times a day and text constantly, but it feels forced and unnatural to me now since the episode coming home. I do not want to feel this way, I absolutely hate myself for it. I love her and I know that I do, I just can’t understand why I have these feelings if my love for her is true. I shouldn’t feel this way about anyone, least of all my child. She has mentioned me coming to visit her and the thought of it absolutely terrifies me, I just don’t know how I will behave. All of this is causing me to avoid her, SHE has become a trigger! She told me earlier that she had a surprise for me, I became petrified because I thought she may be coming to visit. Why is that??? Am I trying to get past her? Am I just hanging on for her? The last thing that I want to ever do is hurt my child in ANY way. I have spent the last 18 years protecting her worrying about her CONSTANTLY and I just don’t understand why I feel that it may be slipping away. I still worry about her, but not like I use to because THIS is pretty much all that occupies my mind now. If she is out at night or something or driving then I worry. Pretty much the only few time that I have had any relief from these feelings is a few times that she has been on a plane and on a couple of dates. Then my mind switches to worrying about those things. Mike I am truly sorry to bug you with this. I am not your responsibility but your’s is the ONLY website that has given be hope. I have not commented or communicated with anyone else on this matter other than my wife. I do appreciate what you are telling me….Jeff
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As I say, you have to get to the point of letting go.
She is 18, she is independent now, your job is kinda done. Well done! If she needs your advice, you can be sure she’ll ask. If you haven’t taught her not to get into a car with strangers or walk down dark alleys, then it’s prob too late, or you should have a word.
I am not reading any reasons not to let go. Let me put it this way… what do you want to happen? Maybe talking 3 times a day is too much?
With worries, focus on “What can I do?” And then action it, and drop it. Endless worry achieves nothing.
For my son, I will go with what he wants re contact. At a certain age, there is an instinct for independence, especially with boys.
I think it’s great that she has plans for you. Hmm maybe you feel there’s too much contact?
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See,that would scare me too if I felt that there was too much contact. I’m not feeling like she shouldn’t be independent, she is VERY independent. What I fear are feelings that I just want her to “not be there” anymore. I just don’t understand where this all came from or why. Can anxiety do this or is it something else, much deeper? Thank you again….
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She is at the center of you feeling bad all the time, but she’s not the cause. Sooner or later you’re going to want the pain to stop. That’s what you fear and of course that creates a tremendous amount of confused feelings. Cutting of all contact is a solution, but it’s not the right one, neither is killing yourself :-) It’s not her you want to go away, it’s the anxiety, and it won’t while you continue to think all this means anything, or you have fear.
Decide what you want to happen, get to the place of letting go, then ignore all thoughts about it.
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Don’t worry where it all came from, it doesn’t matter, but it prob came from thinking a fearful thought and ramping it up from there.
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Hello mike. I have had anxiety issues since I was a kid and became a full blown agoraphobic when I was 17 and withdrew into my room for 2 1/2 years. I somehow managed to overcome than and lead a somewhat productive life. About every 2-5 years some unnatural unwanted thought pops into my head from no where and it takes me several days or a week to get past it, and I don’t really know how I do manage to do that. Recently I was visiting my 18 year old daughter who lives about 300 miles away woth her mother. On my way home I suddenly became overwhelmed with guilt and then sudden feeling that I was saying goodbye forever.
That’s been 8 weeks ago and the fear of that moment has not left my mind for a waking moment. I am petrified that I am either wishing her away or something even worse. It has gotten so bad that I almost fear talking to her on the phone for fear that I may say something hurtful to her. What is worse is that I am brginning to feel like “she’s not real”. This REALLY scares me because I feel like it is just confirming my fears. I found your website last night after 8 weeks of looking for some clue on the Internet that would tell me what I am feeling / thinking isn’t actually real. All of my anxieties before threatened only me. This one has the potential to break my child’s heart and I just can’t live with that. My biggest fear is that there is a much larger underlying desire for this feeling to be true. This is the most frightening feeling that I have ever had and even confessing it makes me feel a great deal of shame and anguish. Not only that, it makes me even more fearful that what I am feeling is real rather than imagined. I am trying to use the “I don’t care” method you mentioned but this is very difficult to use in my case because if a say I don’t care about the thought then I feel like I don’t care about her. I’ve prayed, cried, screamed, got down on the floor and begged God to either help me or kill me before I could say anything that would hurt my child. I just don’t know what to do anymore. I’m afraid to seek counseling because they may confirm my beliefs. I’m 49 years old now and I absolutely feel like my life is over. I’ve never posted a comment or even visited websites until the last 8 weeks. I guess what I’m hoping, praying for is for someone to tell me that my anxious nearly delirious thoughts are what is driving a wedge between me and my child and not my true heart. I love my child with all my heart and would die to keep her safe and I know that 90 percent of what I feel is irrational , just plain crazy, but I can’t understand why it is there at all if there is no foundation. I am realistic enough to know that I love her and care for her because if I can’t get her on the phone I nearly go crazy wig fear that something has happened to her. For the first time in the 8 week period I told my wife what I am feeling. I just had to talk to someone even though I swore to myself that I would never breathe a word of this to another soul. Even this has made me afraid because i fear that i am becoming weaker and my next step will be confessing all this to my child. the “her not feeling real” feelings have only arose in the past week and ive got to tell you i have never had a more terrifying feeling in my lifethan to think that i may be “letting go” of her. What is astonishing is when she and I Skype or FaceTime at night all of these fears and thoughts seem to disappear and I go to bed hopeful for a peaceful tomorrow, but it doesn’t happen, the fear is right there waiting on me as soon as i open my eyes. i have read everything you have posted on unwanted thoughts and your ideas really are spot on with some of my feelings. I run and I try to hide but I cant get away from it. i dont want to say that i am suicidal but it has definitely crossed my mind several times just to make it stop. The reality thing is what frightens me most because I feel like I’m only getting closer to letting he go.. sorry to take up your time with this but I feel like I’m at the end of the line with this and there’s only a couple of directions that I can see it going, none of them good. Even this comment helps confirm my beliefs because again, it makes me feel weak as though I am giving in. Any help?
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Hi Jeff, Well your history with agoraphobia shows that you are vulnerable to this kind of thing, so first of all I’d like to say be very careful what you give meaning and attention to in future, best to nip unwanted thoughts in the bud.
By don’t care, I mean don’t care that the thought is there, or the anxiety, because you see into it, you see the problem. If you give attention, meaning, fear, you can create hell, as you know. So, once you see what happened, ignore everything to do with it.
Just think about when you are together in person, on Skype etc. And you said the truth in your question of how you feel about her. So all this nightmare is nothing more than fearing a thought and ramping that up to epic proportions. Fear and anxiety are very unpleasant so you literally end up in a confused, fearful hell.
So once you see that what I say is true, what you want is for the thoughts not to be there. You need attention OFF.
So you go about your life, a thought pops, you ignore it because you see into it, later on it comes back, ignore it again. It’s the attitude of don’t care you want, because you see it as meaningless.
Be utterly consistent in ignoring. Without fail.
What is the thought that defeats all this rubbish? Prob the memory of the last time you spent together. So whenever hell comes simply remember that, then ignore, then repeat. Unwanted thoughts reduce over time, be realistic, and utterly consistent.
Be sure to rivet attention away from arising anxiety connected to this hell maze of connected thoughts, any attention will cause a cascade that you won’t be able to easily exit.
There’s nothing I’ve said here that isn’t in the article. I think you just wanted reassurance that yes, this is not true, and you’re totally free to let it all go, until you’re not aware that it isn’t there any more.
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Thank you Mike for your comments. God will only love you more for what you share with people….Some of the things you have said I can relate to but this is not going to be easy to shake. Even when I try to think of our times together they are unpleasant because all of this was going on and I couldn’t give her my full attention. When I try to imagine future times together, well, I just can’t. She has NO idea that this is going on with me. Before she was born I didn’t want to be a father and I feel that a lot of what I have done has been out of a sense of responsibility, but love as well. I have been a good father and I am trying still to be one, but this has confused me to no end. This is what is praying on me. I fear that I no longer want the responsibility and her moving away has made it easy for me, but I just can’t cut the cord! That scares the world out of me that I may really feel that way towards my child. It makes me think that is why I feel like she “isn’t real”, to make it easier to separate. I tell myself “it isn’t her that you want rid of it’s the anxiety and fear”, but I’m terrified that it is something more. I feel that I MUST keep a constant eye on this for fear she will just fade away and the love will no longer be there. She thinks the world of me, how can I feel like this? So much shame and grief. When I look at her photos, she seems almost like a stranger to me. I am just wondering if the anxiety can do this to a person? I enjoy talking to her on the phone and face time but I feel everyday is going to be THE DAY that I can no longer hold my tongue. When we start talking, I just shut everything down in my mind, but when we finish it’s right back where it was. How can I KNOW this isn’t really what I feel? I do not use medication for fear it will weaken my resolve to stay silent. Honestly, and without reserve, I can say that I would rather die than wake up every day like this. Mike I really appreciate your time and I don’t know how you deal with all of the world’s problems and try to help complete strangers. I do feel that you are Godsend to take YOUR time to help others. Thank you so much, Jeff
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You can’t think your way out of this Jeff, not the way you are doing anyway. The way to resolve the idea that you must keep thinking otherwise she will slip away is to have regular contact… call once a week, visit once a month, whatever you decide. And then maybe you could think up some cool activities to do together, meals out, trips to Disney, movies, whatever. Also, get your favorite pictures of her mounted and framed. Say hello every morning, how can you forget? If that’s a habit, you will get confidence that you’ll never forget.
All these these things will bring you to relief on the idea that she will slip away.
All this mental ANALysing is BS. Love is beyond thought, it’s a different realm, the realm of feeling. How do you Feeeeeel about her?
You have to get to the place where you can let go, resolve those issues you believe are stopping you from dropping it. All these doubts can simply be ignored, about your worthiness as a father blah blah, give yourself a break. What do you choose NOW? That’s all that matters. Who are you NOW?
So, now she cannot slip, now you’re a good father now, and that’s all that matters…
Any other reasons not to let go?
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