66. Overthinking hacks and thought defusion

Do you find yourself thinking over and over the same thing - and struggling to get a handle on your thoughts?

Does it almost feel compulsive? And like a cycle you can't break?

Then this episode is for YOU.

I'm going to be introducing you to the concept of thought defusion and some techniques from Acceptance and Commitment Therapy - that will help you separate yourself from your brain and defuse the power of your thoughts.

Mentioned in the book: Russ Harris - 'The Happiness Trap'

Links:
MYRMD - Group coaching info

Transcript

Hi guys, how’s everyone doing today? I am so excited because tomorrow (Saturday 13th) is the last day to enrol in Master Your Relationship Mind Drama - my 12 week group coaching programme. Currently at the time of recording this there are a few spots left - but that may be different when this comes out on Friday - so I apologise if you’re hearing this and really want a space but they’re all gone. And if there are spots left - what the hell are you waiting for, go grab one! I’ll put the link in the show notes so you can grab it there.

There’s already some amazing people signed up who are excited and ready to do the work - which always really excites me and reminds me exactly why I do this work. I remember throughout most of my teens and 20s being so so afraid in my relationships. Every day just felt like a battle - that might sound dramatic. But it really felt like every day was a battle between me and my mind.

I was so so afraid of people being mad at me, or friends leaving me out or not wanting to hang out with me anymore, of my girlfriend cheating on me or fancying someone else. I remember when she’d say she had a new work colleague, frantically trying to find this person on Instagram to see how attractive she was. And if she’d say she was working late and sent me a picture of her computer to show me the project she was working on - I’d zoom in to check the time to make sure she had just taken that picture and wasn’t lying to me about where she was.

My brain just would not stop. It was on red alert. All the time. So so afraid. And I tried counselling, I tried reading self help books, I listened to podcasts - and finally I found a podcast by a coach who was trained at the place where I have now been trained. Because the tools she talked about and the concepts and the way she talked about mind management BLEW my mind. It really did. And I signed up for her programme, I made HUGE changes in my mindset and finally overcame all of these fears and insecurities. And it was so life changing that I decided to change my entire career - quit my job - and train to become a coach too. Because I just knew that I had to share what I’d learnt and help others deal with exactly what I’d spend over a decade struggling with.

But the most important thing that happened in my journey was actually applying what I’d learnt. It’s one thing to read and listen and understand things conceptually. But it’s a totally other thing to actually apply the tools and concepts and apply them to your own unique brain and situations. And application is really the key in Master Your Relationship Mind Drama. I’m going to not only teach you about these tools and concepts, and dive deeper with them, but actually help you to apply them in a way you may be struggling to do right now. 

And I’ll tell you a little bit more about the details at the end of the episode - but for now, let’s dive into today’s episode because I know it’s one a lot of you will be dying to listen to. And that’s the topic of overthinking!

Do you ever feel like your brain is just spiralling and spiralling and there’s no way out of it? I have had this experience a lot in my life and for me there’s times where my overthinking turns up a notch. And the way I’ve described it to people in the past is like a key is turned in a lock and it’s jammed, and I can’t turn it back the other way. Strange metaphor - I know - but it’s what comes into my head.

You know when your brain is just going over the same details - over and over again. And you feel like you’ve solved the problem, but your brain can’t stop replying the same thoughts and going over it. For me sometimes it’s like a checking thing - like I have to keep going over the same thought or problem to try and ‘fix’ something - but there’s nothing to fix.

And I think that’s the main thing about overthinking - it’s trying to fix a problem that there’s no solution to. I saw something on Instagram the other day say ‘Overthinking is underfeeling.’ And that really summed it up for me. We overthink when we’re trying to escape a negative emotion. Our brains have predicted we might have to feel a negative emotion in the future, and so it’s trying to think our way out of it now. Or we’re feeling a negative emotion now that we’re trying to think our way out of. Like maybe if I just go over these 5 painful thoughts - and think about the way I sounded in that interview, or what I could have said differently in that argument with my partner - THEN I can stop feeling so bad.

So that’s an important thing to remember - you’re trying to escape an emotion. Maybe it’s uncertainty and the anxiety that comes with that. For a lot of my clients, that’s what they’re trying to escape - the feeling of sitting with the fact they don’t know what’s going to happen and allowing the anxiety of that to be in their bodies and just be present with it. This is where of course processing emotions is so important - and I have a podcast all about that, which is episode number 5 so definitely go and check that out if you haven’t already.

It really just involves noticing where the sensation is - and observing it. Watching how it feels. Keeping all your attention on the sensation - and mentally giving it permission to be there. When I do this when I have anxiety in my chest, I like to imagine that with every breath my chest is expanding to make room for the sensation. Sometimes I place my hand on my chest too - which is really powerful and comforting.

But in today’s episode - I wanted to talk about cognitive defusion - which is a name for a concept taught in Acceptance and Commitment Therapy - which I believe is abbreviated to ACT just like CBT. In fact, ACT is very similar to CBT and shares a lot of the same principles to do with thoughts created feelings and behaviour - which of course if you’re not new to this podcast, you know that’s the vibe we like to roll with here too! And I first heard about ACT when I was reading a book by Russ Harris called The Happiness Trap - which I definitely recommend to you to read if you struggle with overthinking - it’s a really great book.

So cognitive defusion is a technique that helps us to separate ourselves from our thoughts and take the power away from them. And online it describes it as ‘It involves seeing thoughts as just thoughts, not facts, and learning how to detach from beliefs that are not serving you well’. And this is such a crucial thing that I work on with my clients - the idea of becoming the observer of their thoughts, instead of being their thoughts. Seeing their thoughts as them, or reality. 

And there’s a few techniques I’m going to share with you to help you do that - some of them I’ve learnt from Russ Harris and his book the Happiness Trap, others I’ve learnt from researching more about Acceptance and Commitment Therapy, some some have been ones I’ve stumbled upon while trying to navigate my own messy brain and have worked wonders for me! 

So there we go, let’s dive straight in!

1)Noticing - ‘I notice I’m having the thought [and then say the thought]’ or ‘I notice my brain really wants to overthink this right now’ or ‘I notice my brain is having a lot of thoughts about this.’ - When you do this you’re instantly separating yourself from the thought. You’re positioning yourself as the observer of it - which takes some of the intensity away from it.

2)Singing the thought in a familiar tune - like to happy birthday or twinkle twinkle little star - something like that. For example if your brain keeps telling you ‘he’s going to cheat on me’ ‘what if he does?!’ ‘I can’t handle it’ You could sing - brace yourself for my singing voice - [sings]. Now when I’ve done this myself - I instantly feel a bit of relief. Because I find myself laughing for starters - because it’s so silly and weird. And secondly what it does that’s so powerful - is it takes the sentences that were causing so much pain and anxiety and it completely changes the context in your brain. It’s like the thought is playdoh - and we’ve just moulded it to make it something a lot less threatening. Again - it separates you from the sentences and it defuses their power.

3)Saying the thoughts in a funny voice. This one is another good one and I remember reading in Russ Harriss’ book - I think I read this in his book anyway - that he would do this with people struggling with phobias of flying. So he asked a woman he would go into panic mode the minute the plane took off - what is your brain saying to you when that happens? And she said ‘We’re all going to die!’ And so he had her repeat the thought to herself, when she was next on an airplane, but in Mickey Mouses’ voice. And apparently she found it funny, and instantly began to settle a little. So whatever the scary thought is right now - say to yourself in the voice of your favourite cartoon character or film character. 

4)Another is labelling the thoughts - so if you’re familiar with cognitive distortions - which are the types of thought errors taught in CBT - you could use those to label your thoughts. So ‘This is black and white thinking’ or ‘This is future predicting’ or ‘This is jumping to conclusions’. Or you can come up with your own labels. So for me it might be something like ‘doom and glooming’ - when my brain is predicting a negative outcome it doesn’t even know will definitely happen. Or a coach I love called Corrine Crabtree uses the phrase ‘Poo poo’ thoughts - which is just her term for sh*tty negative thoughts that serve no purpose. Or it could be ‘Here’s my fear of rejection thoughts’ or ‘Here’s my brain’s favourite anxious story about my partner’ ‘or my job’. 

I often get my clients to do that in our sessions. If we’re been working on a particular thought pattern for while and so we know it’s one of their brains favourite, anxious stories - I get them to practise just noticing it and labelling it. Calling it out. Literally saying to yourself when it comes up ‘Oh here’s my brain's favourite anxious story - hello again, old friend!’

Again - the aim behind all of this is to help you defuse the power of the sentences and take a step back from them. Doing things like challenging the thoughts and practising new thoughts can also of course be powerful - but often when we’re all caught up in overthinking - we’re just going round and round in circles and need to break that cycle first. And these techniques are all cycle breakers - they act as a way of repositioning you as the observer of the thought and get some distance from it.

5) Narrate and normalise - so this is about stepping back and imagining your watching your brain from a distance and just narrating what’s happening AND normalising the fact that it is. So for example ‘My brain is overthinking what my partner might do on this night out, because it’s really afraid of rejection and wants to keep me safe. It doesn’t think I could handle it if they did cheat. It makes total sense my brain would want to overthink this.’

In this moment - you’re not fighting with the thought or trying to get rid of it. You’re totally acknowledging and normalising the thoughts being there. You’re not freaking out or reacting to your brain. You're observing what’s happening neutrally, without fanning the flames. And again - if some of my clients are listening now and thinking ‘But you encourage us to challenge our thoughts!’ - you’re right I do! And that is also really important.

But before we can do that, we have to calm our nervous systems down a little and pull ourselves back to observe the thoughts at a distance. And these techniques are ways of stepping back and defusing the thoughts, SO that you can perhaps challenge them and do thought work on them - if you choose to.

6)Another thing that I find extremely useful in my own self coaching and when my brain is in overthinking mode - is asking myself: ‘What can I control here?’ When my brain is overthinking outcomes and fearing the worst or replaying things over and over - this question is like a short, sharp wake up call, directing me down a more useful path. For example - if you’re worrying that your partner’s drinking is going to get worse and worse and then you’ll end up wanting to divorce them - you can keep ruminating over what IFs and replaying scenarios and going over the same situations and facts over and over. 

Or you can ask yourself: ‘What can I control here?’ and focus all of your attention on THAT and nothing else. Like controlling how YOU show up, the kind of partner you are, the way you speak to yourself and support yourself, your belief in yourself to handle the worst case scenario, how you would handle the break up - all of those things are things WITHIN your control and are a better focus for you to think intentionally about than ruminating on things you have zero control over.

7)This next one makes me laugh and is one that came to me only a few weeks ago. And I was doing some self coaching on some of my own limiting beliefs and negative thoughts - because yes, even though I’m a coach, my brain still needs lots of managing and coaching! It still likes to be a negative nelly and be afraid and tell me I can’t do things, just like yours! And so when I was writing out these negative thoughts to look at them - when I reflected on them, I little vision of a tiny green witch came into my mind. And I imagined this tiny green witch sat on the desk infront of me - saying these negative things to me.

And I think part of this was inspired by Ru Paul’s Drag Race - which me and my fiance are watching lots of at the moment. And they always talk about the inner sabeteur - how we all have that inner voice telling us we can’t. And telling us we’re not good enough. And it’s not going to work. Encouraging us to be afraid and stay in our comfort zone. And I really related to this when watching Ru Paul’s drag race, and so this little green witch was like my visual representation of my inner sabetuer. And so now when I have mean thoughts about myself or that little ‘I can’t!’ attitude kick in - I imagine this little green witch, my inner sabetuer, sat on the desk infront of me saying it to me.

And it might sound strange - but again, I’m separating myself from it. I’m hearing it and acknowledging it’s not coming from me, it’s a sentence coming from my brain. And just because this little green witch is saying these things to me - doesn’t make them true. I can just be like Oh there she is again - that damn, old witch, trying to tear me down! #

I’ve also heard other people think about it as like a bully. So imagining this voice as a mean bully, and how they want to respond to that bully when it pipes up. So maybe that’ll help you. You could also name your anxious or critical voice. I used to call my anxious voice - anxious Annie. So when my anxiety would kick in, I’d say - oh here’s anxious annie. Here’s an update from anxious annie. And it lightened the whole experience and reminded me that the sentences and feelings weren’t facts, they were just anxious thoughts.

8) Another technique I’d like to share with you - which might be more useful for those that are quite visual - is visualisation. So let’s say you’re overthinking and worrying about something that may or may not happen in the future. You’re anxiously thinking about it. I want you to close your eyes and imagine the worst case scenario happening. Really imagine it. Let it be scary. Let the horror movie play in your mind.

Then I want you to visualise yourself showing up to deal with that situation. And you can use the following questions to guide you. What would you like to say to yourself if this happened? How would you like to show up for yourself? And visualise that. Maybe if you’re afraid of being cheated on - you imagine yourself being kind and compassionate to yourself, telling yourself this wasn’t your fault and that you’re 100% loveable. Really practise imagining that worst case scenario and feeling that love towards yourself. 

Then imagine what you’d do next. Would you turn to friends for support? Would you take some time to process and look after yourself? Don’t do this in a way that panics and scares you - I’m not saying you have to know exactly what you’d do and how you’d respond. This is about visualising yourself handling whatever it is. So if you don’t know exactly what you’d do, maybe you can visualise yourself taking the time to work that out. Imagine yourself journaling and talking to friends, all the while focusing on how you want to FEEL doing these things.

That’s the key thing here. Visualising yourself handling this situation while being anxious and terrified is not useful. So really consider - what emotion would I want to feel if this happened, and how can I imagine dealing with this WHILE feeling that emotion. What would I be thinking if I was feeling that way? What thoughts would I be believing? 

Another cool technique I learnt while doing my NLP - Neurolinguistic programming - training, was the idea of using images to create different emotional states. And one think I remember us all doing was imagining a situation - could be from the past, or from the future - and imaging the image becoming lighter and more colourful. I don’t know about you, but when I imagine bad things happening in the future - what I’m imagining is always dark and grey and miserable looking. Like I’m sat on my bed, feeling miserable, and it’s dark and gloomy. But if I imagine it and I make the imagine lighter and brighter - warmer - instantly the scenario seems less awful. Sounds strange - and you may be thinking, Rebecca what are you going on about - but give it a try. See if it works for your unique brain.

9) And finally - this is one that I’ve just kind of verbalised in my brain while drafting this episode - and I’m going to call it - ‘What if I was willing?’ And what I mean by that is - whatever the negative emotion is you’re trying to escape - whether it’s a feeling you’re trying to avoid having in this present moment, or one you’re afraid to have in the future if something bad happens - what if you were willing to have it?

For example - if right now you’re overthinking the way you spoke and the things you said on a first date - ask yourself, what is the emotion I’m trying to escape having here? Then ask yourself, what if I was willing to just sit and have it? What if I was willing to feel embarrassed? Or ashamed? Or sad? What if I was willing to have those emotions in my body and new I could handle feeling them and that they didn’t mean anything had gone wrong?

Or if you’re overthinking whether your partner is lying to you - ask yourself, what emotion am I trying to escape here? Maybe it’s fear, maybe it’s grief if you find out it’s true, maybe it’s pain and heartbreak. Ask yourself - what if you were willing to have those emotions if you needed to? What if you believed if push came to shove you could totally handle them and survive them and get through to the otherside of them. And bounce back in a way you can’t even imagine doing right now? Really ask yourself that - what if I was willing?

Now remember - not all of these techniques will work for you - you might try some and be like, what the hell was Rebecca on about this doesn’t help! Or you might stumble upon one and it be a game changer and something you can implement whenever you’re overthinking in the future. So try them all and take what works, and leave what doesn’t.

There’s also other ideas that are part of ACT’s cognitive defusion techniques - things like imaging your thought in a bubble and bursting the bubble, or imagining your thoughts are clouds and watching them drift away. I’ll be honest - those techniques have never worked with me and my brain. But like I said, that doesn’t mean it won’t work for you! So give them a try! And if you want to read more about ACT and these kinds of thought defusion techniques, I highly recommend Russ Harris’s book - The Happiness Trap. I’ve not read it for years actually, I’m probably due a re-read of it, because I know I really learnt a lot from it.

So there you have it - some quick, fun overthinking hacks for you to try! And if overthinking is something you struggle with and you often feel unable to manage your anxious thoughts, especially in your relationships - then my 12 week group coaching programme could not come at a better time for you. 

Doors to enrol in Master Your Relationship Mind Drama close TOMORROW on Saturday 13th January. And spots are limited! Throughout the programme you’re going to learn all about the tools and concepts I discuss on this podcast but on a much deeper level - AND learn how to actually apply them to your own unique situations and your own unique brain.

We will begin the week of the 15th January - so next week - and you will get to choose between a group on Monday’s at 12pm GMT (which is UK time) or Tuesday’s at 7pm GMT. Every round I have people from all over the world - it all takes place on Zoom - so don’t panic if you’re not from the UK. Just convert those times into your own timezone and see which would work best for you. When you sign up I’ll be asking which group you’d like to be in based on your timezone and schedule.

Throughout the programme - we meet every week for 90 minutes (on those set group times). And each week we’ll be covering a different part of my online programme - which you also get access to when you enrol. We’ll be covering things like processing emotions, managing and challenging thoughts, manuals and expectations of others, people pleasing, boundaries, your thoughts about YOU and so much more.

And as well as the group calls and access to my online programme - you also get 3 1:1s with me across the 12 weeks AND access to a Facebook group where I can support you and provide feedback in between our sessions. And of course where you will be able to get to know the other members and support them on their journeys too!

I’ll put the link with all the details and FAQs included in the information section of this episode. So definitely go and check that out! And if you have any questions at all - come and find me on Instagram or email me at rebecca@rebeccaorecoaching.com. 

And finally, can I ask you to do something for me? Could you go ahead and give the podcast a little rating on whatever platform you’re listening from? This is how I can keep reaching more people and spreading the word of this work. 

Okay guys - have an amazing weekend and I hope to see you in the group coaching programme! Bye!