You can never win an argument with irrational and distorted thoughts. This is especially true when you choose to debate or otherwise wrestle with your thoughts on their own turf - inside your head.
That gives your thoughts home field advantage. It’s where they live, and where they freely frolic, unencumbered by the need to obey the laws of reality as we know them.
In edition 106 of The Anxious Morning we talked about the importance of calling out distorted thoughts rather than trying to soothe the fear they create. Check that out if you haven’t, then come back to this edition.
When your anxious brain is telling you once again that you are about to die, pass out, become incapacitated, have a psychotic break, or kill all your co-workers, it’s best for us to learn to simply acknowledge these thoughts as thoughts, then refuse to engage with them. This is VERY difficult and completely counterintuitive, so calling out the distortion first is a good way to set the table for this more productive response. Before you acknowledge and disengage, first acknowledge that what you are experiencing is a DISTORTED thought. How can you do this?
One of the most effective ways to call out distortions and distorted thoughts, is to drag your thoughts out of your head and force them into the cold light of day. It is important that I remind you that this is not an exercise designed to “prove” that your fear will not come true. That’s a never ending un-winnable war. This is designed to help you see the true nature of scary thoughts in a more objective way so you can work on disengaging from them and allowing them to simply exist.
As an example, when your brain is screaming that “This time, you might actually go insane”, rather than just trying to convince yourself that it won’t happen, drag the thought out into the real world and compare it quickly to all the actual outcomes you’ve experienced as a result of that thought in the past. Remind yourself of how many times you’ve been afraid that you were about to have a psychotic break and how many times that very strong feeling turned out to be dead wrong. This goes beyond just insisting that your thought is wrong and uses actual real outcomes and experiences to inform our next actions.
You can continue to argue and fight with your thoughts inside your head on their terms, or you can drag them forcibly out into reality and let that reality belittle them in a practical way. Use the lesson of your past experiences to expose the distorted nature of your thoughts, then use that more objective view of the distortion to show you that it is safe to disengage and allow that scary thought to happen without resistance.
This is not easy. Even when you drag a distorted thought through the reality machine, it will persist and you will still be afraid. In practice, all of this happens in a matter of seconds, so it is fast. Keep in mind that what we have here is a precursor step (exposing the distortion) that can help you take the primary step (allowing and surrendering to the distorted thought). This is not a method for instantly calming an anxious brain. Only the surrendering and allowing experience will ultimately “prove” your distorted thoughts wrong in any meaningful way, so do not lose sight of this.
Running distorted throughs through the reality machine is useful, but please remember that this takes time, practice, and repetition to learn and improve, so be nice to yourself while you work on it.
108. Drag Your Thoughts Into The Cold Light Of Day