Here's a funny thought. To maintain my mental health, I talk to myself. When I was seeing a therapist a few years back, she recommended a book to me called "The Happiness Trap." I admit I was not eager to read this book at first and initially ignored the recommendation. And the only reason I eventually did was because she shared a few things from the book over the course of a few sessions that struck home. The first being an analogy about a radio. I'll quote part of it for you:
"Our thinking self is a bit like a radio, constantly playing in the background. Most of the time it's the Radio Doom and Gloom show, broadcasting negative stories twenty-four hours a day. It reminds us of bad things from the past, it warns us of bad things to come in the future, and it gives us regular updates on everything that's wrong with us. Once in a while it broadcasts something useful or cheerful, but not too often. So if we're constantly tuned in to this radio, listening to it intently and, worse, believing everything we hear, then we have a surefire recipe for stress and misery. Unfortunately, there's no way to switch off this radio.... In fact, generally speaking, the more we try to make this radio stop, the louder it plays."
So, this is the idea. Trying to ignore our thoughts, often makes them louder, more obtrusive, and even distracting. It also addresses the approach that people often talk about to "just think happy thoughts"
"....approaches such as positive thinking, which are like airing a second radio show, Radio Happy and Cheerful, along side Radio Doom and Gloom, in the hope of drowning it out. It's pretty hard to stay focused on what you're doing when you have two radios playing different tunes in the background."
So, what's the solution?
"Have you ever had a radio playing in the background, but you were so intent on what you were doing that you didn't really listen to it? You could hear the radio playing, but you weren't paying attention to it. In practicing diffusion skills, we are ultimately aiming to do precisely that with our thoughts. Once we know that thoughts are just bits of language, we can treat them like background noise--we can let them come and go without focusing on them and without being bothered by them."
- "If the thinking self is broadcasting something unhelpful, the observing self need not pay much attention. The observing self can simply acknowledge the thought, then turn its attention to what you are doing here and now.
- If the thinking self is broadcasting something useful or helpful, then the observing self can tune in and pay attention."
The book talks about a phenomenon that we experience called "fusion." The idea being, that when we are in a state of fusion, we treat all thoughts we are having as reality, truth, important, orders we must obey, wise, or even threats. So it proceeds to address several different methods of training ourselves "diffusion." I won't go through them all but I'll share a few examples.
My brain: They don't actually like me, they probably think I'm annoying
My response: "Hey brain, I'm having the thought that they don't like me, and think I'm annoying" or "I see that you're telling me the 'I'm unlovable' story. I've heard that one before."
I acknowledge what my brain is telling me. But that doesn't mean I have to focus on it. And more importantly, by acknowledging that it is just a thought, I separate it from reality. Hear it, and then move on. Let it come, let it go. I don't try to tell myself that they really do like me, and really do want to be my friend. I don't know that that is the reality either. But I can acknowledge the thoughts I'm having, acknowledge them as just thoughts and separate them from my identity and from reality. This works for lots of things.
My brain: I'm a terrible mother
My response: "I'm having the thought that I'm a terrible mother. Okay brain, thanks for sharing."
My brain: I'm a failure
My response: "Hey brain, I see you're starting up the 'I'm a failure' story. I've heard that one before"
My brain: That girl is really beautiful, I like her, and I'd really enjoy kissing her
My response: "I'm having the thought that she is attractive. Thank you brain, for letting me know."
It's important to note, that for this to work, I am not trying to be sarcastic in these scenarios with myself. Just acknowledging the thoughts. But also acknowledging that I don't have to hold onto them.
When people ask me questions about my experience attending the Addiction Recovery Program, one of the questions that tends to come up, sometimes said and sometimes unsaid, is “why did your therapist recommend ARP?” This is a valid question but one that is difficult and generally vulnerable for me to answer. So I generally do a bad job of answering. And of course I can only guess because I don’t truly know what thoughts my therapist was having on the subject aside from what she verbalized aloud. And some of the details are better expressed in face to face, in a context where I feel safe being vulnerable. But I think it relates well to this analogy of the radio. Instead of listening to the radio, but not really focusing on it, I was hearing it, and actively trying to ignore it, which was making it louder and more distracting.
At the time, I had a lot of shame surrounding the topic of same sex attraction. I won’t say I have zero shame now, but I actively fight any that remains by regularly acknowledging its existence instead of trying to ignore it. I was having a hard time battling questions of “what if,” stuck in ruts of wondering how green the other side would be. But asking the question would be followed by intense feelings of guilt and shame, followed by my best efforts to ignore the question, followed by repeat bouts of dwelling on the subject. Rinse, repeat. Perhaps you can see the similarity between this and addictive behavior. I couldn’t stop focusing on it, almost all the time, despite my desire not to. It was an intrusive, almost obsessive thought that came up at inopportune times, that wouldn’t leave my brain despite how badly I wanted to turn it off. It just got louder.
When I allowed my thoughts to linger on things that weren’t "appropriate"… I immediately felt a deep sense of guilt and shame. I thought the only way I could be happy was if I wasn't having the thoughts. I had a very powerful experience of feeling suicidal. It was the first and only time that I had thoughts of suicide that were accompanied by the very real sense that there was a very real danger of me following through with it. I immediately messaged a friend because I was afraid I would act on it if I didn’t. I think about that moment in terms of the radio. Telling my friend enabled me to diffuse the thought. It wasn't something I had to obey. It was just a thought I was having.
I think going to ARP was part of that too. Going to ARP helped me to acknowledge my same-sex attraction. Not as an addiction, but rather that I had entered a state of "fusion" and I could instead diffuse the thoughts. Having the thoughts didn't mean I had to obey the thoughts or act on them. Having the thoughts didn't mean they needed to be scary or that I needed to get rid of them. Having the thoughts didn't mean that I had to define myself by them. I had to listen to them. I needed to acknowledge and accept them. But I could also move on too.
So, my soap box for the day is that we are not defined by our thoughts. Our thoughts are not always important. They are not always wise, they are not orders we must obey, they are not always the truth, and we don't have to treat them like threats. We can acknowledge their existence. We can accept them for what they are. We should listen to them. But we get to choose when and whether or not we focus on them. But focusing on them to them to the point of losing focus on the reality of our here-and-now, just feeds into anxiety, depression, addiction, low self-esteem, self-doubt, self-loathing, insecurity, or even on the flip-side, possibly arrogance, pride and narcissism etc. Moderation in all things.
And it's okay to talk to yourself. Listen, and respond, and move on.
