How To Stop Obsessive Thoughts

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There are numerous ways we can drive ourselves nuts, hence the entire category dedicated to this subject. I’m not even close to a professional but I can speak from experience. Yes, there are situations that require advanced treatment, even for a short amount of time. You’ll obviously want to follow the advice of the person you are entrusting your care to. This is something else. I’m referring to the breakups, financial issues, and losses that affect just about everyone at some time. And when these things are at the forefront of someone’s mind, it can be challenging to not only be unable to see the bright side of things but it can be hard to just be in the present moment and fully function. Aside from getting help, the best things I have personally used are distracting myself, gratitude, prayer and giving in a way that helps someone else. But that’s not what this post is about and you can find this kind of advice all over the internet and in self help books. We’re going to come at these thoughts from a completely different angle.

What Makes This Different?

We’re going to stop thinking about some other things you don’t like that add to the stress you may be experiencing. People you don’t like, events that make you upset every time you think about them, anything that starts of innocently enough in your thoughts but the dream turns into a nightmare. Have you noticed that when you’re upset, you start thinking about other people and things that upset you, making you feel worse? What avoiding certain topics does is take some of the pressure off of you and create a better environment to deal and heal.

Shouldn’t you keep thinking about the past so you don’t forget what happened? Does it make you feel better to think about it or do you find yourself more relaxed when not fixated on it? Does thinking about a person, how you were wronged or the mistake you made increase the quality of your life? Ask yourself, “Am I learning more lessons out of this or am I just milking the same negative emotion over and over again?”. How much relief does it bring you that you are justified in constantly being angry? I strongly believe that if something has deeply affected you, I doubt you will forget about it, at least for a while. There’s no reason to get yourself upset all over again.

Getting Started

So, how do you do it? Start small. It’s unlikely that you’re going to eliminate every negative thought about every negative thing that has happened since you were born. Start with a person you really don’t like but rarely communicate with. Why do they pop up into your mind more often than you speak with them? Why are you thinking about the disservice done to you two jobs ago? Why are you constantly thinking about how much you can’t stand your wife’s side of the family when you see them twice a year? You see them a whole lot more often each time you invite them inside your head. And let’s not forget dead people. It’s like the movie “Pet Semetary”, where every being brought back to life is a deranged version of what it once was. Maybe you’re right; they were that bad. Feel better?

Start Small

Let’s say we put together a list of three or four things that are easier not to think about. Going through the list should not trigger you too much emotionally. That’s why we’re not putting your fresh breakup on the list. Not only will telling yourself not to think about your new ex have the opposite result, you would basically be planning to upset yourself on purpose by making time “not” to think about them. Every day, when you list these items in your mind, you’re going to name them passively, like a list of ingredients. You’re not going to go any deeper by thinking about them further. A sample list could be: a couple you don’t like, a group of relatives that are not in your face all of the time, some awful former neighbors, and your ex from many years ago that you have no communication with (not the one that still has your heart). You can write them down until you no longer need it on paper (yes, I still use and love paper) and read it to yourself every morning. You will review that list each time you find yourself thinking about one of the items. It can happen when you’re upset or when your mind wanders. Doing the dishes should not leave you in a negative mood because you zoned out and your mind went to the wrong place. I found myself needing to review the list of four things several times a day until it came naturally. Now I go through the list in the morning and here and there when I catch myself going off into a negative place.

Building From There

Once you’re solid, and I mean really solid with these four items, you can make your list much longer and more general. Add things on slowly. You want to have this list memorized to the point where it is embedded in your mind and the list pops up automatically like a file search when it recognizes a name that doesn’t belong in your thoughts. Here’s an example of how far you can go with this: former coworkers you don’t like; a side of the family; a community; your ex; past relationships of ANY kind; the news; politics; local current events; something you can’t bear to name so you refer to it as that “thing”; an embarrassing memory; shame; money fears; things, people or events that annoy or upset you. Yes, you can go that big. What happens after a while is that your mind gets set to a point where if a thought falls under one or more of these categories, it gets flagged and you get a reminder to move on and think about something else. You can do this with great success if you catch it early.

Moving Forward

This really works for me. It took a few months but it truly helps me to be clear on other things when I don’t have a load of unhelpful thoughts weighing me down. Is this a cure for all negative thoughts? C’mon. But when your heart is heavy, doing something to feel a little better so that you can keep feeling a little better with time puts more control into your hands towards your recovery.