UNHOOK from NEGATIVE Thoughts: ACT Defusion Exercises
/Today I will be teaching you about different ways to unhook from your negative thoughts.
If you're struggling with lots of negative thoughts, as many of us do, you may have tried up all sorts of techniques already. You may have tried positive thinking or maybe different CBT techniques where you challenge your thinking. You may have tried to distract yourself from the thoughts. Maybe you've tried mindfulness or meditation to try and push those thoughts away. But somehow those thoughts keep coming back. They seem to be a bit overwhelming for you and dominate your life, and you can't get rid of them.
If that sounds familiar and you're looking for something radically different, perhaps some of these techniques could help you.
The techniques I share below come from an approach called ACT.
These techniques are unhooking techniques - they help you get less stuck to the thoughts because of when thoughts are sticky, we are strongly impacted by them. These exercises can help you become unstuck. What we need to do is, rather than taking the thoughts too seriously, although they might be serious in nature, is to relate to that thought in a different way, by actually playing with it.
Let's say your core unhelpful thought is "I'm a failure". Let's say the word has an emotional tone to it for you. You keep thinking you're a failure and you're gonna fail - and that really feels difficult for you. So first of all start with that word - that word that's sticky, that you're hooked to which is causing your life issues. So let's say it's the word "failure" (it could be a different word for you - I'm ugly, I'm not good enough, I can't do this, I can't handle it, I can't handle this anymore).
Try the following exercises to unhook from your tricky thoughts:
1. Say the word really slowly
So rather than just saying failure or I'm a failure in your head. Or rather than trying to say ‘I'm not a failure’ to counteract it, just say the word really, really slowly. And you may be a bit reluctant to say the word - but you've been saying in your head for days weeks, months and quite often for people, it's years. There's no harm in saying it again but just saying it in a different way. So rather than saying failure say fffffaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiillllllllllluuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuurrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrreeeeeeeeeee.
Like that! And take your time - for about half a minute. Say it either out loud or in your head in this really slow way. Do that two or three times and then notice when you say the word in your head, it might make you smile or it might make you feel the thought in a different way. The emotional connection to the thought may have reduced.
2. Repeat the word really quickly for about 30 seconds
You can just say it really quickly: failure-failure-failure-failure-failure. Just say it as fast as you can. And by the end of it, you'll find that you're saying it so quickly that it's almost like the word doesn't make sense, like failure-failure-failure-failure becomes like a falafel-falafel-falafel-falafel or something! You just keep saying it so quickly that the word and the feeling starts to disconnect a bit. You have a little bit more space mentally. You're now little unhooked from it.
3. Yet another simple technique is to simply say in your mind - "I notice I'm having the thought I'm failure"
Simple as that. And you can even say "At this moment, I notice I'm having the thought…………." and then whatever your thought is, like "I'm ugly, I'm not good enough/ I can't do it /it's too much for me". These kinds of difficult thoughts that we all have in different times in our lives.
4. Sing it
It could be the tune to like "Happy Birthday" or it could be to some other tune - it doesn't really matter what the tune is. You're playing with the words and as you start to be a bit more playful with the words (even though the meaning of the word is it's so significant for you and may be causing you so many problems in your life for so many years by trying these different approaches) suddenly it starts to loosen up. You may find yourself being a little bit more free. Taking actions that you want to take despite this thought having so much emotion for you.
These are four different techniques for unhooking from your thoughts. Give them a go and let me know if you have any problems in the comments below. Feel free to ask questions or comment and if you like this type of content please like and subscribe to my YouTube channel and weekly newsletter and I'll keep in touch. There's other classes and courses that I do online so you can learn more about this approach called ACT.
Check out our next course on Acceptance and Commitment Therapy, which will include this and many other metaphors - it's an interactive video course. You can chat and get to know the other participants, you create a sense of community. We try and make it in a creative way too, so you learn different techniques and it's also evolving all the time. I think you'll enjoy it so come along and join us!
