Fighting Obsessive Thoughts
Obsessive thoughts affect 1 in 50 people. It is one of the psychological problems most hidden by those who suffer from it. Obsessive thoughts are about getting hung up on an idea and not being able to let go of it. They usually involve preoccupation, irrational or absurd preoccupation. Thus generating unnecessary suffering.
We’ve all had a bad day, discussion, or situation that just annoyed us all day. Situations that make us spend the day thinking about them and how we could have acted or reacted differently. Nevertheless, even if we wish , we cannot stop thinking about it. Although we can’t change anything, our mind keeps examining it over and over again. It becomes “I want to quit, but I can’t”. Obsessive thoughts are like that.
Obsessive thoughts as a psychological problem
We all have obsessive thoughts. Therefore, having these kinds of thoughts is not a problem, let alone a pathology. This is however a psychological problem for some people because these thoughts condition their life in a significant way. They also tend to hide them. Confessing that we have something strange and ugly is embarrassing.
Obsessive thoughts are recurrent for these people. C e s obsessive thoughts related to absurd concerns and, although they know that they are absurd, they can not avoid it. A classic example of obsessive thinking might be: “Will I be able to do a dishonest, forbidden or serious act?”.
Causes of obsessive thoughts
Obsessive thoughts arise for several reasons or, more precisely, a combination of several reasons. One of the most common is linked to the future, concretely, with the need to predict the future. We want to know the future in order to predict it, to know that tomorrow will be a day without difficulties. We want to control the uncontrollable, which is impossible. Unexpected things happen every day.
Obsessive thoughts also appear due to our low tolerance for anxiety. We live in a world where we are constantly running and which constantly bombards us with stimuli and information. We always have to be busy, doing things. All of this generates stress, so that we may experience anxiety. This helps prepare our bodies, not our minds. We want to get rid of an idea when it makes us anxious, to silence it for a moment. We don’t tend to think about it.
The last reason is “terriblissism”. It is the belief that all adversity is “terrible”. We see ourselves as the center of the universe. We therefore consider any setback as the end of the world. This tendency to exaggerate issues is another reason for obsessive thinking. These are the three main reasons for obsessive thinking. There are, however, others such as superstitious thinking, excessive shame, fear of ridicule, etc.
What to do with obsessive thoughts?
All obsessive thinking has defining characteristics that can help us neutralize its negative influence. The main one is that 100% of people can get rid of it or reduce their potency until it becomes negligible. We can all get rid of our obsessive thoughts without resorting to drugs. We will nevertheless have to resort to psychological consultation.
Treatment is based on learning to tolerate anxiety. The more we are able to tolerate anxiety, the better we will cope with high levels of anxiety. This requires getting used to anxiety, at least to certain levels of anxiety. We must also learn to tolerate uncertainty. To be able to live without thinking that what we cannot anticipate will necessarily be bad.
We must also stop giving importance to “trivia”. Most of the problems we have are irrelevant. One of the best things to do, then, is to put the problem back in its true place in terms of transcendence. For that we must accept ourselves as we are. To erase the unreal image of the “perfect” beings that we form. We need to start taking responsibility for our imperfections. All of this will help us ward off unnecessary thoughts in general and obsessive ones in particular. Finally, it is necessary to realize that “nothing is so terrible”.
Our thoughts How can we succeed in taking control of these obsessive thoughts that spoil our lives so as not to depend on them anymore?
