on dealing with unwanted thoughts

by phil on Tuesday May 11, 2004 10:15 PM

When you have thoughts bubbling into your head that you don't need to be thinking about, what do you do?

1) suppression doesn't work. try NOT to think of a purple cow. see!
2) talking yourself through or self-analysis is only so-so. You can argue with yourself only so much, but often that leads to dwelling

So my new method is to first establish my will with a little bit of initial argument. For example, I can't let go of something a friend of mine said to me last night. So I tell myself, "it's not important, thinking about it will only make things worse" once, and then let my emotions ramble on their own accord.

On the other hand, should the bad thought keep getting worse, then maybe it does deserve more attention. If it doesn't fizzle out in a reasonable amount of time, then maybe you need to take some kind of non-mental action or active analysis of the situation. If I still can't get over something a friend told me last night, then maybe I need to ask for an apology, or I should make a plan to stop seeing this guy.

On another note comparing self-thinking to other-communication...

If we go with the theory that active self-dialog is really just self-communication, then you can look to analogs of communication with others to figure out that this method of "letting it fizzle" might work.

For example, my friend comes to me with some political ranting. I could try to give him the cold shoulder, but that would only make him come on stronger. I could argue it out with him and get embroiled in the discussion, but that won't resolve anything, it'll just enflame things. Finally, though, I could tell him, "look, thank you for your idea, but I have a paper to work on, maybe next time." He may get mad and continue rambling, but he gets the message, and he'll eventually cool off.