When thoughts are spiralling out of control, and you can’t stop these very negative thoughts from coming ALL the time. You start to believe that these thoughts are really you. This only serves to worsen the problem as self-judgement gets added to the inner war of words.
Through studies it has been established that 90% of thoughts for ALL humans are negative. Yes, that’s right, you are not alone, we all have inner critics, inner worriers, inner judge’s and inner “name your inner meanie”. This does not mean we have to believe the thoughts. The brain is just doing its job of looking for problems and things to be afraid of. It doesn’t mean it is right or needs the level of response our body finds its self-creating.
The nervous system and thinking mind can start to feed each other in a loop of activation. The rise in nervous system activation encourages the mind to look for a problem and will literally make up a story or create a scenario to be afraid of. The body feels the fear created in the mind and becomes even more activated. It’s a loop that can very quickly get out of control.
ACT – Acceptance and Commitment Therapy has a very useful tool to help us literally unhook from the downward spirals our brain can go into when we get hooked up with a negative thought process.
Its important to recognise the aim is not to change the mind so that it thinks positively, this is a fruitless task and will create an inner fight. Its not the job of the thinking mind to think positively all the time. Its job is to keep you alive and connected and it does this by anticipating problems! In our busy modern life the problems can seem much worse than they really are. So, we use this unhooking tool when things are getting out of control and not making sense.
Practice the three N’s
Notice – by noticing the thoughts you are recognising, that, there is you and there are the thoughts. This automatically gives you room from the thoughts and as time progresses this can be enough to unhook straight away.
Name – naming the thoughts either negative thoughts or worrying thoughts or a name of a story your mind regularly tells you can also be a very quick unhook from thoughts. By naming the thoughts you are separating your SELF from the thoughts and are also showing your mind that you know what it is up to.
Neutralising – neutralising shows your SELF that the thoughts do not need to be meaningful. They can be seen as simply words that float across a screen, or words on a piece of paper that you scrunch up and throw away or can be repeated in a silly voice or to a tune of a song. This neutralises the power of the words and restores them to being only words. Try different ways to see what works for you. Some people are visual, some are auditory and some like the felt sense of showing the mind the hand so to speak and saying no thanks!
NOTICE - "Oh, there’s thoughts.”
NAME - “Oh, they are negative thoughts” OR “Oh it’s the not good enough story” etc.
NEUTRALISE - “Thanks mind I don’t need those negative thoughts.” OR Imagine the thoughts on paper that you scrunch up and throw away OR Singing them to a funny tune.