Overcoming Unwated Intrusive Thoughts

by Sally M Winston

  Sticky mind goes along with feeling anxious. One obvious aspect of the altered state of awareness we call anxious thinking is that threatening thoughts become extremely sticky. It is as if you are expecting danger and looking for it, so thoughts that feel dangerous—such as unwanted intrusive thoughts—stay glued to your mind. It’s like flypaper.

  Sometimes the theme of the content remains the same; sometimes it is different. Stickiness is a bit like those amusement park machines called “the claw,” in which the arm comes out, wanders around, drops, and randomly picks up whatever is sticking up in the big jumble of junk in the cage. Whatever it picks up is not even worth the quarter you put in the machine.

  Paradoxical Effort

  You have certainly noticed something very strange and frustrating about your unwanted thoughts: the harder you try to not think them, the louder and more insistent they become. Effort seems to work backward. We have previously described this as the ironic effect—what happens when we try to control what is in our mind—but the more general principle is called “paradoxical effort.”

  If sticky mind can be compared to flypaper in the mind, then paradoxical effort can be seen as the old Chinese finger trap. Most of us played with this as kids—a simple woven bamboo tube. You stick your fingers in the ends, and then when you try to pull them out, the harder you pull, the tighter the grip of the tube, and the more stuck you get. The secret is figuring out that you have to push in, not pull out, to release your fingers.

  The same thing is true for all of us in many aspects of life. Here are some other examples of the paradoxical effort:

  Trying with every bit of effort to fall asleep whether or not you are naturally sleepy

  Trying not to listen to the TV program playing in the room, while working to finish an assignment

  Trying to be spontaneously witty when you are feeling crabby

  Working hard to relax when you are very anxious

  Trying to laugh at something that does not strike you as funny

  Trying to ignore something you have just noticed

  Trying not to notice a foul smell

  Getting worked up is less effective when you have difficulty learning a new skill, such as learning the backhand swing in tennis and your instructor keeps telling you to “relax” and take a few deep breaths

  It does not work to try to force your body to relax, to feel a particular emotion, or to force your mind to not have specific thoughts. And yet that is what most of us try (at least at first) when we are offended or scared by an unwanted intrusive thought. And then, when effort works backward, we think we should redouble our efforts. This is like trying to climb out of a hole by digging with a shovel, stopping a car by pressing the accelerator, or extinguishing a fire by fanning the flames.

  Paradoxical effort is illustrated by the adage “less is more.” But let’s be clear: there are many times that effort works well in our lives. In fact, most of us believe (and for good reason) that hard work increases the chances of success. Not that hard work guarantees success, but people who work harder are generally more successful and fulfill their goals, on average, more often than people who work less hard. While this is true, there are, however, many important times in everyone’s lives where less is more. And putting less direct effort into accomplishing a goal actually makes success more likely! This is paradoxical effort at work.

  You might have tried to help someone with a problem or intervened in a feud between two other friends. There are times when your efforts are totally misconstrued, and, not only are you unsuccessful in helping heal a feud or solve a problem, but you get blamed for making it worse! In fact, if you had sat back and done nothing, the situation might have resolved on its own. This is one type of experience where less is more.

  Here is another example: when you have a cut on your hand, it will eventually heal itself. Skin cells grow in their own time and lace together, and the cut is healed. But if you are impatient and keep checking it and pulling the Band-Aid off, you will pull off the forming scab and interfere with recovery. Passivity is actually far more efficient than effort. Sometimes you just have to figure out how to let time pass.

  Yet another illustration: What’s the best way to handle quicksand? The more you struggle to climb out, the more you sink. It is not immediately obvious, but the way to get out is to lie back and stop struggling! This increases your buoyancy, and you naturally float to the top where you are safe.

  There are other areas where effort directly interferes with your goals. Learning is one of these activities. Maximum learning requires an open, passive, curious attitude of attention. Judging yourself harshly while you are learning is not only unpleasant, it works against you. Have you had the experience of feeling pressure to learn something (a basketball play, French vocabulary, the plot of Hamlet, an app on your phone), and you keep getting it wrong? This is because you are putting pressure on yourself to learn, and this pressure interferes with the open, passive, attentive attitude that is best for learning. Once again, paradoxical effort means less is more in these circumstances.

  Helpful Fact: Less is more when coping with unwanted intrusive thoughts.

  Entanglement

  Entanglement with a thought means that you have created an inner dialogue about the aggressive, sexual, nonsensical, or otherwise bewildering content running through your mind. You are judging it, arguing with it, or trying to reassure yourself about it. Or, you are trying to figure out some way to become less annoyed or less irritated by the intrusive nature of certain sounds, bodily feelings, or other intrusions. You become focused on the thought or sensation and your attempts to rationalize it, explain and understand its meaning, or just put it out of your mind. Entanglement can happen in a variety of ways, but most often, answering back or arguing with an intrusion is what keeps it going. Getting involved and entangled with unwanted intrusive thoughts makes them stronger and more insistent.

  Here is one way to understand why: Imagine that you are walking down the street, on your way to your car, and a complete stranger walks by you and utters a disgusting comment, and then keeps on walking. You could decide to engage him by saying something back (perhaps: “How dare you!” or “That’s disgusting”), but then he would have your attention, and he might say something else or even get aggressive. Most of you would agree that the best bet is to keep on walking. Don’t even let him know that you heard him. Act as if you couldn’t care less. Of course you know it occurred, and your feelings are also undeniable, but the best way to minimize the event is to not get involved.

  Why would you act that way? Not because you agree or think it is true. But because you know it reduces the likelihood the person will continue his harangue. So you may very well feel frightened, but you will try to act as if you are ignoring the comment. Imagine that the person making the disgusting comment is an intrusive thought. Push back, and you are increasing the chances of another comment.

  Entanglement with a thought often means that you are hijacked by your thought’s aggressive, sexual, disgusting, frightening, or bewildering content. Getting involved and entangled with unwanted intrusive thoughts makes them stronger and more insistent.

  We become entangled with thoughts when we take their message at face value. If we can see their message as junk, then it is much easier to ignore the content of the thought and focus instead on the meaning behind the content. If this seems difficult, then let’s start with an example that we all know very well, which is from Dave Carbonell (2016), who has authored several self-help books on panic and worry (and hosts the popular website AnxietyCoach.com).

  Imagine that you open the following e-mail addressed to you:

  Congratulations! This is your lucky day. Your third cousin twice removed, who was the head of the [insert foreign country] Diamond Industry, has died and left $14 billion dollars to you. In order to collect this inheritance, please click on this link and provide us with your bank routing number. We will immediately transfer into your account the sum of
$14 billion dollars. Again, accept our sincere congratulations.

  Would you start excitedly imagining what it would be like to buy your own yacht, own your own private jet, or buy your own island? (We hope not, of course.) Because the words in this communication are not to be believed. The content is immaterial. This is a scam, and not an inheritance notice.

  When you push the “send to spam” button, you have already disentangled yourself from the content of the e-mail. You have no problem buying the idea that the words should not be believed, and the e-mail is communicating a very different message: “Send me your money, sucker!”

  So why is it so difficult to do the same thing with your unwanted intrusive thoughts? One reason is because your thoughts trigger your alarm response, and so the thoughts feel like they are correct. But come back to the realization that feelings aren’t facts, and remember that anxiety is bluffing you once again.

  Thoughts are not facts either. Thoughts are imaginations inside your mind. You could almost say that thoughts are a form of pretending. You forget about this as soon as you become more entangled with your thoughts. When emotional impact is added to a neutral thought, it becomes much easier to become entangled with it.

  Helpful Fact: Neither thoughts nor feelings are facts.

  Here is a demonstration of how entanglement can be increased. Try it out.

  Write down the words “skill” and “grape.” On a scale of 1 to 10, what emotional impact do each of these words have?

  Remove the first letter from each word to get the words “kill” and “rape.” Now what emotional impact do these words have?

  Now write down the two original words once again: “skill” and “grape.” Has the emotional impact changed?

  You will likely find that the two original words now have more emotional impact than before. You have become entangled with these words because of the emotional connections to words you now can’t help noticing. The words may no longer feel like “just words”—they feel dangerous or ominous or like something “bad.” They may also feel unwelcome.

  The basic message is that words are just words. They don’t feel like anything unless you add an interpretation and a feeling—and then it is so easy to get entangled. Your internal dialogue can get kicked off in an instant. Entanglement increases as you become more involved with your internal dialogue. Responding to Worried Voice by trying to help keeps it going. False Comfort is the agent that increases entanglement.

  Worried Voice:What if this doesn’t work? What if I get so freaked out that I actually do what I’m afraid of?

  False Comfort:Don’t be silly, wipe that thought out of your…

  Wise Mind:False Comfort, please don’t respond to Worried Voice. Nothing good comes of it.

  Worried Voice:OMG! Are you really going to subject me to these thoughts! I might just freak out.

  Wise Mind:Not worth an answer.

  Worried Voice:Did you hear what I said? I might actually do it!

  Wise Mind:This is an intrusive thought. A thought is a thought.

  Worried Voice:This is dangerous! I might have a nervous break-down!

  Wise Mind:I accept and allow thoughts.

  Worried Voice:WHAT IF I CAN’T CONTROL MYSELF?

  Wise Mind:I know there might be another intrusive thought that follows.

  Worried Voice:I don’t think I can stand this much longer!

  Wise Mind:I’m letting time pass.

  Worried Voice:I’m just so nervous about this. What if I never calm down?

  Wise Mind:I’m floating and observing.

  Worried Voice:What if I actually do it?

  Wise Mind:No answer is needed.

  Worried Voice:I’m not sure I can control myself.

  Wise Mind:I’m allowing the thoughts.

  Worried Voice:This is going on for such a long time. What if it never stops? (softly)

  Wise Mind:I’m accepting the thoughts.

  Worried Voice:I’m not sure I can control myself. (barely audible)

  Wise Mind:Notice how soft Worried Voice becomes when no one responds.

  Helpful Fact: Entanglement is a major factor in keeping intrusive thoughts going.

  Ineffective Strategies

  We will address the common but ineffective “coping strategies” of reassurance (both self-reassurance and reassurance from others), rational argument, prayer, “healthy living,” and other counter-productive techniques designed to exert control and get rid of unwanted intrusive thoughts. Unfortunately, these popular suggestions for coping often encourage entanglement and paradoxical effort, and they fail to address sticky mind. So when you follow popular advice and don’t get any relief, you might feel doomed and beyond help. Our message is that you are following approaches that can’t work—not because you are doomed to misery—but because these approaches are simply the wrong way to tame your unwanted intrusive thoughts.

  Reassurance is usually the first way people try to get rid of unwanted intrusive thoughts. Most people try to reassure themselves internally, by seeking reassurance from their own inner voices, from websites, and books, and then when that does not help, they seek reassurance from others. Reassurance involves entanglement by encouraging you to argue with the thoughts, as if they were valuable or meaningful or worthy of attention. And usually reassurance ends up with escalating efforts because it only works temporarily, and your mind comes back for more and better arguments, producing paradoxical effort. Prayer can inadvertently function as paradoxical effort if the source and meaning of the unwanted thoughts is misunderstood or spiritual doubts intrude when the thoughts do not go away. “Healthy living” can reduce general stickiness of the mind, but does nothing at all for entanglement. And “healthy living” can become a relentless preoccupation in a paradoxical effort to overcome and banish meaningless thoughts, leading to a rigid lifestyle, unnecessary deprivations, and more worries.

  Self-Reassurance

  Reassurance is one of the most common ways of pushing back. It is actually a way of talking back to your unwanted intrusive thought. At first, reassurance seems to help. Your anxiety goes down a bit, and you feel better. But then the doubts come back. You ask yourself how you can be really sure that these intrusive thoughts do not mean you are losing control. You wonder whether you have unconscious desires that might get the better of you if you aren’t vigilant. Your thoughts come back in the form of Yes, but what if?—and then you have to find some other reassurance to the new what-if question. So eventually the reassurance fails. Let’s listen to a typical exchange between Worried Voice and False Comfort. Try as it may, Worried Voice never gets the certainty it seeks, and False Comfort gets progressively more frustrated.

  Worried Voice:Tell me again that you believe I am a gentle person who would never knowingly harm anyone.

  False Comfort:Of course, I keep telling you that I know you would never hurt a fly. You are the kindest and gentlest person I know.

  Worried Voice:Okay, but there could always be a first time, you know. There must be some reason I’m having these thoughts. I read all the time about people who just snap and commit mayhem, and their neighbors always say they are shocked. They say, “He seemed like such a nice guy.”

  False Comfort:Yes. I know; I read about that also. But that is so rare, and you are not even angry at anyone.

  Worried Voice:Maybe I don’t realize how angry I am, and I could snap. You can’t prove to me that I couldn’t.

  False Comfort:Well maybe I can’t prove it, but I know in my heart you would never do it.

  Worried Voice:Maybe you are just too nice to imagine such a thing.

  False Comfort:No, I really believe in you.

  Worried Voice:I don’t just need you to believe in me; I need proof. You can’t give me that, can you?

  False Comfort:Well, maybe we should see a doctor to get some reassurance that you are not going to snap and do something horrible. Would you believe a doctor?

  Worried Voice:See, I told y
ou! You do think I need a doctor!

  Reassurance from Others

  You have probably asked at least one close person whether she or he thinks you will act on any of your unwanted intrusive thoughts. Perhaps a family member has noticed that you are acting differently, maybe avoiding a situation that you find triggering.

  Here is just one example: You might be upset by the intrusive thought that you will blurt out blasphemous and vulgar words during church. Prior to this, you enjoyed going to church, both for the spiritual comfort and the social interaction. But your fear of acting on your thoughts leads you to avoid services, go to church late, or sit in the back of the congregation. Your family might notice this and ask you why you are staying away from something that seems to give you so much pleasure.

  So you confess your thoughts and fears, and ask if they think you could possibly do such a horrible thing. If your family seems bewildered or frightened, you will take that reaction as still another piece of evidence that you might really lose control. If they say, “No, of course not. That is not like you, and I’m sure you would never do anything like that,” you might feel temporarily relieved. But then, perhaps slowly at first, but inevitably, you will begin to doubt the comforting words. You soon start to argue with yourself.

  Worried Voice:Jane says I would never do that, but how can she know for sure?

  False Comfort:Jane is your friend and would never lie to you.

  Worried Voice:Who’s talking about lying? There are plenty of things Jane doesn’t know about me. She might not realize how much these thoughts take over my mind. I have to work so hard to keep myself from losing control.

  False Comfort:I think she knows you very well, and she sees what a good and spiritual person you are.