Intrusive Thoughts and Overthinking: The Skill of Cognitive Defusion 20/30

You have a million thoughts a day, but you don't  even notice them; you just believe them. We swim through our thoughts like a fish swims through  water - we don't even notice that the way we think colors our view of the world. Or sometimes we do  notice, right.

Sometimes we notice thoughts we don't like, and then we don't know what to do with  them. Sometimes you fight them or you struggle against them, but you know if, for example, you  think, "Oh, I'm such an idiot," and then you tell yourself, "No, I'm the smartest person in the  world," that doesn't necessarily feel any better. So sometimes you get stuck in an endless loop of  overthinking, obsessively struggling against a thought or obsessively worrying about something. 

But that's not any better because struggle steals your attention and your energy. Our thoughts are  like glasses: they are the lens through which we see the world. If you think the world is a  terrible, mean place, that's what you'll see.

If you think people are inherently good, that's  what you'll find. In this video, you're going to learn how to get unstuck from your thoughts.  You're going to learn how to look at your thoughts instead of through them.

You're going to learn how  to take off your glasses, how to look at them and then decide if you want to hang on to them or if  you want to choose a different pair. This skill is called cognitive defusion. It's the difference  between having a thought and buying a thought.

This is such a powerful skill for processing  emotions and fighting depression and anxiety. If you want to improve your mental health,  the skill of cognitive defusion teaches you to separate yourself from your thoughts. And  this can give you power over your thoughts instead of letting them run the show.

Do you  know at least three people? If so, then the odds are good that you know someone who experiences  mental illness. But if you're like most people, you may feel anxious and uncertain about how  to help.

Everyone needs to learn these skills, but most people are never taught them. So I built  a course with 55 short videos teaching how to help when a friend or loved one experiences mental  illness. In this course, you'll learn how to build a relationship of influence, how to set healthy  boundaries, what to say, and what not to say.

And in addition to these personal skills you'll also  learn how to help them access resources that you might not even know about and what to do if they  won't get help or if they don't want to talk about it. You really can learn how to help when someone  you cares about struggles with mental health. If you'd like to learn more, click the link in  the description, and you can get started today.

So first, to understand cognitive defusion, we  need to understand what is cognitive fusion. Your brain is a word machine. It says stuff  and it thinks stuff all the time.

When you look through the lens of your thoughts, this is  called cognitive fusion. It's the problem of being stuck to your thoughts. Cognitive fusion is buying  into every thought that passes through your mind.

It's when you think something, you don't even  notice it, you just believe it. In this episode we're going to talk about recognizing all of our  thoughts and separating ourselves from them and then selectively choosing which thoughts or  beliefs you want to act on or buy, as we say, instead of letting random subconscious  thoughts dictate your mood, your choices, and your ultimate happiness. So let me start  with a story to illustrate cognitive fusion and cognitive defusion.

So once I was working  with a young man who had a lot of social anxiety, we'll call him Miguel. And he had a good group of  friends, but every time he hung out with them he would start to feel really anxious. And then when  he was at a party, he would make some joke or say something, and then he would start to worry. 

He would think, "Oh, did I say the wrong thing? Did I hurt her feelings? " Or if,  for example, one group of friends split off into the pool and another invited him  to the game room, he would panic a little bit, feeling like terrified.

Terrified because he  didn't know which group to go with. And then he'd start thinking, Oh my gosh, I can't believe  I'm getting anxious again. I'm such a loser.

" And then he'd think, "Oh, don't think that way.  What's the matter with you? Don't feel anxious.

Why do you always do this? " And then he would just  start going back and forth in his head, right, fighting his negative thoughts and trying not to  feel anxious. And if he couldn't get his anxious thoughts to go away, he'd feel uncomfortable and  he'd leave the party early.

Now in this example, Miguel was fused with his thoughts in two ways.  The first way was that when he was trying to hang out with his friends, he got all wrapped  up in trying to make his thoughts go away. He was focusing all his energy on fighting his  thoughts, and that kept him stuck or fused to them instead of putting his energy into having a good  time.

The second way that he got fused with his thoughts is that he had an unwritten rule that he  didn't even know about, he didn't notice he was thinking it, and it colored everything he did. Let  me let me show you. So when I asked Miguel why he would get anxious, he said, "Well, i always worry  that I might say something wrong or that I might offend someone or hurt someone's feelings.

" And  when I asked, "Well, what do you mean? " he said, "Well, I always overthink everything I say. After  hanging out, I always worry that something I said might have bothered someone or that a joke  I made might have hurt someone's feelings, and I just hate dealing with all  the drama.

" So I said "What drama? " He said, "Well, if a couple of my friend friends  invite me to do something with them but they don't invite my other friend, and then my other  friend invites me to do something that same night, how do I say no to the other friend without making  them feel bad? " So I asked a follow-up question.

So I said, "They aren't being dramatic; you're  just worrying. And he's like, "Yeah. " I said, "Well, what are you most afraid of?

And he said,  "That I might make someone feel bad by saying no. " So at that point I realized what was going on, and  I said, "It sounds like you have a rule in your head that you're never allowed to make anyone feel  bad. " So he thought for a second.

He said, "Hmm, I guess so. I never noticed that I had that rule,  but now that you say that I think you're right. " And then he was able to tell me some examples. 

He said, "Once I had a girlfriend who I wanted to break up with, but I didn't for like a year  because I didn't want to make her feel bad. " And I was like, "Yes, that is a good example. " And  then he gave me another one.

He said if the food is terrible or it's cooked wrong at the restaurant  and the waiter asks how's the food, he always says great, even um if it's a lie. So this young  man, Miguel, he didn't realize he was thinking this rule, right, I can never make anyone feel  bad. And this rule that he didn't even know he had was making him really anxious.

He had bought that  thought. He believed it without even noticing that he was thinking that way. So in Miguel's case, he  was stuck to his thoughts.

It was keeping him from being present with his friends. When we buy our  thoughts, when we believe everything we think, it makes it hard for us to change. So the antidote  to this is learning to notice your thoughts without buying them.

You learn to look at your  thoughts instead of looking through your thoughts, and you notice yourself as the thinker, the  place where these thoughts happen. When when Miguel noticed his unwritten rule, he could see  how impossible it was, how it it was keeping him from having good relationships. And when he was  able to notice that rule, it was like, before he noticed the rule it was like "Oh my gosh, I have  to make everyone feel good or I'm a bad person.

" And then he looks at that rule, he's like,  "Oh, that's a thought; that's a rule I have. " And he's and he's like, "That's not very helpful. "  He said "I - and then and then he was able to replace it with something more helpful.

So he  he noticed that thought, and he's like "You know what, instead of that rule, I'd like to replace  it with this: I can't control how others feel, but I value being kind and assertive. " So he  could see both of these thoughts, and he could choose which one was most helpful for him. And  this helped him feel less anxiety at parties and helped him focus his energy on being present  and having a good time and being kind to people.

Now this this idea of cognitive defusion  is kind of a difficult concept to explain, but it's easier to demonstrate. So you've  got to experience it to understand it. So I'm gonna give you about four exercises that  you can try to get a feeling for what it feels like to look at your thoughts instead of  through your thoughts.

Now this first activity is really easy to do with a negative thought  about yourself, but I'm not going to do that on YouTube - partly because I think I don't want  to trigger people here where they might not have been expecting that. So check out the course  resources in the full course to experience that activity. And instead we're going to do a little  bit of a a milder version of that activity.

So for the next minute, write down or say out loud  all of the thoughts that run through your mind. So for example, you may be thinking, "I don't get  this" or "I'm not thinking anything. " And then you just notice like, "Oh, that's a thought too,  right.

" And then I want you to take one of those thoughts and put the words in front of it "I'm  having the thought that. . .

" and stay there for a bit. Can you notice the thought? Can you see it  as the thought that you're having in this moment?

Now replay it one more time,  but this time add the phrase "I notice that I'm having the thought that. . .

" So  for example, "I notice I'm having the thought that this is boring. " Now what happened? Did you notice  that sense of separation or distance between you and the thought?

And see see if you can  look at yourself while having thoughts. While you're noticing yourself having thoughts,  take a second to open up your awareness to what other thoughts you're having. Is work popping up  in your mind?

Or perhaps the thought, you know, "How much longer is this going to take? " Or  are there other thoughts running through your mind? And just take a second to notice them  and then to notice yourself noticing them.

You just practiced cognitive defusion - looking  at your thoughts instead of through your thoughts. You are a person that experiences thoughts and  emotions. Thoughts and emotions are experiences that you are having.

They aren't necessarily  reality; they're just something that you're experiencing. You can have thoughts without  buying them. Another great way to practice this is through the leaves on a stream exercise.

Check  out that meditation on my YouTube channel. Another helpful way to separate ourselves from thoughts is  to name them. Like literally, I've had clients who liked using the term, you know, negative  mind to describe the spiral of thoughts.

Or for some people, they might say, "Oh, that's an  intrusive thought, right. That's giving it a name. But it can also be helpful to give those  thoughts an actual name, like Billy Bob.

So for example, "Oh, there's Billy Bob  popping up into my thoughts today. " And that that just means, you know, there's  those thoughts popping in. And you might be able to identify Billy Bob as kind of a negative  character.

So it might say things like, "Oh, you'll never be successful, right. " Say, "Oh,  there's Billy Bob," or "There's there's the bully, the bully thoughts coming in and telling me what  to think. " When we give our thoughts a name, we're basically saying like, "Oh, I am Emma,  and this is a thought," essentially separating ourselves from our thoughts.

So with Miguel, he  might be able to look at his thoughts and say, "Oh, I'm having the thought that I'm awkward, but  just because I think that doesn't mean it's true. " Then you could, Miguel could say something like,  "Oh, hello thought. Thank you, mind, for making that thought.

But that thought, you know, 'Oh, I'm  so awkward' is not super helpful to me right now, so I'm gonna go back to paying attention to  listening to my friend. " That's that's another one. That's another cognitive defusion technique. 

It's called thanking your mind. So you just say, "Thank you, mind, for that thought. That's  a thought.

Just because Ii think it doesn't mean it's true, doesn't mean I have to act  on it, doesn't mean I have to believe it. " Okay, here's another fun act exercise. Um they  have hundreds of these, by the way, right.

These are all thanks to Stephen Hayes and Jason Luoma  and Russ Harris and all the other great act developers out there, Acceptance and Commitment  therapy. So here's another one: using singing and silly voices, right. So you take the thought  that seems really strong like "Oh, I can't go to that party if I feel anxious.

" And then you start  to use weird voices to say that thought out loud: I can't go to that party if I feel anxious.  I can't go to that party if I feel anxious. I can't go to that party if I feel anxious.

Okay,  I'm terrible at accents, so I should not even try, right. I can't go to that party if I feel anxious.  And the basic idea is that when you start to say a thought in a bunch of weird ways, it starts  to feel like this weird thing, like this weird jumble of words, instead of feel like just,  you know, the water that you're swimming in.

Same thing happens if you say a word over and  over again. So if, for example, Miguel is like, "Oh my gosh, I'm so awkward," then he says the  word "awkward" over and over and over again: awkward awkward awkward awkward awkward - say it  with me - awkward awkward awkward awkward awkward awkward awkward awkward awkward awkward awkward  awkward awkward awkward. And at some point, awkward all of a sudden turns into this weird  jumble of sounds.

That's a cognitive defusion technique, right. This is just a word. Your brain  is a word machine, and everything it makes up, some of it's true, some of it isn't.

Some of it's  helpful, some of it's not. It's just a thought. And when we separate ourselves from our thoughts,  we can create choice for ourselves.

Okay, another exercise that's often helpful is to  symbolically put your thoughts onto an object to give them a tangible form. The easiest way to  do this is to write. Write it down on a piece of paper.

Bruce Lee said, "I have a system of ridding  my mind of negative thoughts - I visualize myself writing them down on a piece of paper. Then  I imagine myself crumpling up the paper, lighting it on fire, and burning it to a crisp. "  In residential treatment, I worked with a whole bunch of kids who found it helpful to make their  thoughts concrete by putting them on an object.

So I had one client who had really low self-esteem  - and again, we were not forcing the kids to do this; they were choosing to uh engage in these uh  activities to help themselves. And it wasn't about shame or like the scarlet letter or anything  like that. So she, this woman, this this young lady with low self-esteem, she decided to get a  huge rock, like, you know, like a 10-pound rock.

And she wrote on it "I'm unlovable. " And when  she believed that thought, when she bought that thought, she would carry that rock around.  And when she chose not to believe that thought, when she chose not to buy that thought, she would  set that rock down.

So she made a physical way to represent this idea of having a thought versus  buying a thought. Like that rock might have still been in the room and she might still be noticing  that rock, but just because she was noticing it didn't mean that she believed it. Lots of thoughts  are going to pop up in your head throughout the day.

Average people have intrusive thoughts  all the time. We all might have inappropriate thoughts or negative thoughts or true thoughts  or false thoughts. It's okay to have a thought; it doesn't say anything about you.

Your brain  is a word machine. But if you're going to buy a thought, if you're going to believe it and  act on it, make that a conscious choice. One of the ways to do this is to just put it  on an object, right.

I've had clients who have chosen to carry rocks, sticks, and even horse poop  in a bag as a way to represent themselves being fused with their thoughts. And when they're ready  to notice them and separate from them, they would set these objects aside. When they no longer need  that thought, they let go and go of an object.

Sometimes they'll come back to it, but  gradually just practicing, you know, like labeling it and choosing it if they want to,  that can help them kind of create that separation. Cognitive defusion gives you the freedom to ask,  "Does buying this thought make my life better? " That's what act is all about: it's freeing us to  live the life we value instead of getting sucked into thoughts.

So you say, "This is a thought.  It's just a thought. I don't have to believe it, I don't have to act on it, I don't have  to fight it.

I can let it pass through. " So the essential question is "Is this thought  helpful to me? Does it help me live my values?

" If the thought is helpful, you can buy it, you  can believe it, you can hang on to it, you can act on it. And if it's not helpful, then you can  notice it. You can just have it but not buy it.

It's just a thought. Thoughts pop up all the time,  and not all of them are helpful. So for example, fusion with thoughts says, "Oh, I have to stop  being anxious if I want to go to parties.

" Or with OCD it says, "Oh, I have to make this  thought about washing my hands go away. " It traps us in a cycle of fighting our thoughts or just  believing them without even noticing it, right. With cognitive defusion, we create space between  ourselves and our thoughts and feelings so that they can have less of a hold over us.

So you can  say, "I can feel anxious and go to that party. I can have the thought that I need to wash my hands  20 times, but I don't have to buy that thought. " Now let's just take a minute and contrast this  with CBT, cognitive behavioral therapy, right.

So in section 18 and 19, we talked about challenging  distorted thinking. This is a CBT skill. So you might take the thought like, "Oh, I'm a  complete loser," and then you would challenge that thought.

You would say, "Oh, that's black  and white thinking. Let's look for exceptions. What would a kind friend say about that?

" CBT  gives you the skill of challenging your thoughts, which is a helpful skill for some people or  in some situations. Now for other people, that leads them to constantly struggling against  their thoughts. So with Acceptance and Commitment therapy, we add the skill of defusion.

It's the  ability to separate yourself from your thoughts and to choose your actions. So you'd look at a  thought like "I'm a complete loser" and you'd say, "Thanks, mind. " And you say and then you'd  ask, you know, "Is this thought helpful for me?

Thank you, mind, for giving me this thought that  I'm a complete loser, but this is just a thought. Is this thought helpful to me? " And if it's not  helpful, if it doesn't help you live your values, then you just let that thought be there.

You let  that thought pass along, do whatever thoughts do. And you just look around for another  thought that's more helpful to you. Now it's not that like cognitive defusion is  better and challenging cognitive distortions is worse; it's just that these are different  skills, different tools.

When you add skills to your emotional toolbelt, you have more  flexibility to find the one that works for you. So in summary, don't get obsessed  with fighting your thoughts, with trying to make them go away or just  worrying about them or reacting to them. You don't have to believe everything you think. 

With cognitive defusion, we create a little space between ourselves and our thoughts. We notice  them. We say, "I'm having the thought that like I'm awkward or I'm a loser.

" Instead of  saying, "I'm a loser," say "I'm having the thought that I'm a loser. " Then we can ask ourselves,  "Is this thought, is this thought helpful? Does it help me live the life I value?

" So "Does  that thought help me? Oh, I'm such a loser. Hmm.

It doesn't really help me take any action.  Okay, I'm just going to notice that thought. I'm going to choose one thing I can do to, I don't  know, make my life better or whatever that is.

" So that frees us to choose what's most important  and to allow other thoughts to pass through so that we can focus on living the life we want.  The Acceptance and Commitment therapy gurus have made some great videos and recordings  to help people understand and practice this, so check out a few of them. The links are below. 

Thank you for watching, and take care. This video is one skill from my 30-skill course How to  Process Your Emotions, where I teach 30 of the most essential skills for resolving depression,  anxiety, and improving mental health. Emotion processing is an essential skill for working  through intense emotions, but most people have never been taught how to do it.

I'm putting every  single main video lesson on YouTube for the world to access for free. You watching these videos,  sharing them, contributing to my Patreon and my sponsors make this possible. If you would like  to access the entire course in one place ad free with its workbook, exercises, downloads, extra  videos, live Q&A's, additional short readings, and links to extended resources, the link to  buy the course is in the description below.