hey Emma why you pulling that rope have you ever tried pushing [Music] one all right guys so sorry
for the bad joke but thank you for letting me reminisce on my days as a camp counselor for a
second um and this rope has something to teach us about our anxiety and our anxious thoughts now I
once had a client who was a ballerina and she was a really good one too she would perform at
top levels uh but she struggled with anxiety when when rolls for the next production were about to
be announced she would worry and worry about what what part she would be given and she would wonder
if she would get the lead and she would ruminate over any past mistakes that she'd made and she'd
wonder if she'd messed up so much that they'd give the lead to someone else and she'd think
about everything she'd said to the production manager and she'd wonder if there was anything
she'd said that had been offensive and she also tried to predict which roles every dancer would
get so she'd think about every single dancer in her troop and she'd imagine their strengths
and in in her head she'd imagine like a hundred different roles and she'd place them all in their
positions and then she would compare herself to them um initially only noticing like all of their
skills and highlighting all of her own flaws and then she'd flip and she'd obsess over her
own abilities and then highlight all of their flaws and she would literally obsess over this
for hours for days leading up to like when the RO decisions were made and this interfered with
her ability to relax to hang out with friends or to finish her school work so she felt stressed
and confused she couldn't figure out if she was amazing or awful she couldn't figure out if she
was confident or insecure and she knew that she like had to be confident so if a fearful thought
came up she'd like struggle against it like try to force it out of her head with positive
thinking or with another round of obsessing over who would get each role and the more she tried to
like think positive the more stressed out she became and the more time she spent inside of
her head and the more anxious she was she stopped seeing her friends and she became more depressed
and it seemed like the harder she tried the worse things got so by the time she came to
see me she was ready to quit ballet so here's the problem that many of us get trapped in most of us
at some point in our lives get stuck in our thoughts we like ruminate or we obsess over
situations whether it's the dumb thing we said the other night or the upcoming performance we
need to do so if we have a thought like oh I'm such a loser then we just believe that thought
without question or we engage in like a wrestle with our thoughts trying to like force them to
be positive and trying to prevent Popin thoughts from happening like oh I can't think that way I
can't think that thought or we fear our thoughts we're afraid of them we judge them we demand that
they change but the problem is that the more we try to force our thoughts to change the louder
they become and worse when we're putting tons of energy into struggling with thoughts we get
sidetracked from what we really value in life so in this video you'll learn how to escape
the Trap of overthinking bothersome thoughts and negative thinking with the ACT skill of cognitive
we resist them this can make them louder the way your brain works is what you pay attention to you
get more of so your brain is is wired to pay more attention to the things you pay attention to now
Dean Anderson he's from waset mental health he once told me a story to illustrate this process
when his family needed a new car they decided they wanted a suburban and they didn't really know what
color they wanted but after looking through their options they decided that they wanted
to buy a peor Suburban it's kind of like a Tawny gray silver color and as soon as they chose that
color they hadn't bought the car yet um guess what they started seeing every time they were
on the road they'd be driving on the freeway or driving through the parking lot they would
see peer Suburbans they had never noticed that color before even though they'd been around them
frequently they the cars had been on the road for a while and they'd never seen them but once they
started looking for peer Suburbans they started seeing peor Suburbans everywhere this is how our
brain works what you pay attention to you get more of so if you have an intrusive thought and you're
like that was awes awful I should never think that again your brain is like oh that thought
is super important let's pay a ton of attention to that thought and let's scan for that thought
all the time and if it pops in let's pay even more attention to it and this is what makes uh thoughts
that thought in particular louder and louder what you pay attention to you get more of or
if you have a thought like I'm going to fail that exam and then you struggle against that thought
and you think no I'm a great student I can't think about failing I have to think positively then your
brain makes both thoughts really loud and that back and forth interferes with your ability to
study so what do we do instead what does work with thoughts cognitive diffusion is the act
skill where you stop believing your thoughts you drop the struggle with them and instead
you notice them you separate yourself from your thoughts you use your values to clarify what you
do want to pay attention to so the the first skill with cognitive diffusion is noticing that you're
thinking we talked about this a little bit in the video on automatic negative thoughts it can
be really powerful when you're able to shift from the thought I'm not good enough to I'm noticing
the thought that I'm not good enough right we talked about that in the last video but let's see
if we can take this one step further so this next exercise uh is called The Observer self exercise
so let's take one minute right now and practice so close your eyes and start to notice your thoughts
don't try to change them or judge them just let them come and go for the next minute become aware
of every thought that crosses your mind and as you notice each thought silently label it as thinking
so for example if you think I have to do laundry later acknowledge it by thinking to yourself I'm
thinking about laundry or I'm thinking about this this video or I'm thinking about how hungry I am
after a few minutes of labeling your thoughts try to shift perspective so instead of being inside
your thoughts imagine you're sitting in a cinema watching your thoughts on a screen your thoughts
are the movie and you are the audience remember movies come and go but the audience remains now
shift for a second away from your thoughts and notice your bodily Sensations can you feel the
weight of your body on the chair or the ground you feel the sensation of air entering or leaving
your nostrils as you notice each sensation remind yourself that you're the one who's observing Can
You observe yourself thinking can you notice that you're the one having thoughts that you're the
one having Sensations this is your Observer self in action okay so could you feel the difference
between the thinking self and the Observer self was it easy to stay in The Observer or did you
get sucked back into thinking how did it feel to watch your thoughts from a distance rather than
being entangled in them when we're caught in the Whirlwind of our thoughts it's easy to believe
that they Define us but by accessing The Observer self we realize that we are not our thoughts
we have thoughts We Are The Observer of these thoughts this perspective can reduce suffering and
provide Clarity in moments of distress remember your thoughts are just thoughts they're not facts
and they're not you by regularly practicing the shift from the thinking self to The Observer self
you can cultivate a greater sense of peace and balance and understanding in your life now act
has a ton of metaphors for this skill um the chess board is one right your thoughts are like chess
pieces uh but you are the board you're the place where these thoughts happen don't get wrapped up
in an individual piece just notice the whole board or another one is is your mind is like a sports
announcer it can make commentary for hours and hours but the announcer isn't the real event the
real event is the game they're playing it's the action so our brain is going to make commentary
on much of what we do but when we detach a little bit from our thoughts we get to be the player so
for example if you have the thought I'm going to mess up this presentation imagine it's a sports
announcer providing commentary and instead of getting wrapped up in the thoughts or feeling
anxious you might respond with h thanks for the commentary mind I'm going to go back to Preparing
and doing my best I'm just going to play you know there's some other easy ways to practice
diffusion so after this video in the full course we'll have some exercises like leaves on a stream
and passengers on the bus that can help you get a better idea of what it feels like to shift from
being in your thoughts to being the Observer of your thoughts another really powerful way to um
diffus from thoughts is humor so if you're having a negative thought about yourself you could um
imagine yourself saying it in a silly voice or imagine it as a cartoon character um or or just
singing it like in a ridiculous way can diffuse the thought like I'm having the thought that I'm a
loser like just singing it silly Um this can help you see your thoughts as like less threatening and
just as a thought it's just a bunch of words the easiest way for me to do cognitive defusion is to
write thoughts down um writing down your thoughts can be a helpful way to distance yourself from
them so uh you want to make sure you do this as an observer rather than as as if like this is
reality so you could title the page stuff my word machine is making up or you title the page like
I'm having the thought that and then you can just start making a list of thoughts like oh these are
thoughts that I'm having another way to kind of separate from this because thoughts are so just
everywhere it's like we're swimming in them and we don't really realize it so one of the
things we often do in marriage therapy that can be really helpful is calling these thoughts stories
um we do this all the time in marriage therapy so instead of saying my husband never helps out
around the house you say like oh I'm telling the story that I'm always a victim here or you might
think my wife is a narcissist and the therapist could help you discern that like while she may
have some selfish traits you're telling the story that she's incurably bad and why bother trying if
she's so terrible and and then that story isn't helping you have a better relationship so our our
word machine of a mind is always telling stories and if we believe these stories too rigidly we'll
filter out lots of helpful thoughts that disagree with that story um in a comment on YouTube a guy
named Tommy explained cognitive diffusion from his own words so here's what he said he said okay so
this is my take on the whole thing thoughts and feelings come sometimes seemingly on their own
I don't identify them as right or wrong I don't spend time thinking and overthinking and trying
to pick them apart and figure out why like oh my why in the world am I thinking like this because
that begins an endless string of thoughts about thoughts about thoughts they just happen like a
hiccup or my heartbeating so I just kind of look at them decide whether they're useful and if not
H that was interesting oh well on to the next thing okay so the whole goal of diffusion is to
help you get a little space from your thoughts so that you can shift your focus and energy into the
things you care about when you're not so focused and wrapped up in your thoughts you're free to be
here in the present and engaged with the people you care about you can put your energy into doing
the things you love so for that client who was a ballerina I would say get good at watching those
thoughts and then choose the skill of diffusion you separate yourself like I'm noticing I'm having
the thought about all these role positions and all this stuff and then I'd say okay what would
you like to be thinking about instead I'd like to be relaxing or I'd like to be with my friends
okay shift your attention to that but to do that we have to have space from our thoughts
we practice that with these cognitive diffusion skills and just a reminder cognitive defusion is
a skill that takes practice it's not about getting rid of your thoughts or never getting caught up
in them again but it's learning to observe them with curiosity and openness and um I would just
encourage you mindfulness is another powerful way to get good at watching thoughts we're going to
talk about that skill in an upcoming video and I'm encouraging you to just keep practicing and
experimenting with different techniques to find out what works for you so in in the next video
you'll learn some effective ways to strengthen your ability to shift your attention the whole
idea of this is we can't push the Rope right we can't force our brain to stop overthinking but
we can pull the Rope we can shift our attention gain a little bit more influence over our lives
actually a ton of influence over our lives by learning to gently invite our mind to change
we do that through the power of our attention but first we have to have cognitive diffusion
to do that so let's get good at noticing our thoughts noticing that we're having thoughts
and that we're the place where those thoughts happen okay thanks for being here and see you
soon [Music]