Status Updates From Overcoming Unwanted Intrusi...

Anticipatory anxiety is the what-if before the what-if. It causes you to project into the future in an attempt to prepare yourself for the next unwanted thought. You hope they do not come, and you are upset when they do. The result is that you keep oriented toward the future, pay very little attention to the present, and keep your body and mind sensitized.

When you deliberately invite these thoughts, you do not give them the power to waylay your life.

5A's:
1. attitude of acceptance
2. Assign accurate assessment
3. Active allowance of awareness and affect
4. Avoid avoidances - always attempt approach
5. Action: advance activities anyways

Fearful feelings go from "they are so uncomfortable that I find them intolerable" to "they are uncomfortable but tolerable." The goal is to feel that you can tolerate the anxiety better as opposed to eliminating it completely. It is your inability to tolerate unwanted intrusive thoughts that keeps them going. Getting over your fears is allowing yourself to experience them.

Inhibitory learning: New pathways are created in the brain that compete with the old, fearful response. A non fearful response becomes the default response with enough practice and you are no longer afraid.

Emotional processing: Any exposure that activates anxiety brings the false fear structures into play, and they change as a result of seeing that nothing dangerous (as opposed to frightening) really happens. Keep in contact with the triggering thoughts until your anxiety goes away or at least calms down. This allows your brain to get used to the thought and habituate to it.

Unwanted intrusive thoughts do not deserve the dignity of a response.

Each intrusion seems to indicate an emergency and you need to do something about it immediately, but this is false alarm. If there is something unclear or uncertain, there is an urgent desire to clear it up now. The most helpful response to the feeling of urgency is to slow down, float above the fray, and practice letting time pass.

The fight for certainty is a major factor in keeping your unwanted intrusive thoughts so intense. Where else do you demand absolute certainty? Nowhere else. The problem is that these thoughts FEEL so threatening. Anxious thinking takes over and the thought seems to have a high probability of occurring, but it is just a thought.

Remember that any thought that produces a repeated feeling of urgency is a sign of anxiety. A feeling of urgency is discomfort, not danger. It comes automatically with thoughts but is not a signal for action. Counting down until you feel better propels you into the future, increases your discomfort, and makes you fight the thought harder. Slow down. Let it be. You are dealing with discomfort, not danger.

Wise Mind: As far as I'm concerned, I could sit with these thoughts all day. My discomfort has nothing to do with being in any danger. These are just thoughts.

Don't allow yourself to explore the ideas or content of your thoughts. Don't try to come up with a plan or solve any problem - the thought is not a problem. Accept and allow means you actively allow thoughts to be there, not wishing they were gone, because it allows you to grasp the thoughts are unimportant. Thoughts are just thoughts. False Comfort always drives Worried Voice. Withdraw attention and participation.

Remember whenever you experience the effects of anxious thinking, having 99% certainty isn't enough. There is no risk that feels reasonable. You are looking for total and complete certainty. This fuels your Worried Voice and makes it harder for you to label your thought as an intrusive one. You focus on the content of your thought than the false alarm. Labeling allows you to allow uncertainty in life.

RJAFTP: Recognize, Just thoughts, Accept and allow, Float and feel, let Time Pass, Proceed

1. Learn the proper attitude to adopt each time an unwanted intrusive thought pops up. (it's acceptance)
2. Retrain your brain so your newly learned attitudes become your default reaction.

The worst part of every intrusive thought is not the thought itself, but your internal commentary that follows. Reducing the commentary will reduce your distress.

Passive techniques reinforce the fact that the thoughts do not constitute a danger, do not need to be fought, have no special significance, and will go away on their own once they are left alone. Instead of battling, you can try to intentionally go toward uncertainty and distress. When you do not recoil from your thoughts, they lose their power.

Trying to control the thoughts is entirely the wrong attitude. It ignores the fact that the thoughts are meaningless and harmless and DON'T require controlling. It suggests urgency, importance, and danger, when none exists.