Intrusive Thoughts and Overthinking: The Skill of Cognitive Defusion 20/30
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Do you ever find yourself overthinking a situation or battling intrusive thoughts? This video will teach you the skill of cognitive defusion, which will help you separate yourself from your thoughts so that you can look at them rather than through them.
Intrusive thoughts can be scary, dark or painful. They can make you worry that you’re losing your mind. they are associated with OCD but they can also just pop up out of nowhere. But Intrusive thoughts don’t have to ruin your life.
Overthinking is another problem that many people face, constantly dwelling on thoughts or rehashing them over and over.
We swim through our thoughts like a fish swims through water. We don’t even notice that the way we think colors our view of the world.
Or sometimes we do notice thoughts that we don’t like, and then we don’t know what to do with them. Sometimes you fight them or struggle against them, but that doesn’t feel any better.
So sometimes you get stuck in an endless loop of overthinking, obsessively struggling against a thought. But that’s not any better, because struggle steals your attention and energy.
In this video you’re going to learn how to get unstuck from your intrusive thoughts and break free from patterns of overthinking. You’re going to learn how to look at your thoughts instead of through them.
This skill is called cognitive defusion.
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In therapy I use a combination of Acceptance and Commitment Therapy, Systems Theory, positive psychology, and a bio-psycho-social approach to treating mental illness and other challenges we all face in life. The ideas from my videos are frequently adapted from multiple sources. Many of them come from Acceptance and Commitment Therapy, especially the work of Steven Hayes, Jason Luoma, and Russ Harris. The sections on stress and the mind-body connection derive from the work of Stephen Porges (the Polyvagal theory), Peter Levine (Somatic Experiencing) Francine Shapiro (EMDR), and Bessel Van Der Kolk. I also rely heavily on the work of the Arbinger institute for my overall understanding of our ability to choose our life’s direction.
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25 Comments
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I love the way you talk and explain things to me ❤❤❤❤❤❤
I choose awareness.
think if thoughts are real instead of 'helpful'?
THANK YOU FOR HELPING ME
At some point in myself everything that i thought where just thoughts become true with someone confessin every thought i thought was true so then its a matter of saying to yourself even if it happens i dont care for me know😢
I know how it feels . When she said about the rule " i can never make anyone feel bad " , it hit me that i too have that rule without me knowing it. 😭😭😭
Officially great talk!! 5Cs Check Check Challenge Change Can do
I have a question. Why does intrusive thought feel so real?
What also works for me a bit is naming my anxious version. ( Mr Dorsey) I have named him after the Dorsal mode network part of the brain and then I say too myself in a jokey way “oh here he goes again” and then redirect my attention elsewhere. Mostly I use the breath.
I grew up
In the sixties and seventies. I remember getting very anxious when my parents would wave for work. I hated that they would leave the house and cried over it. I was about 3rd grade then. As I grew older, it didn’t bother me so much. However, at 60+ I now get extremely anxious when we travel for long periods of time. I will try this YouTube video and see what happens.
*thinking is injurious to health
From what I have heard, this exercise seems to help people, but not for me. Other tools like reframing work better. Reframing helps me to undercut negative thoughts, whereas this or mindfulness methods, not as much. I'm a highly passionate and intense person, so distancing myself from my thoughts is too hard and just is not very effective.
If this is you, you're not alone. Try Emma's "Reframe Your Negative Thoughts Video" or explore other strategies if you need another appraoch.
Nice
How can you tell if your opinion is truly your own?
The more I try to control my thoughts the stronger they become. I keep on thinking about them. I don't want to think about him bot I can't help.
I keep on fighting mine to the point I don’t allow myself to do nothing about it anymore only to avoid it that’s it really
What do u do if your rule I think this is my rule anyway but my rule is not to fail what should I do? everytime I try to revise a subject e.g history im on my own I get into it and finish with everything correct but when im in school my teacher asks me a question I should know my mind goes blank and I feel so ashamed and feel embarrassed but when it comes to my exams their grade 1 which is awful! When im meant to get a 5 yk idk what to do and I have gcses in less than 4 weeks im terrified it will ruin my grades i study hard but just don’t get the grades i want and that’s when my thoughts just keep on saying stuff which just makes me stop altogether as why should I bother to revise if its not getting me anywhere!???
Her: “Get rid of the rule that you cant make people feel bad”
Also her 08:00: “I don’t want to trigger people here”
My ocd quirk has me touching power chords all the time where i could get electrocuted. Idk why its chords but i think its cause i fear electricty so bad. It started out slow but gets worse and worse everyday. My ocd is extreme and dangeros its always stuff that can or does harm me for example if i accieenlty cut myself i have to cut myswlf intentionally 5 more times to make it 6. I went thtough three phones in 2 months cause everytime i dropped them i had to drop them 4 more times which better than the dangerous ones but still its horrible. I am now reaching out for help from therapist. Really hope it helps me cause its impossible to keep lovong like this
I spent so many years of my life under the spell of cigarettes, depression and severe ptsd. Gained my freedom with the help of nature using mushroom (psilocybin) precisely. After my experience with shrooms five years ago every cigarette I lit up tasted like literal poison. I would take one hit and put out the cigarette. I haven't smoked since, no more depressive mood and ptsd. Few doses of shroom experience made a 15 year 2 pack a day smoker quit instantly.
Shrooms are life changing. There is no way you can put into words what it feels like..
Thank you for this
I needed this video
Here I am, screaming 'stop!' out loud in my head.
I notice that I am having the thought of ending my life everyday as I have dealt with severe depression, chronic pain, and severe generalized and social anxiety. Don't be fooled by my picture as that was 7 years ago but now im stuck working from home, struggling to take care of my family and very isolated with a cast on my leg and not able to drive for months.