Getting Unstuck from Negative Thoughts

So it begins

I’m in a bad mood.

It happens frequently enough. Sometimes I wake up just feeling cranky and with a teeny tiny fuse. Good luck navigating me today family! It has to be frustrating for them to have to deal with me when I’m in this state, just as it’s frustrating for me when I’m dealing with them in this state.

Last time, I wrote about the power of our narrator, and how, more often than not, our narrator sucks a big one. Over this past month I’ve been observing my inner narrator more frequently, particularly when I notice some sort of emotion: guilt, shame, anger, etc. I’ve been trying to use those emotions as a cue to check in with my inner dialogue. More often than not, my narrator is in completely whiny B mode. “UGH! Something inconvenient again! Why won’t anyone leave me alone?? Why do I have to do everything myself! I’m so unappreciated! Wah wah wah!”

Interrupting the negative thoughts

If I heard that come out of my 6yo’s mouth I’d (discreetly) roll my eyes and then work to offer some reassurance or distraction. When it rolls around in my own head though, it feels serious. You may think that because I’m a therapist and personal growth addict, I easily and gracefully apply therapeutic principles to myself. After all, I teach such principles to my clients on a daily basis. But alas, you’d be wrong. I’m just as susceptible to getting caught up in my thoughts as the next person.

When I wrote last time, I focused on how changing the narrator can completely change your perspective on a given situation. What I didn’t address last time I wrote, was about how darn hard it can be to untether yourself from the current story line. I mean, it’s a multi-step process with plenty of opportunities to get reeled back in.

#1: Notice the your thoughts

The first step, of course, would be to notice what the story is. You can’t tie your shoe if you don’t first notice that it’s untied. You have to be willing and able to shift your attention away from the outside world towards your inner world. When you do this, sometimes you find immediate change is possible. Like the observer effect, the mere presence of you observing your thoughts might be enough for (also) you to realize – “whoa, that’s a bit extreme. And also not true, so let’s move on.” If you can pull this off, and can successfully disentangle yourself from an unhelpful story line, you can stop here. Congratulations! You demonstrate adaptive cognitive flexibility!

For the rest of us, read on.

So you’ve successful identified your story line. It’s brutal. One option would be to read back over it, gentle challenging yourself on some of your finer points. “No, you aren’t a horrible person. Yes, you do have people who care from you. You’ve exaggerating how bad it’s going to be, etc.” This is what CBT would have us do and it can be a downright effective technique. What would your wise mind say to your narrator’s lode of tripe? How about a voice of compassion?

But my negative thoughts are like, REALLY mean. And stubborn.

You may find that if you try to challenge really strong thoughts, you fall into a heated argument about whether or not you suck, and frankly that’s not super helpful. What if you’re just feeling too bitchy? This afternoon, I didn’t even want to challenge my thoughts. It felt as though I was too angry and annoyed and frankly justified – cue whiny B voice: “I don’t need to challenge these thoughts because I AM unappreciated!” In the moment, I could get to step one (“Hmm…I seem to be having quite a few negative thoughts”), but just noticing wasn’t enough to make them go away, nor was it enough to change their impact on me.

#2 Notice how the negative thoughts are affecting your body

My next step was to practice some good old-fashion mindfulness skills. I did a quick body scan to see how these thoughts and emotions were impacting the rest of my body. Very quickly I noticed that I was clenching my jaw and tensing my shoulders, so I stopped that. Continuing to scan, I then realize that my stomach may be hungry…or thirsty. Maybe I just need a snack? I notice other sensations. A stabbing pain in my shoulder. A mild ache in my back. My feet on the floor. My clothes on my body.

#3 Notice when the inner critic shows up, and shift focus

The third step also comes to us from mindfulness. When you’re in the middle of a mindfulness or meditation session, one of the primary skills you work on is the idea of returning to the present moment. You focus on breath or a mantra or whatever else. Then you notice that your thoughts wander off and once you notice it, you bring your attention back to your breath. Your thoughts wander off again, you return them to your breath. Over and over again. It reminds me of trying to take a picture of a baby who has recently learned how to crawl. You pose baby just so – baby crawls off. You grab baby and put her back. She crawls off again. Etc.

When it comes to story narration, the idea is similar. You notice that a certain story is playing, you acknowledge it again, and you shift your focus to what youre doing right now. When your thoughts slide back into that negative loop again, you grab them and plop that back into the present. Over and over again. Labeling the story playing can help – oh, there’s that whiny B again trying to rant at me. Give the narrator a title or an image. Externalizing this voice in your head can to create distance between YOU and the thoughts.

The above step is harder on some days than others. Sometimes my Whiny B narrator is really freaking loud. It’s like having a neighbor who has their music blaring on a station that’s causing your eardrums to bleed. How am I supposed to focus with that going on? By moving on to the last step.

#4) Ride it out with love

Take a time out and just observe your internal process for awhile. This is not the same as noticing. This is a longer more intentional act of sitting with everything that you’re holding on to. The frustration of your situation. The discomfort of the feelings. The annoyingness of your thoughts. Notice the WHOLE package of your current experience. And offer the entity that’s going through this challenge some love and compassion. Life is hard. Living is hard. Having feelings and a fear-mongering brain is hard. We’re all trying our best. Me included. You included. Give yourself a big old bear hug and let yourself know that you are on your side.

Is Your Inner Monologue Full of Shit?

Sometimes I’m amazed at what we let our brain get away with. In most situations, we are SO protective over what we allow to be absorbed into our head, but when it comes to vetting our own inner monologue, we seem to let anything fly. We read a book or an article with a critical eye, quickly discarding anything that seems amiss. Media headlines are screened for fake news. Even in conversations with friends or family, we’re keen to notice when the other person is off-base or just misinformed.  

Assessing External Information

Take Steven. He’s sitting there, in a board meeting with his managers, supervisors and bosses, reviewing the latest sales campaign. He listens as his coworker waxes on about target numbers and audience reach and in his head he’s thinking “No fucking way. There’s not a chance we can make that happen. He’s way overselling our capabilities right now.”

Or when Kara was sitting around the Zoom thanksgiving table with family, which is a risky proposition in normal election years. She hears her aunt start talking about communists and snowflakes and about how the libtards ruined her ability to sell her house, and immediately Kara tunes everything else out. As it turns out, mute buttons are exactly what Thanksgiving has been missing.

Or how about when Hannah and Jack were having dinner and Hannah pointed out that Jack’s Movember growth is looking downright creepy and Jack just shrugs. The truth is that he’s grown fond of his pornstache.

All day every day we collect data, pass it through our senses onward to our brain where like an overzealous Tindr user, we swipe left, right, left, left, right  indicating whether or not the new information is worth paying attention to. 

Can I really get shredded 6 pack abs in just 7 days by drinking celery juice? No.

Will this 6-figure instagram course really 10x my sales? No

Is COVID just a propaganda stunt? nope

Will the Washington DC area be headed for unprecedented snowfall? Oh god, probably.

Assessing Internal Information

You’re a pretty smart person. No, that’s not fair. You don’t need that qualifier in there. You’re a smart person. You know this. Your friends know this. Your family knows this. You went to good schools, got the good jobs, schmooze in the “right” circles. Of course you know when someone is bullshitting (and/or is just misinformed).

You skim news headlines and think – Jesus! Who could POSSIBLY believe this crap?? How is half our country so stupid! 

You listen to colleagues talk at social gatherings (wait – what are those??). Scratch that, you USED to listen to colleagues talk at social gatherings, babbling on about how this policy or that policy will revolutionize the industry. No it’s not dude. 

You hear your best friend waxing on about her latest beau, who is clearly a womanizer with zero interest in any long-term, committed anything.

It’s not rocket science. You can just read through the lines. The truth just stands out to you in glowing, neon letters.

Yet, taking the words out of a must-have children’s books, you can do all this other great stuff with that brain of yours, yet you can’t filter out the same crap when it happens to originate from inside your head. For whatever reason – THAT shit is infallible. 

You suck. I can’t believe you just said that. Now everyone thinks you’re a moron and you shouldn’t even be here. You’re going to lose out on the promotion to James and James is SUCH a tool! How could you wear your hair like that on Zoom and think you could get away with it? Jesus, man, you’re going to lose this account because you can’t keep it together. Oh my god – did you just let your eyes get watery?? Dammit! Now he’s going to think you’re a basket case! I can’t believe you stayed in bed all weekend – you’re such a POS!

 Oh – and let’s not forget the chapter on COVID. Everything from how you’re going to get it and ruin all the lives of your family members to how your company is going to implode because everyone is stuck on quarantine and can’t properly check their systems. 

Now, if you imagine those lines were spewing out of your favorite love-to-hate media personality – you would be SO quick to point out how ridiculous these assertions are. YOU KNOW NOTHING! 

But, they’re note. They’re coming from YOU. We’ve already established your brilliance, so obviously your own thoughts can’t be wrong. How could such a logical, accurate and precise brain create thoughts that weren’t also logical, accurate and precise?

Bwooohahaha – cue dramatic violin music!

Your Internal Narrator Sucks

Just because you’re smart, doesn’t mean you’re exempt from some straight internal bullshit.

Ever hear of self-talk? Of course you have. You probably think it’s a bunch of psychobabble. And – it is, but it’s useful psychobabble to investigate. It’s that inner monologue you got going on inside your head 24/7, the color of the lenses through which you view the world. 

You may not even be fully aware of your monologue. It usually operates in the background, just under your focused awareness until you pause for  a second and can hear it echoing around in there.

 It’s almost like that movie, Stranger than Fiction where Will Ferrell’s character is walking around while Emma Thompson narrates his life. That basically your inner monologue, speaking softly (or loudly) in the background, commenting and passing judgement on everything you do.

Have you ever stopped to think about your narrator? A narrator is some sort of character or voice who tells us what’s happening in a story. Regardless of who the narrator is, the fact that there IS a narrator will skew how we hear the story. Narrators are biased. They can only see part of the story, they only have access to certain pieces of information, and their perspectives alter whether or not we believe what they say.

How would the story be different if a different narrator were selected? Would a tragedy be turned into a  comedy? Would a drama seem less dramatic?

This conversation came up recently. I’m reading my daughter Harry Potter for the first time. She adores Harry and his friends and loathes those slimy slytherins. What she sees is precisely reflected from the narrator.  But what if we weren’t seeing the story from Harry’s point of view? What if instead, it was from Snape? Or He-who-shall-not-be-named? Or just some random hufflepuff? How would our understanding of hero vs. villain and good vs. evil change? 

Similarly, what would it be like if YOU had a different narrator? If instead of hearing criticism on your attire (OMG, are you wearing THAT?), you heard a warm, encouraging voice, what would that be like? Who would you want to narrate your life?

What’s your narrator saying?

If you want to play around more, try this – take a few minutes and write down every little thought that comes to mind. A stream of consciousness.

For example:

I need to be writing more. This is the last day of the month so the last chance to post in November. Besides, you need to get this done, so you can move on to the next thing. There’s at least 18000 books you still need to read. You need to sign up for that course course you wanted to do. And update your practice policies. Not to mention Christmas preparation. And OH BY THE WAY – It’s cyber Monday. In other words – BUY ALL THE THINGS. But also not buy all the things because you need to save for a car.  Also, have you been a good mother, wife, friend, daughter today? Have you meditated today? Networked? You need to download the new workout plan. Did you drink water recently? (No – big sip of water). What’s for dinner? Have you sent the grocery order in yet?

The wording may look neutral. Nothing particularly malicious in there. No name-calling. But can you sense it? That drum beat? It’s like the pace starts to quicken and the volume gets louder. A background chant of dontforget.dontforget.dontforget. Almost like a really annoying high school coach and it’s sprint day. TWEET. Whistle blows. GO. Again. GO. Again. Faster faster faster.

Scanning for bullshit

Once you’ve written down your inner monologue – read back over it. What stands out?  Are your thoughts equally as ‘go-go-go” as mine were? Or, is there a different theme? The critic who is telling you everything you do sucks? Or the fortune teller who is predicting all sorts of horrible things will happen?  Or maybe it’s your  inner brat, whining and complaining about how life is unfair.  Maybe a little bit of all of these things. Does it sound like anyone? 

If I look back at my life, who was the person who was always beating the drum of ‘do-more’? It’s my Dad, asking what I’ve done to be productive today. Judging me for my adolescent sloth. Where are the grades? Where is the money? Eye rolling if I’m vegging out. Sighing at my messy room. If you’re not doing then you’re not worthwhile.  

That’s my current narrator. The voice who believes I need to always being go-go-go if I want to make anything of myself.  Maybe you have a similar narrator. One who is keeping track of your endless to-dos, always pushing you to do more, be more. Never settling. It’s probably pushed you to success and achievement. But it’s relentless isn’t it? That quest for “enough”. But “enough” doesn’t actually exist. It’s an unquenchable drive.

Change your narrator

The problem with these different narrators is that they don’t necessarily have YOUR best interest in mind. It’s always someone else’s best interest. 

What would happen if you responded to each one of those thoughts with the inner calm of your wise-minded self. 

Mine would look at my endless to-do and question “Do you really need to do all of thee? It seems like a lot. What’s reasonable to work on today? Slow down.  This isn’t a race. Stay with the process of what you’re doing.  If you want to write today – awesome! Write! But if you don’t, that’s okay too. 

Having trouble accessing a wise-minded narrator to respond to that inner monologue? Maybe it’s time to invest in some food old fashioned therapy. I offer free consults, and if I’m not a good fit for you, I’ll help you find someone who is.