STOP and let go - thoughts stopping techniques

Why do I talk and write so much about thoughts? I myself have gone through many internal experiences that have caused panic attacks, anxiety attacks, headaches... and I have tried various calming supplements, medications, psychological consultations, breathing exercises, sports, meditation and many others - I have found only one answer: if you do not control your thoughts, no magical "technique" will help you. Unless you want to constantly walk around high from chemical drugs...

We all constantly live with our thoughts, no matter what we do. We have about 60,000 of them per day - 95% repetitive, 80% negative. So, you are not the only one who feels that sometimes your thoughts overwhelm you so much that anxiety or panic attacks begin... you are not the only one who gets stuck in thought traps that lock you in an endless bubble of the same thoughts... you are not the only one who sometimes feels like you can't stop thinking about one thing or another... A lot of people live in this - I also get wrapped up in my thoughts, which create unpleasant sensations in the body. So what to do? How to stop thoughts and prevent them from affecting our psyche and causing somatic sensations?

Very often, thoughts calm down if we talk about it with someone - it doesn’t even matter whether we get answers or not. Simply voicing and releasing thoughts from our head helps to clear it. If the thoughts are directed at a specific person, it is especially useful to express them to him/her. Then the dialogues and scenarios created in the head collapse.

But what to do if we don’t have anyone to talk to at that time? And thoughts spin like a carousel in overdrive. You can often find advice - to meditate. However, the truth is that while our head is overloaded with spinning thoughts, meditation will not help. It can only aggravate our mind even more, because when we close our eyes, we close one of the senses - vision, which activates the others. So, if your head is overloaded with thoughts and you have no one to talk to, it’s better to journal. Take a piece of paper and write down all the thoughts, experiences, fears or grievances that torment you. This will let them out of your head box, and it will become calmer. And then you can try to meditate :)

When you feel that you are being particularly negatively affected by a particular thought and you can't get rid of it, start marking it. Every time you catch that thought in your head:

• clap your hands;

• snap your fingers;

• make a dash on a notebook sheet;

• click your tongue or make another movement that does not cause pain and does not remind you of punishment.

In this way, you will identify how often that thought visits you, and you will consciously realize at what time. At the same time, by performing a completely unrelated action, you will divert your attention from the thought itself. Once the thought is identified, in order to stop it and remove it from your head over time, you can do the following:

• say in your mind (or out loud, if circumstances allow) STOP. You can imagine the STOP sign in your mind;

• do not try to hold back the thought and oppose it. Do not create internal dialogues. You have identified it and try to let it go;

• if you catch a thought and it is not related to the current situation, replacing the thought with an affirmation or image that would cause positive feelings and associations for you will help to let it go.

There is no need to suppress thoughts, so always try to let them pass like clouds in the sky.

• Don't let yourself focus on negative thoughts – read, spend time with friends or family, exercise, do something that relaxes you.

• If the thought is related to a specific problem – solve it, don't postpone it. Postponing it will only make the problem grow even more anxiety and fear.

• If the thought is related to a real situation that you can't change – accept it. We can't control everything that happens. So acceptance is often liberating.

• If you are attacked by negative thoughts, try to stop them and find something positive in them. Maybe that situation will teach you something, maybe that experience will be useful in the future, or maybe it will help you to reveal yourself as a person. There is something useful in every situation. Nothing happens without a reason.

• Mindfulness of the present moment also helps to direct your thoughts. If we learned to be where we are, and not live in our own minds, we would be less troubled by negative thoughts. Because we create suffering in our own minds.

It is not easy to control your thoughts, but once you learn to do so, life becomes brighter, so it is worth the effort. Hypnotherapy (RTT) helps us look at the situations that torment us in a different light. To free ourselves from the shell of a hurt child and take life into our own hands.