Get rid of intrusive thoughts

so hold on don't go away if you thought yeah that sounds ridiculous like somebody just coming up and being like hey struggle with intrusive thoughts have you tried not having intrusive thoughts I know that sounds ridiculous initially and I say initially because that that is what we're gonna talk about today but understand so I say this as somebody who used to struggle with intrusive thoughts like violent graphic disgusting intrusive thoughts I struggled with them so much of my life that when I initially went to get help when I initially went to get therapy it wasn't until they gave me a stack of kind of like diagnostic quizzes that went through symptoms that I learned that was like a symptom that was an issue that wasn't just how brains work I just thought that was my brain being imaginative that if I walked up to a crosswalk and there were a bunch of kids crossing the crosswalk and I would see them uh like get run over by cars and their blood and guts everywhere I just I just thought that was that's that's how it was like I would I would frequently be walking around nauseous because of the things I was seeing in my head uh I would be anxious I would see terrible violent things happening to me happening to other people non-stop so yes I know it sounds ridiculous to say hey have you have you tried not having intrusive thoughts I get that also please stick around I I am coming from this from a perspective of somebody yeah who used to really deal with uh frustrating nasty intrusive thoughts all of the time and I do not anymore and I'm gonna share about something that was really helpful for getting to this spot this is another video in our ongoing series of uh stuff important stuff that I learned from 12 I guess 13 years of recovery now and this this is a really key one because often when we talk about recovery and I know this question comes up a lot people will say like oh okay so I I get that when I recover uh the intrusive thoughts will still be there but it's about how I interact with them and I find it really important to understand that I I don't struggle with any intrusive thoughts anymore and this is a key part I would say of working on recovery it helps so much to get rid of intrusive thoughts and that I I don't mean like we're gonna have a video here now on like you know 25 tips on how to get rid of intrusive thoughts no no like the tip is get rid of intrusive thoughts so have you ever heard somebody else talk about their intrusive thoughts and you heard that and went ah damn I wish I wish I had intrusive thoughts like those because I wouldn't care if I had intrusive thoughts about that topic happening in my head all the time I've got this problem I've got these types of intrusive thoughts I hate them they make my life miserable I wish I had those if you've ever had an experience like that you just learned something incredibly important about intrusive thoughts intrusive thoughts are about stuff in our heads because yeah it might not just be what we'd call thoughts they might be memories they might be images they might be feelings right like think about like depersonalization derealization where we're just like I hate this feeling I've got to get rid of it they're gonna be some brain stuff that you dislike that you judge is bad that you judge as an intruder right intrusive thoughts are thoughts we judge as intruding into our mind it's so useful to recognize that that labeling them is intrusive that labeling them as an intruder that shouldn't be there that's something we do the brain is just throwing up stuff it's just doing its job it's just an organ that makes brain stuff it makes thoughts and images and feelings and all of that it's not bothering us that stuff that comes up in there we're bothering it a police car was just going by when I when I struggled with inches of thoughts and I heard a police car back in the day I was always convinced that I had done something that you know I had done something terrible that one of these terrible things that I was always thinking about it was real they were coming to arrest me that was it a whole lot of people probably a whole lot of people in that building right there they had that exact same thought when they heard that siren right now it's a pretty common thing to think all right let me give you an example of what I mean when I say we're bothering the thoughts so let's say an image of an alligator pops up in my head and I believe you shouldn't think about alligators like it's it's bad to think about alligators and I still want well what's that mean about me if I was thinking about alligators because actually I think when that image popped up I was really focused on its teeth like its teeth uh they look really sharp and I thought wow like those could really rip people apart what's that mean about me am I a murderer but also I thought wow like that's a really that's a really big handsome mouth on that alligator like does that mean I'm attracted to alligators like what what does this mean I don't want to have that thought and then I'm thinking back to when I had that thought and like checking like did I how did I feel about that did I did I feel sufficiently disgusted with alligators like they shouldn't eat people but even why is my brain thinking about that at all what's that mean about my brain is my brain damaged what if these thoughts about alligators get stuck in there and I just keep having them again again and again I hope this doesn't get stuck how do I make sure it doesn't get stuck and so on you see how this can just go on and on and on and on all of that is compulsions from the moment the thought pops up and I go oh like ooh what's that mean that shouldn't be there all of that judging all of that attaching stuff to it all that labeling it as an intruder 100 compulsions I'm the one bothering the thought the thought was just there the alligator was just sitting there the thing is there's nothing wrong with having thoughts about alligators there's there's no disorder in having thoughts about alligators or anything that's completely fine the problems arise from us going oh this shouldn't be here I need to fix it and setting a goal of fixing it that goal is just like any contamination compulsion because essentially that's what we're doing with intrusive thoughts it's not actually different from any kind of contamination compulsion we're saying this thought is a contamination it shouldn't be here I've got to prevent it from being here and I gotta clean it away the moment we take an approach like that it guarantees the brain is going to keep giving it to you right because if you want to be successful by cleaning away thoughts the brain is just going to keep giving you more and more thoughts so you can succeed at getting that solution fixed that you're craving if we have thoughts about alligators or whatever thing you are afraid of like the donut shop being out of donuts right something that is objectively we can all agree that's the worst thing possible so say you have that thought about that thing what's a more useful way to handle it it's not judging it as a problem it's not making it an intruder the brain is just doing what the brain does it's just making stuff and it's going to make stuff to see what you react to and whatever you react to and go oh this is a problem I want to fix it it's going to give you more of so that you can fix it so whatever thoughts or feelings images memories Etc that you bother that's what it's going to create more of so this is why it's useful to actually not have intrusive thoughts and you know not just getting upset about a statement like that I understand why it sounds upsetting but actually looking at what does that mean to not have intrusive thoughts starting to consider what would it take to not be constantly judging and hating on and wanting to control experiences in my head and a lot of experiences in our bodies too we can have experiences we can hear a motorbike drive by where you can see a bird fly overhead we can hear a kid screaming in the pool we can see terrible images of like my pen getting jabbed through my eyeball that was that was one of my brains favorites we can have these experiences and they can be there and they're not us having a thought of an alligator or a pen stabbing is something we experience the same as we experience sounds the same as we experience physical Sensations same as we experience smells over taste their experiences so we don't have to attach meaning to them they're just there just like if I hear a motorbike drive by right now it doesn't mean I'm a motorbike that's a thing I'm experiencing if I see an image in my head of an alligator ripping off somebody's leg that doesn't mean I'm an alligator that rips off people's legs that's just an experience and yeah maybe I say look uh my brain sucks it's always throwing up stuff yeah you know what it's an organ lots of our organs do weird things we might eat something and our stomach is throwing up lots of stuff we don't like all right it's an organ it's just doing a thing it's just trying to digest a world that's really difficult to digest so next time you hear about somebody's intrusive thoughts and you notice that you don't judge that as a bad thing you hear about something somebody's anxious about and you're like oh what's the big deal understand that you can take the same approach to the stuff in your head that gets you upset you can allow it to be there it can be there and you can live your life and when we show the brain that we don't have to judge stuff up there we don't have to control it you'll find that the brain stops throwing it up which I've got to say as somebody who used to see themselves stabbing themselves in the eyeball with a pen all the time and as somebody who likes likes pens I have this is a great this is a great Muji pen right here as somebody who likes pens I gotta say it's really nice being able to hold a pen again and not seeing it stick out of my eyeball so yeah don't have intrusive thoughts

Channel: Mark Freeman

Views: 41,521

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Id: ILEOqPVbRG0

Length: 12min 1sec (721 seconds)

Published: Tue Mar 14 2023