Contents
Introduction 1
Chapter 1 Recovering from unwanted intrusive thoughts 1
Thoiughts that get stuck 3
Chapter 2 Varieties of intrusive thoughts 4
Chapter 3 What thoughts mean: Myths and facts 5
Chapter 4 Unwanted intrusive thoughts Q and A 6
Chapter 5 How the brain creates unwanted intrusive thoughts 7
Chapter 6 Why nothing has worked 9
Ineffective strategies 10
Reassurance, suppression, rational argument, prayer 10
Self reassurance 10
Healthy living 10
Chapter 7 How to handle thoughts when they happen 11
Chapter 8 Getting over unwanted thoughts for good 14
Chapter 9 What does recovery mean 15
Summary 16
Introduction
90% of people have intrusive thoughts. The only people who have problems with them fear they will act on them.
Helpful Fact: There is nothing wrong with you, just the way you are dealing with your thoughts.
The answer is learning an entirely new relationship to thoughts, which is being neither scared nor ashamed of them.
Chapter 1 Recovering from unwanted intrusive thoughts
What are Intrusive Thoughts, how do they get stuck, why do they feel dangerous
We can associate certain experiences with certain thought types!
Not wanting the Intrusive Thoughts or fighting it stops it from passing quickly. The more you fight with it, the more it pushes back, as it has more significance, has your attention.
When you have become disgusted with the thought, it arrives with a lot of emotion, disgust, anxiety etc, and a real desire to get rid of it. So as you have strong emotions then this effects your body, so now you have a thought, strong emotions and physical reactions.
The combination of the desire to get rid of the thought, the emotions and the physical sensations can lead to a belief that theres an urge to act on this thought, as it seems very real.
As the thoughts become more intense, and it has such an effect on your life, then you might start to think that you are a bad person, who could act on these thoughts.
Voices of the mind
We have many characters inside us, including the self critic, the manager , the well being manager, the social manager, the worrier, the false comforter and the wise mind.
Worried voice: doubts, scares, annoys, interrupts (trying to protect), produces anxiety, can be the first to react to new sensations
False comfort Placates tries to reassure but never succeeds. False Comfort is actually so disturbed and frightened by Worried Voice that it continuously tries to argue, control, avoid, suppress, reassure, reason with, neutralize, or work around whatever Worried Voice comes up with. Tries to lower anxiety. Indeed also has fears about worried voice, that it indicates that its out of control, perverse etc.
Wise mind: Knows what’s going on, with mindful, compassionate awareness. Wise Mind is disentangled, free of effort, and accepting of uncertainty. It is curious and sometimes even amused by things that upset the others. Wise mind knows that false comfort keeps worried voice going, so trying to not be scared, keeps the what ifs going (how).
Ironic nature of thought
When you try to think of a thought less you get more of it. Why, you make it more important, you activate emotions when its around, you get a desire to get rid of it, your body is activated too. You are putting a lot of energy into these thoughts.
Test 1
Don’t think of carrots
Test 2
Put on a timer for 5 minutes, and every time you think of carrots reset it: Your thought gets stuck, then you become frustrated and angry.
What you resist tends to persist
Thoughts that get stuck
The thoughts you most want to get rid of are the ones that get stuck, so they are generally the opposite of your values.
Intrusive Thoughts versus impulses
You may be afraid that you will act on your Intrusive Thoughts as there is a lot of emotion, energy, desire to act (i.e. get rid of thought) and physical response.
You fear you will lose control, but Intrusive Thoughts is a problem of overcontrol, not under control.
Doubt/uncertainty=>overcontrol, leads to trying to control things that you can’t control
When are intrusive thoughts likely to happen?
Intrusive Thoughts vary in intensity and frequency
Self
When you are less resilient you will get more Intrusive Thoughts (low self care, high distress, high drugs or hangover). Worst in the morning and when you are lying down to sleep. You will be more scared of them, avoid them more, and because you are paying more attention to them therefore you can get them more.
When less resilient, you are less engaged with other things, you feel yourself more vulnerable as you can control less, so your usual strategy is compromised. So Intrusive thoughts are more likely as your mind is idling, you feel strange and less able to defend yourself.
Avoiding also tells you are fragile, can’t cope with the thoughts
Situation
If there are high stakes this can increase the stickiness of the thoughts. So if you are in a situation where you could act on the Intrusive thought. So now the emotions before going into the situation are super high, you are on the look out.
Higher stakes, doesn’t increase the probability of something happening.
Events
Having had a traumatic event can be a trigger to Its, as you might worry about it, ruminate about it, so are keeping a relation with it. This can be a personal one or one in the media.
If in the media you see a story of someone doing something you’re frightened off, that may raise your belief in your probability of doing that, can increase your fear of doing that as you see it as more likely, then worry more about it. Fear the thoughts about it more.
Helpful Fact: Contrary to common sense, reducing your effort to avoid intrusive thoughts will often lead to less distress.
Chapter 2 Varieties of intrusive thoughts
Morally repugnant thoughts
1. Harming and self harming thoughts
a. Generally self, innocent or loved
2. Forbidden sexual thoughts
a. With relatives, children, or extra marital
3. Impure or blasphemous religious thoughts
a. Not believing own religion, thinking transgressive thoughts
4. Disgust causing intrusions when having pleasure
a. Think about sex with inappropriate person when having sex with partner
b. Image of someone doing something to my food when eating
5. Big issue thoughts (stuck in the worrying questions of unanswerable thoughts)
a. Disbelief of reality
b. Uncertainty of future
c. Questioning beliefs
6. Nonsensical thoughts
a. I could lick a dirty window
b. My mum is a duck
c. I could have run someone over and forgotten it
7. Mental checking from doubt
a. Am I really understanding when reading, so reread
b. Did I insult someone when talking to them, so repeat conversation in my head
8. Doubts about relationship
a. Fear something is wrong with relationship
9. Scrupulous thoughts
a. Preoccupation with right\wrong, good\bad
10. Sexual orientation and sexual identity thoughts
a. Questioning sexuality, feeling of fear, testing self
11. Intrusive visual images
a. Humiliating\crazy actions in front of people
b. Illness, dying, death scenes
c. Traumatic memories
12. Worry
a. Productive worry vs toxic worry. Productive plans, solves problems and acts. Toxic worry tries to reassure but can’t or doesn’t solve problems and doesn’t act.
b. Single topic worry
c. Multi topic worry
d. Meta worry
13. Not entirely unwanted intrusive thoughts
a. Serve as a diversion, a fantasy, but keeps us from concentration
b. Revenge
i. Playing through revenge ideas, might start as intentional then end up unintentional
c. Bereavement
i. When you struggle with your grief thoughts, trying to get rid of them
d. Love sickness
i. Obsessional thoughts that start invited but then end up uninvited
e. Resentment
i. Thinking how unfair something is, again start invited but then become intrusive.
14. Personal lost, failure or mistake
a. Thoughts that you have or will commit a terrible mistake, the thought keeps on replaying and it causes distress (seems more like obsession, rather than OCD, there is no suppression of thoughts, although there may be compulsion with it)
15. Somatosensory intrusions
a. Intrusive sensations: hyper aware OCD. E.g. I produce too much saliva, so I swallow and swallow. Focus on a body part, or function obsessionally
Helpful Fact: Most of your distress is caused not by what you think or feel, but how you feel about and react to what you think or feel.
Intrusive thought: is an unwanted thought that causes distress.
It will then be got worse through putting energy into it to try to get rid of it.
Then theres the behaviours to try to disprove it.
Chapter 3 What thoughts mean: Myths and facts
9 Myths about thoughts that contribute to thoughts getting stuck
1. Our thoughts are under our control
a. Thoughts happen, they wander, they jump around
b. Just because you can think some thoughts on purpose doesn’t mean to say all thoughts are under you control
2. Our thoughts indicate our character
a. If we have dark thoughts, it means we have a dark side, there are movies that promote this, e.g. the exorcist movie
b. Character is how we lead our life, what we choose to do
3. Our thoughts indicate our inner self
a. Thoughts are a window to the soul
i. But if this was the case then everyone would be a heap of contradictions, between kind and cruel for example.
ii. The fear is you would be like Jekyll and Hyde, but this characters has been dreamt up by a normal person
4. The unconscious mind can affect actions (not strong argument)
a. We could all of a sudden do something we didn’t expect against our wishes, maybe these thoughts are coming from my wiser mind that knows some I don’t
b. There is also the idea, if you fear something then you secretly desire it, but there is no evidence for this
c. I suppose noticing your reaction to thoughts is powerful, shows your desire.
5. Thinking something makes it likely to happen
a. Having negative thoughts will create negative events (TAF), we only remember premonitions that come true not the ones that don’t
b. Our thoughts can effect what we choose to do, but they can’t make us do what we don’t want to do
6. Thinking something makes it unlikely to happen
a. Worrying about someone protects them, shows love and loyalty.
7. Only sick people have intrusive thoughts
a. Mother Teresa had intrusive thoughts, that she had sinned when she hadn’t, fearful of being punished, and doubting forgiveness when she had been forgiven.
8. Every thought is worth thinking
a. Thought is like TV there are a lot of crap channels
9. Thoughts that repeat are important
a. Thoughts tend to repeat if they are resisted
b. When you try not to have a thought, it will repeat. When a thought repeats it builds up a neural connection, so its more likely to repeat.
Helpful Fact: Thoughts have nothing to do with character. Only chosen actions do.
Helpful Fact: Thoughts do not change probabilities in the real world.
Chapter 4 Unwanted intrusive thoughts Q and A
Does having thoughts about hurting people mean deep down I harbour aggression?
Based on psychoanalytic idea that feared thoughts relate to unconscious wishes. However you are having thoughts that you don’t want, your emotions when you have them show them not to be a desire. The thoughts are stuck as you try to get rid of them
Does having Intrusive Thoughts sexual thoughts about children mean I’m a paedophile.
No because of the emotion you feel when you have the thought
Why do my thoughts feel like impulses
Intrusive thoughts are an outcome of overcontrol. You may feel like you put a lot of effort into not acting on them, and sure you do put that effort in, but it doesn’t mean to say that you will act on them if you don’t. The impulse you feel is the concoction of the emotions, their physiological correlates plus your desire to act, i.e. to get rid of the thought, to avoid certain situations, maybe to punish yourself for being a monster.
The feeling of anxiety, blurs the distinction between thought and actions, thoughts and desires, thoughts and impulses, as your mind is racing
But I get so scared, the fight to control myself feels so real?
Our fear response to fight\flight is activated, which makes the thought seem dangerous. We want to run or fight, our body is activated, energised, so the thought can seem like it has energy.
What is the root cause of the problem
This question is the problem, its like asking what is the best method of bloodletting to cure a fever, you would say bloodletting doesn’t cure fevers. Root causes were considered in vogue 50 years ago, when there was a sense of a singular cause that you can find by digging deep in your psyche.
Now the thinking is that the complicated interaction between your genetics and your experience, and your environment result in how you behave
Distraction, thought suppression, reinforces the idea that the thought means something, is a big deal that needs dealing with.
When you distract yourself, you also have part of your mind barring the door to make sure they don’t come back and scanning the mind to make sure they haven’t. So being hyper vigilant for them, trying really hard to make sure you don’t have them, reminds you of them, and ironically makes you think of them.
Your goal is to learn how to reduce the distress they trigger. Thoughts that don’t matter have no power.
Chapter 5 How the brain creates unwanted intrusive thoughts
The brain is reacting to thoughts as though they are dangerous and this creates anxiety. When the thought is conditioned by regularly experiencing anxiety, then they are linked, when you have the thought then you will have anxiety as there is a conditioned connecting between the two.
False positive, the alarm system going off when there is no need to.
The amygdala has many false positives as it doesn’t ever want to have a false negative. The emotion of fear is useful for fast response via fight\flight\freeze.
Fear responses have to be learned, babies are only scared of loud noises and lack of support .
The thought feels dangerous as you get a whoosh of fear, so its easy to think there is a real danger. Which you think is the thought, but all that has happened is you have learnt to be frightened of the thought (due to your beliefs and experience) so you feel fear when you have the thought.
First fear is the initial feeling of fear produced by the amygdala. Its unstoppable and automatic.
The thalamus sends two signals to the amygdala, on the basis of a trigger, one via the pre-frontal cortex, the other one directly to the amygdala. So you can feel fear, because you have been conditioned, before you can think about it.
The first fear, is the initial fear response to a threat, then this can be stoked by secondary thoughts, that can confirm that this is a scary situation.
False comfort confirms worried voices fears by trying to placate those fears. Worried voices what ifs, are fear inducing so from the initial conditioned response then there comes. So you have a continual fear response, that started with the intrusive thought, but then was continued by the what ifs. You have a strong danger response, that you can then associate with the intrusive thought, you then want to stop it, feel that you are monster, and you attribute these feelings to the thought.
When false comfort pretends, reassures, explains away, then this gives worried voice the thought that there is something to worry about, that that their fears are justified, as false comfort is taking them seriously. This then increases fear, the second whoosh
Fear Trigger (loud noise, scary thought) associated with fear
2 signals one sent to PFC (slow) one to Amygdala (fast)
Feeling of fear from amygdala (first whoosh)
Then meta thoughts. Feeling afraid and having thought, fear that I could act on it, as have emotion desire to act (stop the thought)
Fear Diminishing cycle
Allow the fear to subside the amygdala is only doing its job. Feeling afraid is not the same as being in a dangerous situation. The first feeling of fear you feel due to association and happens automatically, then second feeling is something you can control
Fear helps us with life threatening situations and helps us to fast movement
Anxiety can be triggered also by scary thoughts, or emotional threats (e.g. of rejection)
Point 1, our fear system is turned on when it doesn’t need to be, its fast and we can’t think about it
Point 2, through making our thoughts over important and fighting with them, that can keep the system on, and keep the thoughts going.
When the anxiety response is on
Body, activated for fight flight
Mind, racing
Behaviour hyper vigilant, tunnel vision
Then with all of this thoughts can get confused with desires,
Thoughts no longer feel like a safe way to rehearse actions without consequences.
When your amygdala is not triggering the alarm response it is happy to live in world that isn’t risk free, when it is triggered in cannot accept any risk, because everything seems so real
Once the amygdala is triggered, then thoughts can seem real, due to the toxic cocktail in your body, this then leads to a desire for certainty, which is impossible.
Chapter 6 Why nothing has worked
three factors that explain why your efforts have not worked: sticky mind, paradoxical effort, and entanglement.
Sticky Mind
Sticky mind, is when thoughts keep on returning and you pay undue attention to them There is a biological basis to this (it can run in the family). The second is stress, when people are less able to cope generally the thoughts gets stickier, if you are generally more anxious, you will be intolerant of uncertainty, hypervigilant, so less likely to let sticky thoughts go.
Paradoxical effect
Effort works backwards, the more you try not to have the thoughts the more you have them. Like a Chinese finger trap, the more you try to pull your finger out the tighter it becomes.
Other paradoxical effects, trying to sleep, laugh, ignore, relax, not notice something and when it fails we redouble our effort. This is like trying to dig yourself out of a hole by digging faster.
Quick sand, the more you struggle the more you sink
With thoughts, as you try to push them away, firstly you engage with them (associating the thought with what’s happening at the moment), secondly you are giving them significance, thirdly you create emotion\desire with the thought which can make it seem more real
Entanglement
You connect with the content of the thought, and judge yourself because you have it. Then you argue against it, or try to reassure yourself.
If a person walks down the street and says a disgusting comment, if you go after them and say don’t say that, it will increase your engagement with that person, they might say another disgusting comment they might have a fight with you. The best bet is to ignore the comment and carry on with your journey. You are trying to get them to not say something again, but as you do you increase the likelihood of another comment.
Meaning behind the words: Spam email=send me your money sucker
Your thoughts seems correct, and like action because its triggered your alarm system.
Emotional impact: Write down skill and grape and notice the impact, then remove the first letter, what is the emotional impact. These words may now no longer just feel like words, but rather something more, but these words are just words. But these words are just words, if you add feeling to them, then they become something more.
Ineffective strategies
Reassurance, suppression, rational argument, prayer
As there is a need for certainty reassurance and rational argument wont work, certainty is needed as without that there is still a thought, which is believed which causes problem, I have to have no thoughts as I can believe them. Theres a prediction and placating move. So I will predict a bad thing (to keep myself safe) then I will placate myself by reassurance. But I need to be completely safe (I’m more hypervigilant to danger since amygdala) so I then make another prediction. Within the prediction and placation movement there is a lot of experience of scary things happening, which associates the emotions with situations, brain gets to experience a lot of scary things, fear response is triggered.
Suppression doesn’t work as it gets you to think the thought first. Then the problem is if things don’t work , you think you are the problem, so you try harder, but then the problem gets worse.
Self reassurance
Argue against myself. Short term pay off, but there is still the acting on the significance of the thoughts, and therefore no tolerance of thoughts, so doubt creeps back in
Healthy living
Whilst healthy living can help reduce intrusive thoughts, If you try to use healthy living to stop intrusive thoughts and you increase if it if you are having them ,then this means that are you giving the thought significance and power. You are entangled with the thought and it is now sticky.
Paradoxical effect=the more power I put into stopping intrusive thoughts the more I have them
Engagement with thought: believing they are significant and meaningful, that the content means something about you, so you need to argue or get reassured.
Intrusive thoughts and the serenity prayer, so realise you cannot control the appearance of the intrusive thought, nor the first emotion, but what you can control is your reaction to this.
Breathing techniques can be useful but not in so far as to get rid of the thought but rather to allow you to be ok with them.
The main aim here is to not care whether the thoughts come or not, but rather we can treat them as a false alarm.
Don’t aim to distract\suppress\argue, this will all fuel the paradoxical effect. Likewise it will fuel the belief that the content of thoughts means something about you.
Intrusive thoughts are stress sensitive, well being sensitive, but are not caused by stress\distress.
Meditation and yoga can both be helpful in reducing the tendency to have a sticky mind and to get entangled with thoughts, but if they are done with the intention of banishing or conquering thoughts instead of relating to them differently, they will not be helpful.
Chapter 7 How to handle thoughts when they happen
The aim here is acceptance and there are 6 steps to this.
Bad strategies only deal with the present thought, they are short term
RJAFTP
R: recognize
J: just thoughts
A: accept and allow
F: float and feel
T: let time pass P: proceed.
Step 1 Recognise
Pause and label: right now I am having an intrusive thought because of how it feels, awful, unwanted etc.
Notice all the emotions, and physical feeling that come because you have had an intrusive thought and what you think of it.
You might notice how you want to be absolutely certain that this is an intrusive thought rather than a desire, but also notice that a desire for complete certainty is a feeling not a fact, and that it overrides even a 99% probability that something is true, and that the desire for 100% certainty is the desire to have no scary\doubting thoughts, which again comes back to the thought that all your thoughts are meaningful.
Step 2 Just Thoughts
Notice this intrusive thought is automatic and you can leave it alone, they are just junk thoughts, you don’t need to get tied up with them. Remember fighting with them gets you entangled and they stay along
Step 3 Accept and allow
Your job is not to distract yourself, not to engage and not to reason away. Just observe without engagement. You don’t need to argue with the thought as you are arguing with something that isn’t real. All you are doing here is acting as if the thoughts are unimportant. Crucial difference between this thought is not important (its intrusive) vs this thought is not true.
If you argue against a thought, you say it is important
If you seek reassurance that a thought isn’t true, you say its important.
Intrusive thoughts, can prompt more worries but what if xyz
Productive worry has an outcome and a plan that you can act on that stops worry. Problem, action, stop worrying
Unproductive worry, tries to solve something that there is no answer and you can’t form an action plan.
The aim is to treat the thoughts as unimportant.
The act of hanging onto these thoughts, engaging with them can be in any of these forms
engage the thoughts in any way possible
1. answer any question the thought poses
2. push the thoughts out of your mind
3. figure out what your thoughts “mean”
4. try to determine whether the thought is “true” or “false” (but remember it is a thought, not a fact)
5. analyse why the thought pops up now convince yourself that you would never do what the thoughts are saying
6. change your behaviour so you avoid the possibility of acting on your thoughts
7. offer reassurance one way or another.
Step 4 Float and feel
Return to the present when you notice are you in an imagined future. Concentrate on what is to what if, surrender the struggle!
Floating above the fray is connecting to your Wise Mind. Floating is an attitude of non-active, non-urgent, non-effortful observation. It is non-distressed, uninvolved, and passive. It is non-judgmental. It is allowing thoughts to be there for as long as they happen to be. It is the opposite of entanglement.
Step 5 Let time pass
Just let time pass, don’t try to hurry it, if you feel anxiety, or have unpleasant thoughts, just notice them from a disinterested point of view. With the feeling of anxiety, it may be a discomfort but you are not in danger and you do not need to act.
As you are counting down, waiting and urging for them to go, then the belief you support are they are really bad, I don’t think I can manage them.
As you are checking to see if steps are working, again you support the belief these are really bad thoughts I really need these steps to work.
There might be a sense of urgency to act but this is due to the anxiety produced by intrusive thoughts. Not a real need to act.
Step 6 Proceed
Continue what you were doing prior to having the intrusive thought. You can rob the thought of its power by not being affected by it, by carrying on what you are doing. The thought is distressing not dangerous.
To rob something of its power is to remove its effects. If there are no effects there is no power.
Enemies of acceptance
1. Guilt
2. Doubt
3. Urgency
Guilt
After someone has intrusive thoughts they might feel guilty then ask someone else for reassurance. This provides temporary relief but you have just given the thought power.
Doubt
Reassuring or reasoning with intrusive thoughts, says my thoughts are important. Then when you have reassured or reasoned with yourself you have another doubt. Because thoughts are important this doubt is important, so therefore you have to have complete certainty and abolish all doubts which you can never do.
The more you wrestle with the thoughts, the more their possibility increases as your brain has had the experience of them, the more likely they seem to happen, then the more you have wrestle with them. The problem is the wrestling with them.
You don’t demand absolute certainty from health, driving, your house not falling down.
Do or die test
Have a thought
Gun to head, right answer live, wrong or no answer die.
Is this thought intrusive or should I turn myself into the police\hospital
Urgency
There is a sense of urgency that accompanies each thought: significance of thought plus anxiety (act quickly) a desire to escape\stop the thought + dislike of uncertainty
There are many times when doing nothing when there is a problem\irritant is the best approach.
Accused of something ridiculous, neighbours arguing, fly on a windscreen, headache at work
Chapter 8 Getting over unwanted thoughts for good
Exposure! First understand what keeps the thoughts going, accept and continue what you are doing. Then expose.
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Think of the amygdala as an infant, you can’t reason with it, you have to show that its safe. You do this by showing that the fear it feels doesn’t mean theres danger.
Emotional processing theory
Brain develops fearful memory structure that keeps your fears alive. You have feared beliefs, you avoid testing if they are true, they stay true. So we activate them, expose, to find out they aren’t dangerous, you need to activate the feared structure and to stay with it until the anxiety reduces so you prove to the structures that there isn’t anything dangerous in them or about them.
Inhibitory learning
This argues we don’t unlearn feared structures as with emotional processing theory rather we learn new pathways that complete with the old. Thus the new pathways inhibit the old, then the non scary response becomes the default one. Exposure you need to stay in contact with what frightens you until it seems more manageable. The idea is to tolerate anxiety as opposed to eliminate it
Planned practice vs incidental practice. Practice with false alarms, teach your brain there isn’t anything to be afraid of.
5 As of optimal practice
Acceptance
Assign accurate assessment
Active allowance of awareness and affect
Avoid avoidance
Action: advance activities
Accept intrusive thoughts, do not give them any power by reacting to them, neither fight nor flee. Notice the thoughts are just thoughts, kindly be aware of thoughts\emotion\physiology in gentle descriptive terms as much as you can. Avoid avoidance
6 steps to help exposure
1. Go at your own pace
2. Think the thought with a twist, sing it, draw it, say it back wards, make it into a horror film, say it over and over
3. Avoid getting caught up in content
a. Maybe say to your self
i. That’s a thought
ii. Nothing is certain
iii. I can think of something worse
iv. Change what if to what is, change from thinking to sensing
Chapter 9 What does recovery mean
Relief from the struggle, its different from medical recovery as you will still get “symptoms” but its how you react to the.
Inoculation
Understanding: thoughts create emotions create physiological responses (your alarm system). Whilst the alarm system wants you to operate quickly its best to slow down so you can observe your thoughts in action. . Then notice your thoughts and emotions without judgement or evaluation.
If we accept our thoughts, we stop fuelling them with anxiety, disgust, fear and shame.
I have an intrusive thought
My brain can experience me doing this
I have unpleasant emotions about the thought, and a desire to stop the thought
My body is activated with a desire to act, and its flooded full with emotions. This can give the impression that I could act on the thought, I am activated and there are emotions (which can be misunderstood: fear\excitement). As you act on the thought avoid situations, try to suppress it, you give it significance (its important) and see it as being a possible desire that you have to stop or change your behaviour because of.
Anticipatory anxiety about having the thoughts. Fearing the thoughts in a situation associates the thoughts with that situation.
As you become less concerned about intrusive thoughts, then you become more engaged with the world around you, and thoughts pop up related to these concerns.
Acceptance is about allowing, not stopping. Whilst acceptance will in time reduce the thoughts you only get there by allowing the thoughts as they are!
It’s a passive activity (!)
Set backs
If you expect a set back, then you don’t get demoralised, or angry, or fearful or hopeless. Set backs happen during times of stress, difficult situations, illness etc.
