Do you ever feel caught in a cycle of overthinking? You want to improve your life, but negative thoughts and feelings pull you deeper in. The harder you struggle, the stronger they seem to return, as if your mind were working against you.
- You make detailed plans but often procrastinate.
- You get caught in endless self-doubt.
- You feel exhausted even when you have not done much.
- You struggle to choose and spend the day weighing options.
- You hold yourself to harsh standards and often blame yourself.
- You revisit the past or worry about the future and cannot enjoy the present.
- Different thoughts seem to argue in your mind all the time.
- You want to do so many things that you feel overwhelmed and want to escape them.
How can you move out of the cycle?
You do not have to argue with a negative thought. It is only a thought; you can let it be there.
Negative feelings may return. Instead of trying to banish them, learn to make room for them.
Often, the problem is not the negative feeling itself, but the way we try to suppress it.
This article introduces three ways to relate to difficult thoughts. They can help turn frightening inner experiences into something annoying and noisy, but not something that controls you.
Step outside the happiness trap
In The Happiness Trap, author Russ Harris describes how the pursuit of happiness can become a trap. We try to get rid of negative feelings in order to be happy, but the harder we try, the less happy we may feel.
For example, your workload has grown and you feel overwhelmed. To escape the pressure, you play video games every night until 3 a.m., sometimes staying up all night. Poor sleep leaves you exhausted at work, and the pressure grows even more.
Notice the paradox of suppression
Why does this happen? Many desires, emotions, and thoughts can become more intense when we try hard to suppress them. For example:
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The more you worry about becoming anxious, the more anxious you may feel.
“Why can't I stop being anxious? I'm so worried that this anxiety will cause something bad!”
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The more you blame yourself for feeling depressed, the more discouraged you may become.
“I'm useless. How can something so small make me unhappy?”
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The more you avoid something frightening, the more frightening it can seem.
“I avoided the problem because I did not want to face it, and now it is even bigger.”
A useful way to change our relationship to these thoughts and feelings is to stop fighting them and practice acceptance.
To accept a thought without letting it control you, start by noticing what it is. However frightening it sounds or looks, it is an experience in your mind, made up of words, images, and feelings.
A thought cannot hurt you or force you to do anything. On its own, it is like background noise. It only starts to control your behavior when you treat it as an instruction and follow it automatically.
Practice acceptance and defusion
Defusion is an idea from Acceptance and Commitment Therapy. It means noticing a difficult thought or feeling without being swept away by it. You do not have to avoid it, argue with it, or believe what it says.
For example, when the thought “You're worthless” appears, you do not have to argue back, shout at it to stop, or believe it. You can notice it as a piece of mental noise. Here are three exercises:
1. Sing it to “Happy Birthday”
It may sound silly, but this can help.
When a painful thought appears, try singing it to the tune of “Happy Birthday.” It can make the thought sound absurd.
For example, sing: “I'm such a fool, I'm no good at all, there's no hope for me, I'm completely useless.”
Those words may have sounded hurtful before, but the tune can make them seem ridiculous. Thoughts are words, like lyrics in a song. They have no power unless we treat them as important and true.
2. Imagine a gossip radio station
You may have heard gossip shows that speculate about which celebrities are dating or whether a famous couple is about to split up. The hosts can sound convincing even when they are making things up.
Imagine that your mind has a similar gossip station, with a host commenting on your life. The voice may sound persuasive, but it is still just a stream of thoughts. You may not be able to turn the station off, but you do not have to argue with it or believe it. Let it play in the background while you continue with your day.
When your mind starts broadcasting negative thoughts, you do not have to stop or refute them. You might roll your eyes and think, “There it is again,” then return to what you were doing.
3. Imagine a movie screen
You may have watched a frightening film on television. The images can look vivid and scary, and you may feel afraid, while still knowing that it is a movie. The monster cannot leave the screen and hurt you.
When a disturbing memory or image of a future disaster appears, imagine it playing on a screen. A mental image can look frightening, just like a movie, but it is still an image. It is not the same as something happening in the present.
Imagine that there is a television at home that keeps playing horror films and cannot be switched off. When a scary image appears, you can shrug and think, “Another horror movie,” then return to your life.
Summary
Practice acceptance, stop arguing with every thought, and return to what matters to you.
“I Allow”
By Bert Hellinger
I allow whatever happens to happen.
I allow things to begin as they do,
to unfold as they do, and to end as they do.
Because I know
everything arises from many causes and conditions,
and what happens has its reasons.
If I insist that things should have happened differently,
I am the one I hurt.
The only thing I can do
is allow.