You've probably woken in the night with your own version of monsters in your head. Maybe you've been hooked by worries about the future, a work problem, or a relationship concern. Just like trying to rationalize with a kid about monsters, trying to rationalize with your mind at 2 a.m. rarely works.
Your middle-of-the-night thinking comes from being human. Your brain has the unique ability to create lan-guage, which allows you to think, plan, imagine, and make meaning. But language is a double-edged sword. With language you can worry, ruminate, create rules, and judge. It's normal to get caught up in convincing thoughts, or to want to stop yourself from thinking— especially when your thoughts are dis-tressing. But both of these strategies can backfire. Have you noticed that problem solving in the middle of the night only amplifies your worry? Or that trying not to think about your problem only makes you think about it more? According to thought-suppression research in psychology (Wegner et al. 1987), the more we attempt to get rid of unwanted thoughts, the stronger they rebound. If you have social anxiety, you know how this works.
The more you try to not think about how awkward you are with another person, the more your mind points out I'm being so awkward right now!
Language also allows your mind to make comments about yourself and the world around you-all day long. Even as you read this, your mind has something to say. It may not even be related to what you're reading! Not only is your mind never quiet, it tends to focus on the nega-tive. As Rick Hanson (2020b) shared on episode 122 of our podcast, our brain is like Teflon for positive experiences and Velcro for negative ones.
For evolutionary reasons, the negative thoughts we have tend to stick; the positive thoughts, we can't get to stick around at all.
When you're caught up in either fighting or believing your mind's chat-ter, you become what ACT calls cognitively fused. There's no space between you and the thoughts your mind is gen-erating. Cognitive fusion entangles you in your thoughts, which makes it hard for you to see your experience, and your-self, clearly.
Are You Cognitively Fused?
Answer these questions to see how fused you are with your thoughts:
Do you have a hard time paying attention and get distracted by your thoughts?
Do you believe your thoughts are facts, and follow your mind's rules and shoulds?
Do you believe your mind's judgments about yourself and others?
Do you let your thoughts direct your behavior without second-guessing their helpfulness?
Is it hard for you to separate yourself from the thoughts you have?
If you answered yes to most of the questions above, congratulations! You are human.
Like most humans you probably try a number of things to quiet the thoughts that bother you most. Perhaps you try to think "happy thoughts," make your mind go blank, or avoid things that remind you of your monsters. Yet you probably noticed that when you automatically follow your thoughts, they can take you off track. And, when you resist your thoughts they keep coming back.
What else can you do?
Defuse from your thoughts! Cognitive defusion is different from trying to challenge or stop your thinking. Rather, it involves relating to your thoughts differ-ently. You take an observational stance with your thoughts and recognize I am the one watching this, and I am not these thoughts. By spending less time being hooked by your thoughts you're freed up to move more flexibly toward what really matters to you.
This upcoming posts, you'll practice cognitive defusion when you:
Notice your nonstop chattering mind
Step back and look at your thoughts instead of being stuck in them
See how attempting to control your wild and wacky thoughts can backfire
Shift away from behavior that's inflexibly governed by judg-ments, shoulds, and rules and toward behavior that's flexibly guided by your values
Attend and respond to thoughts that help you act the way you want to be in the world
We hope you'll get a little distance from, and perspective on, the monsters in your head. And once you have more space from your thoughts, you'll be more able to choose which thoughts are worth your attention.
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