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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Hi Mike/James,
I feel all the time and have a thought always that something i going to happen to me and if something happens to me who will take care of my family and my little daughter. Because of this thought sometimes i feel heartburn and feel that i have got some problem in my heart/body I will be sleeping well at night suddenly something wakes me up after twohours of sleep and i will get some fear and my heart beats fast at that time. After one hour i will sleep again with the same fear in my mind. Since three months i have this problem and i feel very guilty that i could spend time with my baby thinking all the time that something has happened to me. I read somewhere that if a person get palpitation in left arm he/she will die in six months. As i has this left arm palpitations This bothers me. I couldnt distract my mind in anything. Sometimes i console myself that nothing will happen and the next minute i will start worrying. Please advice how to overcome this because of this there is no peace of mind at home and mainly my daughter of 3 years is suffering badly. When i get such thoughts i feel tired and i get angry on everyone even on my kid. Please let me know how to get rid of this.Thanks.
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Hi Nirmala. When a problem bothers you, it’s a good idea to ask “What can I actually do about this?” So in your case, you could write a will, leaving custody of your daughter to whoever you choose in the event of your passing. Then, you have done all you can do and can completely let go of the issue — because it is utterly pointless to live your life worrying about what may or may not happen.
It is complete and utter nonsense that if you get a palpitation in your left arm you will die in six months. How can that possibly be true? It makes no sense whatsoever. It is important not to resist thoughts (for example feeling angry about them being there). They are just thoughts, they have no power and are utterly meaningless unless you react to them and empower them with attention. So when a thought about this subject pops up, just notice it, let it be, let it go and choose a different focus.
In the long run, you can create a happy, relaxed existence for yourself by putting the causes of health and peace of mind in place. The book will show you exactly how to do it, and it only takes about an hour to read.
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Hi James,
Thanks for your time..I live in India..Please let me know how to get a copy of the book.
Thanks.
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Hi Nirmala, if you go to the following page, you will see a list of places you can get the paperback, including BookAdda which is an Indian company, and The Book Depository, who deliver worldwide.
https://happy.guide/book/#buy
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Hi,
Thank you so much Michael, James and Ending_OCD.
I’m seeing everything from a different angle right now. As you said, transgender people know since an early age they’re trapped in a wrong body. I never felt that. I know all are irrational fears. I’ve remembered how I felt when I thought I had AIDS and brain tumour. It felt damn real, but it wasn’t.
I stopped looking in the mirror all the time, ’cause I know if I do that, I’m gonna ask myself things a billion of times. It’s going to drive me nuts. I still question myself if I’m the same person I was until this started, but I realized this is something my brain does to drive me crazy.
If I’m gonna get out of this? I don’t know. But I want to. And i’m gonna fight against it. Even if my mind says I’m in denial. Even if my mind says I’ve changed. Even if my mind says I don’t like myself anymore.
I will come back soon with great words to say. I hope.
Peace. x
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Hi Pedro, you don’t need to fight it, there is nothing to fight.
Quite the opposite — you need to realize that there is no “real” problem here. It’s all entirely self created. All you need to do is simply realize this (as Mike has explained) and therefore RELAX about the whole thing. You will then naturally ignore it.
You can relax about it because you know there is nothing “real” here, just as there was nothing real when you panicked about AIDS and brain tumours. Mike has explained very clearly how you self-created this situation. Trust us, trust the information. RELAX… there is *no* problem here :-) You can ignore all thoughts and emotions on this subject, just as you would ignore anything else that is meaningless and unimportant.
The fact that you’ve also self-created issues in the past, around AIDS and brain tumours suggests you’re probably not living in a relaxed state. Anxiety creates anxious/fearful thinking. Make sure you design your life so that you can take things in a relaxed, peaceful, organized, steady way. There should be pretty much no stress in your life. If there is, something needs changing.
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Hi,
2 months ago I started thought I was a transgender after watchin a video with a person that is. I never had any doubt of who I really was, but now, I really don’t know anymore. It feels like I’m turning into someone else. I can’t even look in the mirror, ’cause if I look, my mind tells me I have to be a woman to be happy again.
I read most of your posts and tried to ignore the thoughts, but when I do that, I feel like I’m in denial. While I’m writing this, I feel like i’m in denial, I feel like I’m doing this just to convince myself I’m not a woman. When I think of being a woman, I don’t feel the anxiety I used to, what makes everything worse. And when I think of continue being who I was, my mind tells me I don’t want to. I try to imagine my future, and I can’t see myself being who I always was, it feels like a lie.
I went to a psychologist who said to me that my feminine psique was bigger than my masculine psique, and I should adjust that doing more masculine things. This made me SO bad. I already thought about suicide.
I feel like I’m losing. I just want to be the same person I was. (while I wrote this sentence, my mind told me I don’t want to. I’m so scared.)
Please help me. Please.
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Hi Pedro, I’ve just re-read your previous comments and Mike’s replies. They are brilliant — I would definitely re-read them because he explains it brilliantly. I think this is your first comment…
And don’t worry Pedro, you can absolutely be the same person you were. In fact, you *are* the same person you were, it’s just it’s all gone a bit cloudy because of the fear and anxiety surrounding the transgender thought. Like Mike says, it’s similar to reacting to a scary movie. The fear program is a very powerful one. You just need to get clear and calm on your truth and then ignore all thoughts and emotions that go against that truth.
Best wishes,
James
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Hi James, thanks for your reply.
It’s all cloudy, as you said. I really don’t feel like I can ignore these thoughts. I woke up today thinking I could do it, but in the afternoon I was crying, scared.
It feels like they’re bigger than me. Feels like they ARE true, and when I think it is not, my mind tells me it is.
The last 2 months have been hard for me. I experienced only 2 weeks of peace, then it all started again.
I forgot to say that when I try to not reply the thoughts, I feel my whole body trembling…
I dont know what to do. It feels like I’m in denial.
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Perhaps slightly different wording may be helpful here. The idea of ignoring can be difficult when something like this just “insists” on having your attention. Try instead the idea of being non-reactive. Make a decision that you will simply not react to these thoughts and emotions. Instead you’ll just let them be, you’ll just “watch” them. Because they have *no* power at all without your consent, unless you react. If you’re watching them, you’re not *becoming* them. Just watch. Just be curious about them. Be the witness to everything you’re thinking and feeling. This alone will give you some relief.
So… whatever happens, just watch… Anger, fear, anxiety, whatever it is, just *watch*. Don’t react to it. Let it all come and go, as you passively observe. This is bringing awareness to everything and stops you being it. This is the beginning of freedom. Just watch… let everything come and go, passively… don’t engage with it. Let everything… settle… down :-)
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Ok, I’ll try to do what you said, although my mind says to me it won’t work.
I’m sad and scared but I want to end this. It feels like I’m running out of it, you know? The “denial” feeling is always there. It sucks.
As I said, I’ll try. Not sure if will work. Do you know how much time will take till I’m out of it?
Peace. X
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Ignore what your mind says to you about it. Remember, thoughts have no inherent meaning or importance. You decide their meaning by how you react to them.
“This won’t work” Don’t care… ignore.
“You’re in denial” Don’t care… ignore.
Whatever your mind throws at you, don’t care about it, be non reactive, ignore it.
If your mind is swirling, rivet your attention fully on something (anything) like a tree or a car or a cloud. Give it your full attention, take a deep breath and allow your emotions to settle down.
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Hi, here I am again. Another day, another drama.
I tried to do what you said. I think it was unsuccessful.My mind thinks it’s all real.
I realized I have two questions in my mind right now that turned into compulsions.
First one, I keep going in front of the mirror to see what I think of myself, if I like it or not. I don’t know what I feel.
The second one is that I try to say to myself “I’m a man” but I really can’t believe on what I said. It feels like a lie.
I don’t know why this is happening to me. I don’t see an exit. It feels like I’m lying to myself.
I’m really sorry for bothering you both, but I need help. :(
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Hi Pedro,
I understand that it can be challenging to ignore these thoughts, but you have to persist ALL THE TIME. Seeing as how you’ve been experiencing this for a couple of months now, these thoughts are not going to disappear overnight. That’s not how the brain works. It needs time to adjust to your new behaviour/thinking. But believe me, once you follow the principles of Happy Guide without fail, I guarantee your life will be back to how it was before (if not better).
In the meantime, keep yourself busy with various activities. You can’t keep harping/reflecting on this because that accomplishes nothing – on the contrary, it only exacerbates the problem. Your mind is not the boss of you, it’s the other way around. You are the one in control. So live and enjoy your life with no inhibitions. You WILL see that these thoughts will go away in due time.
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Pedro,
Transgender people feel (know) they are in the wrong sex body from an early age. It’s not a battle of thoughts, it’s a simple knowing. You however just watched a video and had a thought. From that thought that you feared, you ran instinctive primitive fear programs in the mind meant to protect you from danger (e.g. lions).
So… realize what the whole thing is. Now you see you can let it go, it’s not true. Thoughts, fear flashes related to it come with a sense of importance and urgency, because that’s what fear does. That does not make it true. Neither does fear create logical thought. But it does create urgency, a sense that this needs ALL MY ATTENTION. Remember lions? Useful. Not for this.
So once you SEE this, then you are at the POINT OF LETTING GO, and can remove all attention (because there are no lions). If you cannot see it, then an easy “exit” is to set it all for review, say in one month. Just ignore every single thought like it is irrelevant, like you don’t care, for a month. You are not to ponder anything, AT ALL, nor look for it, or try to hold it off, NOTHING.
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And these thoughts are rapid….I can be trying to use logic or the ignore/don’t care attitude and I will a several thoughts come across my mind rapidly, like my subconscious is trying to convince me by using new related thoughts that the first original thought is true and it’s driving me crazy
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Hi Randi, you won’t be able to solve this by trying to understand exactly how the mind works. The brightest minds in science aren’t even close to being able to map it all out.
All you need to do is understand the cause and effect of your actions. What matters is your *state*, and what you pay attention / give importance to.
Our modern lifestyles cause most of us to live in a kind of semi-permanent low-level state of anxiety. An anxious state creates anxious thoughts. Anxiety is a helpful state that evolved in us because it saved us from physical dangers such as lions. But it’s “supposed” to be a temporary thing. Once we’re away from the lion, we return to normal.
But as I say, the modern world fires sources of stress and anxiety nearly all the time. Naturally, this affects our thinking in a big way. It’s almost impossible to control your thinking in that state. Also, if we’re malnourished, not getting enough restful sleep, anxious about ideas of “success” and so-on, that all feeds into our state and naturally affects the type and urgency of our thoughts.
Then we react with importance or even fear to those thoughts, because we think they are full of meaning and we get into a loop.
So what’s the answer? It’s always the same.
1) Be non-reactive to thoughts and emotions when they pop up, no matter how important they seem. Use the Happy Guide “listening” technique so that you’re always aware and have choice. The more you practice this in your life, the more mental space you create and the more *choice* you have:
2) Setup a peaceful, relaxed, happy, healthy way of life. When you’re in a happy, peaceful state your thinking and the way you see the world will be very different indeed :-) It’s all in the book and it only takes about an hour to read:
https://happy.guide/book
Best wishes,
James
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Sorry one more question….is it the subconscious/unconscious mind that creates/generates all thoughts:new,repetitive,irrational or whatever and puts them or pops them into the our conscious mind for us to become aware of? Just wanting to fully understand how the mind works
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Hi Randi, I’ve answered your question here…
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So the sub conscious mind actually creates all thoughts? Of I know that we can consciously think a thought…..I was told that the sub conscious holds every thought we every had and all those thoughts bump around and create new thoughts and ideas…..when you said resulting thoughts/ideas are popped back up into your mind, do u mean that when I have an anxious or fearful thought and my mind doesn’t react logically the subconscious then creates anxious thoughts? I guess I don’t understand why I have so many anxious thoughts it’s not the same thought I had when I was 15 but they are all related to it in some fashion….
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