Working with distressing thoughts and feelings

 Working with distressing thoughts and feelings

 

 

Introduction

You might have distressing thoughts, unwanted thoughts or feelings. Thoughts that if someone else said that to you, you wouldn’t like, critical ones maybe. There might be unpleasant emotions around, anxiety about what could happen, or low mood about what has happened.

With both of these thoughts or feelings, there can be a tendency to use our fight or flight systems as if they were an external threat.

As we fight with thoughts, we might argue  with them, tell ourselves to pull our socks up.

As we go into flight mode with thouights, we might try to distract ourselves, with feelings we might try to numb ourselves somehow with food or drink or drugs.

Whilst sometimes these strategies can be useful, oftentimes the thought\feeling doesn’t go away, paradoxically it gets amplified, plus you can get new problems on top, because you couldn’t get rid of the thought\feeling or your avoidance strategies come with a set of new problems.

 

What can help

Stage 1

Notice the thought\feeling

 

You may want to try saying to yourself

Im having the feeling of x or Im having the thought y

Or

A part of me is feeling x a part of me is thinking y

 

As you do this simple thing, many things may happen.

·         You slow down and engage rational parts of your brain

·         You distance yourself from the thought\feeling, which both minimises it, puts  you in relationship with it, and shows you how it will pass

 

 

Stage 2

Notice what’s happening in your body

 

You may want to describe the feelings in your body or maybe just simply feel them

You may want to find a phrase to describe how you are feeling in your body

 

As you do this simple thing, many things may happen.

·         You relate to yourself at the most fundamental level, which can make your bodily feeling, feel good\change

·         You may notice that the feeling is part of you, not all of you. Which can minimize the power of the feeling

 

Stage 3

Return to what you were doing, before this

 

As you do this simple thing many things may happen.

·         You may feel that you can do wahts important to you even when youre not feeling great

·         You have more control

·         The thoughts\feelings have less control

·         You do more things that are important to you

Turbo charge

You can turbo charge this process by using mindfulness. Use a regular breathing meditation to strengthen your awareness (noticing thoughts\feelings) and strengthen your ability to move attention (rather than get caught up in the thought\feeling notice it\the body and return )

 

Extras

Once you have got the hang of this, you may also notice what the feeling was before the thought\feeling came. If its different you may want to ask if a friend felt like this how would I respond to them, and try the same approach with yourself