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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Hey Mike, how long did it take you to become proficient with meditation? I know this is a skill that I can’t acquire overnight, but I’m just curious.
So you used to also have random garbage perpetuate in your mind, as well? I think all people are susceptible to this; we get so easily distracted while paying attention to something at the same time. The only problem is when this random garbage becomes disturbing/unwanted (like in my case). Again, I just have to fully commit, and my brain will “forget”. Thought patterns that are habitual – we need to reprogram our minds by placing attention elsewhere until the mental grooves are gone.
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I can’t remember exactly how long, but I didn’t have the clarity about how effective it is back then, plus I had a lot of health battles so it’s all quite blurry :-) Yes, my mind was very disturbed and I’ve come to realize that it’s never just about one discipline, it’s about 6 things, and they are all important. If you are eating unnatural foods for example, that could be affecting your mind, so meditation alone won’t do it, although you always benefit. As I say in the book “it takes a lot of aspirin to feel better if you’re sitting on a tack.” These tacks we’re sitting on, represent the things that are taking us away from health and happiness. Removing only one won’t do it, so the right solution, the fastest is “remove ALL tacks.” It’s impossible for me to say what is affecting you, but what I CAN do, is tell you how to remove all tacks, because that’s the same for everyone. I can’t stress enough the importance of getting your diet right. Food is 1000 times more powerful than any drug in the way it mediates hormonal, chemical systems in your body. Crucial to look at every aspect.
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I have unwanted thoughts. I’ve actually been working on my unwanted thought exercises by watching interesting television shows or doing something very interesting or even playing video games to help my unwanted thoughts and its actually been helping very much.my thoughts have simmering away. It’s only a thought once in a while now which is every couple of days. Instead of what it used to be which is everyday, every hour of every minute.
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Wonderful, that’s it, think about something else.
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Hi Michael Kinnaird,
I purchased your book, but it’ll be another 3-5 weeks until I receive it from the mail. In the meantime, I’d like to start meditating. Do you have any particular techniques/postures you use in your meditation? How did you go about doing it during your tribulations? I want to heal myself of these foul thoughts, but I know I just have to not give them any attention and then they’ll gradually disappear and not become habitual anymore. I’ve never meditated before, so is there any advice you can give me? Thanks as always.
Ending_OCD
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Hi, yes, have a look at this page https://happy.guide/2011/10/27/start-meditating
Let me know if you have any more questions once you’ve tried it, and let me know how you get on. The very best posture for meditation is the yoga lotus posture because it’s extremely stable. Hard to do though, and I suspect most would not be interested in achieving that… you can sit on a chair with back straight, or cross-legged on a big cushion. This is for meditation for extended periods of time, but the idea is to move into this state of being all the time. The technique is the same, whether sitting, or just using all the in between moments to get centered.
So… the aim is to STAY centered all the time. You can also meditate lying down, although the tendency is to fall asleep. As it says in the linked article, meditation is about returning to a NATURAL state, that’s important to understand. We are not trying to achieve some kind of altered state to get some benefit and then return to normal, we are trying to RETURN to a natural state of being, like children are mainly experiencing… aware, natural, flowy, spontaneous.
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Hi Michael,
The technique sounds simple enough. If I understand it correctly, it means to just relax while being aware of thoughts (listening, and just maintaining that as consistently as possible). As for the posture, I’ll opt for the time being to conduct my meditation sitting on a chair with my back straight. Is 30 minutes good for beginners, or would you say that starting off with as little as 5-10 minutes can suffice as well?
I can’t wait to be done with this problem. These intrusive thoughts are annoying, but I can’t let them bother me. It’s as if they’re programmed to automatically associate themselves with my desired thoughts. They’ve become habitual and developed patterns. I guess that’s just how the brain works. Like you said though, I just have to not give them attention. After a while, my brain will simply forget these unpleasant thoughts/images.
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Yes, that’s it, but the listening puts you in a state that STOPS thoughts, so if you are having thoughts, listen harder :-) i.e. more intensity. The intensity needed diminishes over time until awareness is just natural, no effort is needed. It’s an incredible process of transformation.
30 minutes is ideal, if not, do what you can/or feel like, and build. The best mindset for this is TOTAL COMMITMENT, i.e. try to maintain it 24/7, always listen, always. So, in the end, you are always conscious, not a puppet of thought energy, you are a thinker, not being thought, you are yourself, not identified with thoughts.
Annoying isn’t “don’t care.” Any attitude other than indifference isn’t helping you, it’s delaying things.
Quickly reset using the intense listening method i.e. don’t give “airtime” to corrupted/associated thoughts and then think your desired thought again cleanly. If it is still associated, repeat. If you can’t shake it for now, try again later, but stay calm, aloof and AWARE throughout.
Always write your thoughts on a clean blackboard :-) New analogy that just came to me. The default, the center, is clean mind, peaceful aware, then think ON PURPOSE ONLY.
Absolutely, we’re all about using the power of habit to create good outcomes. Awareness again, has the effect of not letting habits run on unconsciously. Your primary aim should be to simply be aware of what happens. On its own, this has tremendous transformational power, just notice what arises, staying aloof, indifferent. The mind runs on MEANING, so now you are in your power… to give the meaning you choose and not be trapped in an ever growing dysfunction web of thought-habits that are running and growing automatically and unconsciously, i.e. without your control.
You will notice, at times, in this process, that suddenly you become aware that you have been thinking and at the same time, it was unconscious, happening without your awareness. That is the moment of sanity. So a lot of thinking has a dream-like quality, automatic, semi-conscious or unconscious. Listening as top priority, committed, earnest, really wakes you up quickly.
Yes, quickly remove attention, as you would with anything you don’t care about.
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I think I found the book you’re speaking of. It’s the 100 page “Happy Guide”, is that correct? Yes, I’ll most definitely give this a read and follow through with you. Thanks a lot, Michael.
Ending_OCD
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Yes, that’s it. Happy reading :-)
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Hello everyone,
I’m very thankful to have come across this discussion. After some contemplation, I sense that I’ve had slight OCD for some time now (about 6 years). It’s the kind where I have a paranoia of checking things over and over again. But I’ve mitigated this problem considerably by just relaxing and being more confident.
What I’m really here to talk about though is another form of OCD that manifested itself in me about 3 months ago, which is SO (Sexual Orientation) OCD. It’s the exact same problem Dini was experiencing. Before I got this problem, I didn’t even think about my sexuality. That’s because it was obvious I’m straight. Throughout my whole life, I’ve always been sexually interested in girls, and I’ve fantasized about them far too many times to count. I’ve never expressed that kind of interest in males. It’s just not me. I don’t know exactly how I got this problem, but I suspect something incited a paranoia in me that triggered the “what if” scenario. Then whenever I would fantasize about women, I would see images on and off of males in my head. I was so disturbed by this that I would forcefully try to rid those images out of my head, but that was to no avail. I just recently learned that suppression doesn’t work at all; on the contrary, it makes those unwanted thoughts/images come back even stronger and more frequent. It was mentally exhausting to keep thinking about my sexuality on a daily basis. I just wanted to be back to my old self.
Just a few days ago, I researched the internet and found out about SO-OCD, and all of its symptoms completely fit what I’ve been going through. In a nutshell, what the brain does is fabricate “false attractions” and “lies”, ultimately trying to trick you into believing you are your thoughts. But again, none of that is real, nor does it say anything about who you are. So, that led me to the most important question – how do I treat this problem? The answers are really simple, and they don’t even involve psychiatric or therapeutic intervention. All you have to do is: 1) Knowing that your brain is lying to you, just live your life the way you used to, 2) Be confident in yourself, and 3) Don’t be afraid of those unpleasant thoughts/images; become indifferent to them, laugh them off, and just ignore them. I’ve made amazing progress in just a few days by using these methods, and I feel so much better (I’d say that I’m at about 85-90% of what I used to be). These unwanted thoughts now come much less frequent, and they themselves don’t bother me. I just want them to be gone entirely, that’s all. Or at the very least, be able to control my thoughts so I don’t have to go through this again.
Mr. Michael Kinnaird, I will definitely read your guide and give you my feedback on it. My hope is that by using your guide, it will bring me back to my old self as soon as possible. I’m so close, but I just need that extra bit of guidance to get there. You’ve given me a whole new perspective on meditation, and now I definitely plan on starting that in the near future. Perhaps Yoga would also be good as well. I don’t want anyone to have to go through SO-OCD. I will inform you of my complete recovery when that time comes (which should be very soon).
Thank you all so much for sharing your experiences. Everyone here is strong, and I KNOW we’ll all overcome our problems and enjoy life to the fullest again. Peace.
Ending_OCD
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Hi Ending_OCD, yes you’ve got a really good handle on it now, it really is just about being indifferent, not caring and ignoring consistently. The thing that could be holding you back is REALLY WANTING it to be gone for good, because that is caring. So if you just trust the process and stay consistent, as you’ve seen, it will continue to die away until you’ve forgotten about it.
Meditation will really create a higher awareness of your mind, and give you much more control over what you give meaning to, what you pay attention to etc, highly recommended. I look forward to your thoughts about the book. I recommend reading cover to cover in one go if possible, which only takes an hour or so. Doing this allows you to hold the whole thing in your head as one complete idea… you get the full impact.
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Hi Michael Kinnaird,
Thank you for the reply and feedback. It’s much appreciated. Good to know that I’m on the right track. I think I mistook the article you referenced above as the book/guide. Is there a link I can access for the book, or is it something I have to purchase?
Ending_OCD
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