Are you a prisoner of your thoughts? Sometimes a problem at work can prey on your mind, causing you stress or anxiety. Your thought may then shift from “this is a difficult situation” to the rather more self-limiting “I’m useless at dealing with difficult situations.” A single thought has invoked a feeling of helplessness and fear of failure. This leaves you feeling you’re facing an overwhelming problem. And all this from a single thought.
Why do your thoughts sabotage your mind in this way? And what can you do about it?
Our unevolved brains
Your brain responds to the events we face today in exactly the same way it would have done thousands of years ago. The primal response of fight/fight/freeze would have served you well and helped ensure your survival back then had you been confronted by a sabre tooth tiger. In an effort to protect you, your brain would have anticipated all the things that could go wrong, undertaking a speedy risk analysis so you could decide how to respond and (hopefully) survive.
However, the extremity of the brain’s response to modern day stresses is less than helpful where situations are not life-threatening.
The stream of thoughts that flood into your brain when it perceives a threat lead to feelings of anxiety. The result? You become trapped in a cycle of unhelpful thoughts due to the chemicals created by your brain’s stress response.
The good news: you are not your thoughts
As a human being you have the unique reflexive ability to step back and notice yourself having thoughts. This means you can also separate yourself from them.
Creating a pause between stimulus and response buys you time to chose how you react to your thoughts. For example, if someone bumps into you, your primal reaction might be to push the other person back. However, they probably didn’t mean to bump into you- so you might decide instead to pause, take a deep breath and do nothing.
The role of Mindfulness in distancing yourself from your thoughts
Mindfulness can help you increase awareness of your thoughts and help you practice creating more frequent ‘pauses’ before you react to them.
Mindfulness recognises that your thoughts will distract you. With practice, however, you will find it easier to detach from them by focusing on the present moment and simply noticing your thoughts as they pass through your mind.
Acceptance and Commitment Therapy
verywellmind‘s Deborah Glasofer PhD says: ‘Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT), is a type of psychotherapy that emphasizes acceptance as a way to deal with negative thoughts, feelings, symptoms, or circumstances. It also encourages increased commitment to healthy, constructive activities that uphold your values or goals.’
You can take some valuable principles from ACT and apply these without formal therapeutic intervention by:
- Accepting that you will have challenging thoughts
- That you allow these thoughts to be
- Carrying those things you want to achieve, moving towards your goals regardless of your thoughts
- Doing so through practising your values
Think of your thoughts as friends in the car. One is giving directions, another is asking when you’ll be stopping as they need a comfort break, while the others are arguing. This can all be going while your job is to keep your attention on the road ahead.
The weather is another helpful metaphor. You can’t control the weather but you can adapt to what it brings, by wearing appropriate clothing. Your thoughts will come and go- you can’t control them- but you can learn to respond differently to them.
Brief exercise taken from ACT:
We will all experience some of the following- feel free to insert your own self-limiting thought.
- I’m rubbish at this
- I’ll never change
- I’m going to make an idiot of myself
Noticing and defusing thoughts
- Say your phrase out loud 3 or 4 times. e.g. “I’m rubbish at this.”
- Continue to have the thought but now insert: “I notice I’m having the thought that I’m rubbish at this.” Repeat this 3 or 4 times.
- Then add “I notice at the moment I’m having the thought that I’m rubbish at this.” Again repeat the phrase 3 or 4 times.
As you worked through the stages did you notice the thought and could you separate it from reality? Hopefully you were able to create some distance from your original thought.
Useful resources:
The Headspace and Calm Apps each offer a free introductory trial so you can try Mindfulness out and see whether you find it helpful.
Russ Harris’s The Happiness Trap explores ACT and offers practical approaches for overcoming stress, anxiety and depression.
Much suffering, much unhappiness arises when you take each thought that comes into your head for the truth.
Eckhart Tolle
