Want to know how to stop obsessing? Are dark and intrusive thoughts ruining your life? Controlling OCD thoughts can be difficult and frustrating. If you feel like you are not in control of your own mind, it is very scary. However, let me show you some techniques for stopping intrusive thoughts and get back control of your life.
Dark thoughts are an anxiety symptom that’s very, very close to my heart. It is an obsessive compulsive disorder symptom that I have experienced personally myself and let me tell you, it’s utterly, utterly terrifying.
Of all the symptoms of obsessive compulsive spectrum disorders, dark or intrusive thoughts are perhaps the most misunderstood. Many people believe that having these thoughts means they are a bad person, or that they will act on them. I want to assure you: this is NOT true.
Obsessing over dark, scary and intrusive thoughts
The thoughts that your OCD symptoms give you are absolutely terrifying. The thoughts where you think you might be capable of losing control and doing something really, really terrible. That’s the type of obsession that I’m talking about.
If you experience periods of these exceedingly dark, obsessive thoughts, you’re certainly not alone. I’ve experienced them myself and I’ve used this three-step technique to calm myself when I’m experiencing these horrible intrusive thoughts and just gained control again over my mind and what I’m thinking.
Learn how to stop obsessing with these 3 tips:
Step 1: Understand that resistance is fuelling these thoughts – the more you fight, the more you feed them.
The thing that is making these obsessing thoughts so terrifying, so strong and so scary is resistance.
Let me explain that for you.
We get millions and millions of thoughts that flood our brain every single day.
Thoughts go in, thoughts go out.
A lot pass by unnoticed by us.
When you’re an anxious person, you are on the lookout, high alert for threats, threatening thoughts.
What thoughts are going to threaten me?
What’s a danger?
So these thoughts come in, violent thoughts, scary thoughts, thoughts you might lose control, thoughts that you could get violent or overly sexual inappropriately in a situation, those sort of thoughts, they come into everyone’s brains all day and most of the time, they pass by unnoticed because the non-anxious brain can filter those as ridiculous, not going to happen.
“Yeah, not going to happen, that’s silly. Not even worth my conscious effort.”
For us as anxious women, those sorts of thoughts come in, our brain goes, “Alert! That’s a threat! That’s a threat!”
And so, what we try to do, then, is go into problem solving.
That problem solving part of our mind opens up and we start looking for a solution.
“What can I do to stop this really scary horrible thought taking over? What can I do to stop myself from losing control?”
And what do we do when we want to not lose control? We hang on even tighter.
And that’s what resistance is. Resistance is when you can’t get your mind off a really scary intrusive thought because you’re just so busy in your background, in your subconscious, trying to think of the solution for it, trying to get this thought to go away, trying to make it stop being a threat and the whole body tenses up. But that just fuels the anxiety.
So, understanding that it’s resistance that’s actually fueling those obsessing thoughts is absolutely vital and key to beating the intrusive thoughts.
Step two: Make your body super-relaxed and leaning into the unwanted thoughts – let them pass through and by you
The way that you beat the resistance is to make your body super relaxed.
So, intrusive thought comes in and you notice that it’s there and you notice how it’s making you feel and of course, it’s scary and bewildering and unwanted and you just want it to go but you just kind of relax into it and you go, “Oh yeah, hello. You’re back. My old obsession, back again, righto.”
And you just relax your shoulders, completely relax your body and kind of lean into it.
Instead of trying to back away and push it away which so many people do, don’t ever push it away.
Relax, lean into it and just allow the obsessing to be there.
And of course, many people say to me, “Eva, if I just relax into it and lean into it, what does that mean? Am I going to act on it? Am I going to lose control?”
The answer to that is no, absolutely not.
By relaxing and leaning into it, you actually do the opposite of that.
You regain control because you are starving that obsession at its food source.
When you try desperately to regain control, all you’re doing is increasing that resistance that fuels that obsessing that makes it go round and round.
You need to break the cycle somewhere and the way to break that cycle is to relax and lean into it.
Trust me on this, it works.
Step three: Every time an obsessing or unwanted thought crops up, greet it with the same relaxed acceptance. Over and over until your sensitised reaction calms down. Stop wishing it away.
Step three is that every time one of these anxious and obsessing thoughts crops up, you just have to meet it with that same relaxed reaction and by doing this over time, you actually retrain your body and your mind and your energy field to greet every obsessive, intrusive thought in this way so that your sensitized reaction to that obsessive thought lessens and the obsessive thought doesn’t become so obsessive.
Your mind learns that these thoughts, they come in, they’re not a threat because you’re not reacting to it in a sensitized stressed way.
You relax towards it and so that thought is free to float through you and it’s free to be released.
And so you just keep doing this as long as it takes.
You become really, really patient and really, really kind to yourself.
Self-compassion is really important here.
