Has this ever happened to you?
You’re having a seemingly normal day, no major stressors or anxieties weighing you down, and then bam! All of the sudden, a distressing thought intrudes into your peaceful day and soon you notice your head spinning, your heart rate increasing, and you’re experiencing all of the pangs of anxiety when literally nothing in your current circumstances has changed from a moment ago before you had that distressing thought.
If you’re anything like me, when this happens, it’s hard not to fall down the rabbit trail of dissecting or trying to understand why this thought intruded into your frame of consciousness and what you should do about it. Is God trying to tell me something? What does it mean that I had this thought? Is something wrong me with me, something I need to change? I must respond to this thought immediately! Right now! This thought means danger!
It’s easy to assign meaning to our thoughts, especially if we’ve had past distressing experiences related to particular thoughts. Our thoughts can be awfully believable, even when we have no evidence that they are accurate in the present moment. And because our brains are built to solve problems, any hint that something might be “wrong” or “off” can send our brains into hyperdrive, looking for problems that may or may not need to be solved, and for solutions that may or may not exist.
It’s easy to allow our thoughts to have power over us—they can discourage us, they can send us messages about our worth as human beings, they can influence us to respond in ways we wouldn’t otherwise. The good news is, our thoughts don’t have to control our actions – when we have a thought, WE get to decide how we’re going to respond to it!
I’ve shared one of my favorite quotes from Viktor Frankl (a neurologist and psychiatrist who survived the Holocaust) before that I think illustrates this concept: “Between stimulus and response there is a space. In that space is our power to choose our response. In our response lies our growth and our freedom.” Remembering that there is space between our thoughts and our responses can be hard, especially when some of these thoughts are automatic or have been present in our brains for much of our lives. That’s why it takes practice and paying attention to our thoughts as they come and go in order to choose responses that are in line with our values, as opposed to responding in ways to alleviate our fear or shut our brains up (which is so tempting, I know!).
Over the next year, I’ll be sharing ways we can practice noticing our thoughts without letting them dictate our decision-making. As a preview, today I’ll share a couple of ways to start practicing this.
First, when we have a disturbing thought, we can try placing the phrase “I’m having the thought that…” in front of the disturbing thought. This helps us recognize our thoughts as what they are: just thoughts. Let’s say my husband tells me he’ll be home from work at 6:00, and it’s now 6:30, and he’s not home. He hasn’t texted me or called me. I send him a text to make sure he’s alright, and when I don’t hear from him immediately, I start thinking horrible things like, “Oh no, he must have been in a car accident! He’s dead on the side of the road! Pretty soon the police will show up at my house to notify me. I’ll have to plan a funeral. I’ll be all alone,” and so on and so forth. My brain has become caught up in future what-if scenarios, increasing my overall level of anxiety. What I can do instead in this moment is notice the thoughts (all the morbid things that could explain why he’s not home yet) and feelings (anxiety, fear, dread) that I’m experiencing, and allow them to be present without pushing them away, but also noticing that my thoughts are just thoughts. Again, this is challenging, especially when our thoughts go after our loved ones or our most cherished values. We can show ourselves compassion in these moments, recognizing how hard it is to be scared, while also recognizing the reality of our brains filling in gaps when we don’t have all the information.
Second, we can imagine our thoughts coming and going like clouds passing in the sky or cars driving by us on the road. Using my example from above, I can watch my thoughts from the standpoint of an observer. I can imagine placing them on a cloud in the sky or a car on the highway and, while they don’t disappear, I can watch them float through my mind, again noticing them as thoughts rather than become consumed by them.
Third, we can consider some questions: if I follow along with this thought, believe it and allow it to dictate my decisions, where does that leave me? What do I get from believing it? Maybe your brain tells you not to go for the promotion at work because you won’t be able to “handle” it. Yet, you feel deep down a desire to challenge yourself and look into the position. If you follow along with the thought that you won’t be able to “handle” it and decide not to go for the job, you’ll miss out on a potential opportunity. If you believe that you can’t “handle” challenging work opportunities, you may end up staying in an unfulfilling position for your whole career, which could potentially lead to burn-out or regret.
These are just a few examples of practices I’ll be sharing throughout the year. Our brains are wonderful and intricate organs that protect us from so much and enable us to fulfill our God-given potential to do amazing things! We can practice paying attention to our thoughts and making decisions based on what matters to us to in the long-run, as opposed to what will only temporarily alleviate fear, anxiety, or other difficult emotions in the short-term.
