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Self-Help Practice 2:
Change the Ways You Obsess
What to do During Obsessing
So now, let's go to self-help option #2, which is
changing
the ways that you obsess. I'll teach you three ways: Writing, singing, and changing images.
All adults experience irrational worries from time to time. I
want you to downgrade that obsession. Consider it as a momentary,
anxiety-provoking event. It's just a little glitch. Do not support your
obsession by analyzing it. Do not support your obsession by trying to
figure out what it means, or worrying about whether or not you're going to stop it. The
goal here is not to be worry-free. It's not the actual obsession that is such a problem
here, it's your reaction to the obsession. So hold a perspective that the content
isn't important, and it's not bad that you are obsessing. Free up your attention so that
you can begin to modify the ways you obsess.
First thing to do is mentally step back and
acknowledge that you've started obsessing.
Next: remind yourself that it's OK to have a
momentary obsession.
Number 3: don't start worrying about what
the obsession means. Remind yourself that the obsessive content is not important.
Do not get caught up in analyzing.
Number 4: engage in specific actions that
will help you change your emotion about the obsessions (I'll teach you three ways now).
The goal is not to be worry-free. The goal is to change your reaction to the obsessions.
You will have done a number of things before you get to this
step. You've mentally stepped back. You've said, "it's OK." You've said you're
not going to analyze why you're worrying. And now you're going to do something to alter
your emotions about it.
What might you do to change your emotion about an obsession?
Here are three examples.
The first is to write it down. Carry a pencil and a
small pad with you throughout the day. When you begin obsessing, write down your exact
thoughts or a few phrases that describe your images or impulses. If you continue
obsessing, keep writing. This doesn't mean a summary of what you said in your mind. This
means a verbatim transcript of exactly what you're thinking. Act as though you are
the stenographer in the courtroom. Every single utterance goes on paper!
As soon as you finish writing down the worry, if you think it
again, you write it down again, even if it's verbatim what you just wrote down. Don't
write down the theme, write down every single repetition of every single thing you think.
Now what's the benefit here? When you
obsess, you tend to repeat the same content again and again, right? When you write out the
obsessions, you recognize how repetitive and senseless
they are. This perspective weakens the obsessions. After a while you will probably
experience the task of writing verbatim all the obsessive content as a chore. This way it
becomes more work to obsess than to let it go. It's a lot harder to write
over and over again, "Oh, my God, I'm afraid I'm going to kill my son." It's
easy to say it in your head 400 times. But writing it 400 times ...it loses it's
power, it just doesn't work. It begins to make the obsessions an arduous task.
And that's how the writing will begin to help you. After a
while you say, "OK, I'm obsessing. Now I'm either going to start writing it, or I'm
just going to let it go. I can either go through all this effort, or I can just let it
go."
Another way to begin changing your emotional response to your
obsession is to sing your worried thoughts. You are to literally sing in your mind
the words you would usually say, like, "I think I've touched some germs. They're
going to make me sick. I might spread it around. And everybody'll die."
That sounds pretty silly, doesn't it? Here you are,
suffering from terribly distressing symptoms, and I ask you to hum a few bars. But
that's the idea. The process of singing your obsessions makes it difficult to
simultaneously stay distressed. Yes, it's stupid. Yes, it
sounds childish.
Do it anyway!!
And here's how to do it. Pick up a short phrase
that summarizes your obsession. Ignore its meaning for a while. Continue to repeat the
words, but do so within a simple melody. Keep up this tune for a few
minutes.
I don't expect that you will start singing this little tune
and instantly feel happy. In fact, it will probably be hard to feel anything but anxiety
when you start singing. But stick with it. And while you're singing, work to
become
detached from the content of your song. Remember, that's our goal...
Whenever you feel less emotionally involved with these
thoughts, let go of the tune and the words. Turn your attention elsewhere.
The techniques of writing the words down or singing them can
be used when the worry is in the form of words. But what if the obsession is an image? In
that case, you need to modify that picture in some way, or
to replace it with another image. For example, if you imagine your boss
yelling at you, replace it with a picture of you and your boss having a pleasant
conversation. If you imagine yourself dying of cancer, see yourself at 101 years old,
smiling, rocking on your porch, surrounded by your family. If you have just imagined
yourself slapping your child, picture yourself slowly, lovingly stroking the child's hair.
Or close your eyes and imagine your worry having some
physical form. Place it on a cloud right in front of you. See the cloud begin to float
away. Imagine that the farther away the cloud floats, the smaller the obsession becomes
and the more relaxed and comfortable you feel.
Make sure that as you see these new images, you also begin to
shift from distressing feelings to pleasant ones. Choose images that will
make you feel comfortable, relaxed, humored or pleasant, so that they can replace your
anxiety and worry.
Another useful approach is to replay the
obsessional image but change the frightening parts of the image in some cartoon-like
fashion. For example, if you are intimidated by your boss's criticism, see her
about two feet tall and yourself next to her as your normal size. When she attempts to
yell at you, see bubbles coming out of her mouth instead of words. In this same way, if
you have frightening, repetitive images of stabbing someone with a knife or scissors, you
can replay those images immediately after they occur. If a knife was used in your image,
change the knife into Styrofoam and make it three feet long. If it was a pair of scissors,
turn it into Silly Putty and see it drooping in your hand.
Once you've made that shift away from your intense anxiety,
by singing the obsession, writing it down, altering the imagery, or any other changes that
you create for yourself that would shift your emotion, then turn your attention
to other activities in your life. Don't create a void after the shift, because
the mind is going to go to whatever next thought has the strongest emotion. So, if you've
got a bunch of nice, easy little thoughts and images, and then you have this thought
that's terrifying, your mind's going to go right back to what is fearful. So turn your
attention to some new activities.
It may take you a while before this technique gives you
benefits. Some obsessions feel so strong that you won't be able to let go of them right
away. Nonetheless, continue to practice this approach as a way to get some perspective on
your irrational worries.
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