Thoughts Are Just Thoughts: How to Stop Worshiping Your Anxious Mind

Thoughts Are Just Thoughts: How to Stop Worshiping Your Anxious Mind

Michael Stein, PsyD

Michael Stein, PsyD

Dr. Michael Stein is a licensed clinical psychologist who has spent over 15 years specializing in the treatment of anxiety disorders and OCD using Exposure Therapy and other evidence-based behavioral interventions. He is the founder and owner of Anxiety Solutions, a group private practice that serves clients with anxiety and OCD both online and at its office in Denver, CO. He is also the author of "How to Stop Overanalyzing", a self-help video series. He sees clients, teaches, and supervises other therapists from Anxiety Solutions' Denver office. He is passionate about both helping his own clients overcome anxiety and OCD and expanding access to quality care for these problems.  

Boost Search Results
On

Thoughts Are Just Thoughts: How to Stop Worshiping Your Anxious Mind

Share
No
Thoughts Are Just Thoughts: How to Stop Worshiping Your Anxious Mind

View the ADAA Live Webinar with ADAA members Drs. Kissen and Greene - What Are Intrusive Thoughts and How Can You Deal with Them?

If you suffer from anxiety, you probably have a contentious and complicated relationship with your mind. It feels like your mind tortures you. It gives you all these thoughts about what you should be scared of and horrible things that could happen to you.  

It tells you that you need to worry, analyze, and seek reassurance about all these things. It never shuts up. It won't leave you alone. Perhaps worst of all, when you try to tell it why you probably don't need to be afraid of all the things it says will happen, it calls you crazy or stupid or any number of bad names.  It's a bully.

It feels like your mind is torturing you.

And yet…you worship your mind. You take what it says very seriously. You believe that if your mind says something, it must be important. It must mean something. No matter how mean your mind is to you, you give it the utmost respect and trust. That's the problem.

It is your torturer, and yet you worship it. In what other situation would you ever want to worship your own torturer?

The problem is not the fact that your mind gives you negative thoughts; the problem is that you take your mind so seriously. Just because your mind says something is important does not mean it actually is important. Just because something feels important also does not mean it is important.

Thoughts are just thoughts.

Thoughts are not facts. Thoughts are not meaningful. The content of your thoughts is not important.

What is important is how you treat your mind. If you take everything it says seriously, give it too much respect, and put too much trust in your mind, that is a recipe for an anxiety disorder.

There is a healthier way to approach your mind: don't take it so seriously. Don't believe everything it says. Don't treat your mind as a trustworthy source of information, especially about the things that make you anxious.

Don't get me wrong, you don't have a bad mind. It's not that your mind feeds you meaningless, negative thoughts and everyone else's mind is on target. This is how all minds work. 

Your mind is just doing what minds do. Our minds like to warn us about stuff because our minds think they are keeping us safe by doing this. Your mind would always rather err on the side of giving you a warning than not because it is more likely to keep you physically safe that way, and your mind cares about that more than anything. But just because your mind is doing its job, that doesn't mean the thoughts actually mean anything. Again, thoughts are just thoughts. 

When you have a thought that your relationship partner might leave you, that's just a fart noise in your head. Treat it as such: ignore it and move on with whatever you were actually doing with your day.

When you have a thought that you touched something dirty and you might catch a deadly disease, that's just a random neuron firing in your brain. It means nothing. Treat it as such: be dismissive toward your mind and don't give it any of your attention or time.

When you have a thought that your anxiety will never get better, that's just a buzzing sound in your head. Treat it as such: sarcastically say to your mind, "Good one, thanks for that, keep 'em coming!"

Remember, when you treat your mind this way, it doesn't mean your mind will necessarily stop saying things like this. Your mind is going to do what it wants to do; you don't have control over the thoughts that pop into your head.  No one actually does. The important thing is not what thoughts you have, it's what you do when you have those thoughts.

So the next time your mind starts spinning about why you should feel anxious about something, try to react to it differently. Don't worship your mind, recognize that it is a false god unworthy of your trust, respect, time, or attention. Instead, get back to whatever you are doing right in front of you in the present moment and put your effort into that. 

Even though you can't stop your mind from continuing to give you negative thoughts, that's okay, because thoughts are just thoughts.

Michael Stein, PsyD

Michael Stein, PsyD

Dr. Michael Stein is a licensed clinical psychologist who has spent over 15 years specializing in the treatment of anxiety disorders and OCD using Exposure Therapy and other evidence-based behavioral interventions. He is the founder and owner of Anxiety Solutions, a group private practice that serves clients with anxiety and OCD both online and at its office in Denver, CO. He is also the author of "How to Stop Overanalyzing", a self-help video series. He sees clients, teaches, and supervises other therapists from Anxiety Solutions' Denver office. He is passionate about both helping his own clients overcome anxiety and OCD and expanding access to quality care for these problems.  

ADAA Blog Content and Blog Comments Policy

ADAA Blog Content and Blog Comments Policy

ADAA provides this Website blogs for the benefit of its members and the public. The content, view and opinions published in Blogs written by our personnel or contributors – or from links or posts on the Website from other sources - belong solely to their respective authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of ADAA, its members, management or employees. Any comments or opinions expressed are those of their respective contributors only. Please remember that the open and real-time nature of the comments posted to these venues makes it is impossible for ADAA to confirm the validity of any content posted, and though we reserve the right to review and edit or delete any such comment, we do not guarantee that we will monitor or review it. As such, we are not responsible for any messages posted or the consequences of following any advice offered within such posts. If you find any posts in these posts/comments to be offensive, inaccurate or objectionable, please contact us via email at [email protected] and reference the relevant content. If we determine that removal of a post or posts is necessary, we will make reasonable efforts to do so in a timely manner.

ADAA expressly disclaims responsibility for and liabilities resulting from, any information or communications from and between users of ADAA’s blog post commenting features. Users acknowledge and agree that they may be individually liable for anything they communicate using ADAA’s blogs, including but not limited to defamatory, discriminatory, false or unauthorized information. Users are cautioned that they are responsible for complying with the requirements of applicable copyright and trademark laws and regulations. By submitting a response, comment or content, you agree that such submission is non-confidential for all purposes. Any submission to this Website will be deemed and remain the property of ADAA.

The ADAA blogs are forums for individuals to share their opinions, experiences and thoughts related to mental illness. ADAA wants to ensure the integrity of this service and therefore, use of this service is limited to participants who agree to adhere to the following guidelines:

1. Refrain from transmitting any message, information, data, or text that is unlawful, threatening, abusive, harassing, defamatory, vulgar, obscene, that may be invasive of another 's privacy, hateful, or bashing communications - especially those aimed at gender, race, color, sexual orientation, national origin, religious views or disability.

Please note that there is a review process whereby all comments posted to blog posts and webinars are reviewed by ADAA staff to determine appropriateness before comments are posted. ADAA reserves the right to remove or edit a post containing offensive material as defined by ADAA.

ADAA reserves the right to remove or edit posts that contain explicit, obscene, offensive, or vulgar language. Similarly, posts that contain any graphic files will be removed immediately upon notice.

2. Refrain from posting or transmitting any unsolicited, promotional materials, "junk mail," "spam," "chain mail," "pyramid schemes" or any other form of solicitation. ADAA reserves the right to delete these posts immediately upon notice.

3. ADAA invites and encourages a healthy exchange of opinions. If you disagree with a participant 's post or opinion and wish to challenge it, do so with respect. The real objective of the ADAA blog post commenting function is to promote discussion and understanding, not to convince others that your opinion is "right." Name calling, insults, and personal attacks are not appropriate and will not be tolerated. ADAA will remove these posts immediately upon notice.

4. ADAA promotes privacy and encourages participants to keep personal information such as address and telephone number from being posted. Similarly, do not ask for personal information from other participants. Any comments that ask for telephone, address, e-mail, surveys and research studies will not be approved for posting.

5. Participants should be aware that the opinions, beliefs and statements on blog posts do not necessarily represent the opinions and beliefs of ADAA. Participants also agree that ADAA is not to be held liable for any loss or injury caused, in whole or in part, by sponsorship of blog post commenting. Participants also agree that ADAA reserves the right to report any suspicions of harm to self or others as evidenced by participant posts.

RESOURCES AND NEWS
Evidence-based Tips & Strategies from our Member Experts
RELATED ARTICLES
Block reference