4 Ways To Deal With Unwanted Thoughts
What’s the first step to dealing with unwanted thoughts? AWARENESS. Thoughts go in and out of your head all day, every day. If you can’t tell someone what you’re thinking throughout the day, chances are you’re on autopilot. If you’re on autopilot, you’re basically going through the motions and giving your thoughts—especially the unwanted ones—free reign over your mind. And let me tell you, they’re wreaking havoc up there.
Step one is to slow down and start paying attention to what you’re thinking about—during any task, after someone upsets you, after someone does something nice for you, while watching tv or social media, or while getting quiet and letting your thoughts pop up. Just take the time to check in with yourself to see what’s being said. Your mind is constantly moving so you should always notice something!
I’m paying closer attention, now what? You may begin to notice you’re having a lot of negative or critical thoughts. Welcome to the party that’s been raging inside your head for years. You may also notice that you get lost in what’s called a negative thought loop or spiral. This essentially means that one negative thought leads to another and another and another and now you can’t stop them. The bad news is these loops are very comfortable and easy for your mind.
Here’s the good news . . . once you become aware that you’re having them, you can now start the process of getting yourself out of it. You can thank a process called neuroplasticity—the brain's ability to modify, change, and adapt both its structure and function in response to experience. The brain is a fascinating and resilient organ that can be retrained! Just like you (unconsciously) trained it to comfortably visit these negative thought loops, you can retrain it to go to more positive ones.
What are the 4 ways to deal with unwanted thoughts? Remember this . . . you cannot control what thought pops up or when, but once you become aware that you are thinking it, you can choose what you want to do with it. Below are 4 options.
Accept: You can just accept them as they are. This is what a lot of us do most of the time (or all of the time). We have a tendency to think that every thought we have is true, but that couldn’t be further from the truth. Not every thought is original to your brain. Thoughts can come from a slew of things. Here are a few examples; things you’ve heard other people say to you or about you, things you’ve heard on tv, social media, or the internet, and beliefs or opinions you’ve formed from past experiences. We often take these things on as our own. Then we think about them over and over again until we believe them. When we believe them, they become a part of us. Once that happens, they join our thought patterns. These thought patterns are on a loop until we become aware of them and start taking action to change them.
Below are some of the effects of accepting unwanted thoughts:
Pessimistic moods (that can last days or longer)
Believing negative and untrue things about yourself
Low confidence
Low self-esteem
Anxiety
Unfriendliness towards others
Perfectionism
Catastrophizing
“Thoughts can be a self-generated form of suffering through the mind”—this isn’t a full quote from Eckhart Tolle, but a summary. This means that if we know there are thoughts that are hurtful to us, yet we still allow them to come in and affect us over and over again, we are partially responsible for our own suffering.
You can choose to participate in your own suffering by allowing in and accepting these unwanted (and often untrue) thoughts. But Imma warn you that shit will stay the same. On the other hand, if you’re tired of doing that, keep reading for 3 other options.
Dismiss: When an unwanted thought comes in, you can just dismiss it. What does it look like? You make the decision that you no longer want to think a certain thought. Every time you notice it coming through (this is awareness), you say to yourself something like, “Nope. Not thinking this today.” Then you redirect your attention to a task—something that will engage your mind. For example, work, watching tv, washing dishes, listening to music, etc.
Imagine you’re laying down in the grass looking up at the clouds. Right before your eyes, one appears and then floats on by. The next moment, there’s a different cloud floating by. You can treat unwanted thoughts the same way . . . allow them to appear and then float on by. A negative thought only becomes a problem when you grab ahold of it, focus on it, or feed it with more thoughts. You can learn to acknowledge it, let it go, and allow your mind to engage with something else.
This is retraining the brain to get out of auto-pilot so you can engage with mental awareness, control, and focus. You are sending the signal to your brain that you no longer wish to entertain these types of thoughts.
Challenge: This one is a favorite among my clients. When an unwanted thought arises, challenge that bitch! In other words . . . dispute it, call it out, or question it. Dr. Daniel Amen says, “Thoughts lie. They lie a lot.” Like I mentioned before, just because it comes from your own mind doesn’t make it true. It could just be some bullshit picked up along the way that has made its way into your brain. So before you take it at face value, check its validity. In my Coaching program, we cover all the questions you can use to challenge unwanted thoughts, but here are a couple you can use to get started:
Is it factually true? Do you have solid facts to support it? If you don’t, why are you continuing the story in your head?
Does it get you what you want? Does it bring you joy, peace, or productivity? Or does it give you sadness, stress, or anxiety? If the latter is true, why are you giving it that much power in your mind? Entertain more thoughts that give you the good stuff.
This helps retrain the mind to stop allowing untrue thoughts to deceive you. Question and fact check it. When you find there aren’t facts to support it (or that it’s contributing to a negative mood), remind yourself that just because you’re thinking it doesn’t mean it’s true (or worthy or space in your mind).
Replace. Lastly, a super solid option is to replace the unwanted thought. Simply choose another thought that will support a kind, positive, and energizing mindset and think that one instead. But won’t the unwanted thought just come right back? Probably. And when it does, replace it again. And again. And again. It’s become so familiar for your brain to think the unwanted thought. It’s an easy path. It’s going to take some guidance and redirection in order for the new thought to become familiar.
Replace it with something you would rather be thinking. If you can’t think of anything, just use the opposite thought. For example, if you’re thinking, “I am not worthy”, replace it with “I am more than worthy”. It can be that easy!
This is retraining the brain to become more comfortable with positive thoughts and thought patterns. When you start to do this more and more, you are telling the brain that you would rather think this (positive thoughts) than that (negative thoughts).
How are these effective? They’re effective for a number of reasons. First, every time you choose to dismiss, challenge, or replace an unwanted thought, you are interrupting the negative thought pattern. This means stopping it in its tracks so it can’t continue. Second, you’re redirecting it to a more desirable thought pattern. This means gently guiding your brain to think of things that are more beneficial. Third, you are retraining your brain to become more familiar with these new and useful thought patterns. This means they will be less comfortable with unwanted ones and ultimately refer to them less and less. Lastly, you are learning to be more mindful and less on autopilot. This means allowing for more opportunities to choose how you speak to yourself.
How do I proceed? I suggest you choose your favorite of the three—dismiss, challenge, or replace–and practice it until you really get comfortable. The goal is to use it with ease. When you get to a really good place with it, start practicing another one so you have a couple options to choose from. Because there might be days that dismissing isn’t working like it normally does, so you use challenging instead.
YOU can learn to manage your mind. It’s yours, you know?
First comes awareness—reading this.
Then comes action—practicing one of the 3 above.
Lastly comes change and more peace of mind. Isn’t that what you want??
