Am I suppressing thoughts if I stop ruminating?

this fear of suppressing thoughts comes up often like really often there's a common health anxiety fear there that there's something we don't control that is going to disrupt Our Lives we especially don't want to be the one responsible for causing this thing to happen we fear relapse We Fear going back to an experience with mental illness that might have been very traumatic it's understandable it's understandable that we want to do recovery right and perfectly because we've probably struggled with doing compulsions to get things right and perfectly to prevent bad things from happening so we do it with the mental illness too it's just another bad thing we don't want to have disrupting our future but if you're already checking for reassurance about this you're trying to control this bad thing from happening well you've already relapsed this is a classic cleaning compulsion trying to clean away the possibility of the bad thing see relapse is not that scary so in this video we're going to look at at two things the first one we're going to look at is why it feels so dangerous to drop the ruminating to drop the mental compulsions actually go out there and live our lives we're going to give some compassion and some understanding to why that's scary that's going to help us step away from that or step into that fear the second thing we're going to look at is what to do instead and that's going to be a big shift that's going to be about recognizing that the ruminating is the distraction living life is not a distraction it is the goal it is the destination and we can be there right now so first of all why does it feel so wrong to not do the mental compulsion a simple answer is that we've been doing them for decades we've come to associate the mental compulsions the ruminating the constant problem solving in our heads with safety it's like there's a little kid up there uh sucking on their ruminating safety blanket they're just going to want to do it over and over and over again it doesn't make rational sense that doing the compulsion over and over again is going to prevent the bad thing just like if a kid is holding on to a safety blanket it doesn't rationally make sense that the safety blanket is going to do anything about the problem but if you take the safety blanket away from the kid they're going to feel like they're in imminent danger and that's how we get with problem solving and mental compulsions whatever bad thing we're afraid of if we stop the mental compulsions to our brains it as though we are causing that bad thing to happen and after constantly being up here when we start to drop that intense inward focus and we open ourselves up to the real world and the complexity of that world we're suddenly aware of so much uncertainty and so many unknowing that we've been ignoring in our Our Little World up there that can initially be very frightening that can feel out of control we realize how much there is in life that we don't control that's an amazing opportunity but at first it'll feel very scary and so what do we do when we suddenly drop all of those compulsions that were covering up our awareness of the world we freak out and we turn inward again we Retreat to this house essentially inside of our heads it's the same thing that happens with any compulsion if we're walking out of the house we suddenly notice this uncertainty oh maybe I should just go and check that I think I left my collection of antique propane canisters on the stove again and I left the stove on hi I've got to go check it and we go back inside we go back inside to what's safe we go back inside to checking our fears we go back to thinking because we are really good at thinking over and over and over and over again trying to check and control in a very small tiny World rather than stepping into the uncertainty of the real world so let's talk about what we do instead what do we do when we start to drop those compulsions and then we feel like we're missing something it feels like we're ignoring something important and it's going to come back to get us we live that's what we're afraid of right that something up in our heads is going to disrupt our lives but if we stop life and put it on hold to go and do these compulsions to go and fix this thing to get some kind of right feeling to get per Mission from our brains before we go out and live our lives we are creating the very thing we are most afraid of this is the fear this is the moment where we get to show the brain hey I'm not going to put life on hold for some weird thing in my head I am not going to let that control me the thing is when we stop and we go o this feels like I'm doing something wrong I better put life on hold until I can get certainty and control around this that is the problem that is the fear we are in that case choosing to disrupt life to chase some feeling because there's some random cloud in our heads floating by and we judged it as wrong as meaning something about us this is the most extreme Erp exercise the most extreme mental health and fitness exercise there will ever be it is simp simply to live your life while having any thought or feeling and sometimes that can feel too easy like we shouldn't just be able to go and live our lives don't we have to scrub away this feeling perfectly don't we have to process absolutely and completely some piece of trauma don't we have to do a special magic thing with grief or with real events that we did or somebody did to us in the past we're looking for somebody to hand us a ticket and say here is your ticket you have permission to enter the theater you've been hired here is your contract to go and live your life now this is yours this doorway is yours this path is yours but that doesn't exist you're are going to take steps forward and there's going to be a wrong feeling you're going to take steps forward and your brain is going to be saying no no no we've got to stop and have a debate about this we've got to have an argument about it you can't not think about it and you can give your attention to the real world I used the verb give there I think that's one of the key elements of this shift for me it really helped to understand it is the shift from getting to giving when we notice that uncomfortable feeling and we stop to fix it when we notice those uncertainties in our heads and we stop to get certainty about them to get control we are trying to get things we want to get permission get control get certainty get relief we're trying to get if we drop the getting and we switch the focus to giving our focus is on giving to others our focus is on giving life to ourselves giving support giving the things to the people that we care about that we want to give to them when our focus is on creating and growing we can practice that with whatever uncertainty the brain is throwing up and as part of that we're going to give ourselves trust we're going to give ourselves trust that if there's some kind of uncertainty that comes up in the future if there's some kind of difficult experience if the brain throws up anything any kind of violent images any kind of thoughts any kind of voices whatever images whatever physical Sensations whatever experiences we struggled in the past we're going to give ourselves the trust to handle those to be curious about them to apply the skills that we've been learning and to take those experiences along for the ride of Life as we create things and we grow things that we want to see in the world rather than trying to get things and subtract things which is what the old unhelpful habits were all about I'm excited to see see what you give to the world and what you create our brains and the little gremlins in our brains that always want to have debates with us they've had enough of your time and energy now you can give that time and energy to the world and as you do that remember the rumination is the distraction but after years of practicing that distraction to turn towards life to turn towards the real world H yeah will feel wrong but living your life will never be a distraction it's the practice

Channel: Mark Freeman

Views: 11,134

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Id: IqLCg8NWnE4

Length: 9min 40sec (580 seconds)

Published: Wed Oct 11 2023