◔ 5 minutes read
Intrusive ugly thoughts are not you and no, you are not a bad person. Here is why...
Our brain behavior can be divided in two main groups: Conscious and Unconscious.
Consciousness are all those thoughts and actions we do with awareness , aware of what we are doing, knowing how to do them and their consequences. Like talking to someone or grabbing something with our hands.
Unconscious is the opposite, it's all that we do in autopilot, like breathing or walking. When you walk you are not thinking this foot goes first, then the other, then this foot again, then... you just walk. But when you walked for the first time you did actually were thinking all that, so unconscious could be defined as all those actions that we have done so many times being conscious that they become unconscious over time.
The Unconscious is also in charge of protecting us whenever it thinks is necessary, for example if you put your hands on fire and you are burning yourself you automatically and instantly move your hands to stop burning without thinking "Oh, I'm burning, I'm going to get my hands off the fire now".
So who is reponsible for our disturbing thoughts?
The same one responsible for protecting ourselves: The Unconscious.
("Dear unconciousness, I hate you 🖕🏻...")
Why? Well because it's protecting us, or trying to.
Protecting us from what? Anxiety. Intrusive thoughts are a result from anxiety. Here's is why:
If you are anxious all the time, or most of the time, your Unconcious begins to develop a self-defense system to protect you. It must protect you because anxiety it's harmful for your mind and body (as you have probably figured out). And the only way it has to protect you is by taking your mind as far from reality as possible, so you don't experience that anxiety anymore.
Picture this. Your 5 years old niece has been crying for half an hour and you are trying to make her stop crying. What would be more effective? Offering her a paper and a pencil for drawing or saying that if she stops crying you are going to take her to Disneyland?
The same happens with our Unconciousness and our thoughts. What is more effective to take us away from reality? A simple thought of what groceries to buy or a catastrophic thought where something horrible happens? Which thought will take you away from reality longer? Of course, the second (and horrible) one.
The only problem with this is that this thoughts end up actually causing more anxiety, because they are indeed disturbing, so it becomes a vicious circle hard to get out from.
How do we stop from having disturbing thoughts?
We must take in consideration that this is a habit that we have been building for many years, so we have to be very mindful and very patient to break this kind of habit.
But, now that you know why you have these thoughts, now that you know that it is just a self-defense system created by your own mind to help yourself, you can treat them in a different way. You can stop them with Rational Thinking 🧠.
Analize rationally every thought you have and you'll realize that they are just improbable or unrationally, that they are not even possible.
Say to yourself "These thoughts are not really me, they are happening because I have anxiety. It's just me trying to help myself. They are just thoughts, they are not real, I don't need them right now, I can deal with my anxiety in a different way"
Be kind to yourself, always. If you have these thoughts it's just your mind trying to protect yourself, don't punish yourself for this, on the contrary, embrace them, thank yourself for trying to protect you. Tell yourself that you are going to let them go because you are going to learn how to deal with your anxiety in a different way now and you are going to be okay.
The next and most important step is to learn how to lower your Anxiety levels. Which is also a hard to break habit, but it's entirely possible.
Conclusion
Disturbing thoughts are a product of your Unconsciousness trying to help you with your Anxiety.
In order to let them go for good you need to understand how anxiety works and learn how to decrease your anxiety levels.