How to Lose Your Worse-than-Useless Thoughts: Dispersal
September 18, 2009
Note: This is a guest post by Paul Martin, author of Original Faith: What Your Life Is Trying to Tell You, from which this article is adapted.
There is necessary suffering and there is unnecessary suffering. For example, if I lose my job in an economic downturn, this is a source of some unavoidable pain. I’ll have to go job hunting and figure out how to pay the bills.
But if I spend lots of time worrying about losing my job months before it happens and if I resent being let go and then continue to resent it months or years later, then these are examples of unnecessary suffering. Our own trains of thought are the main source of unnecessary suffering. “Trains of thought” is a good phrase for this. They come around almost as if on schedule.
Whether we say them to ourselves or to family members and friends, these trains of thought are stagnant and repetitive. It’s as though we’re compelled to give pretty much the same speech every time the subject comes to mind. We aren’t really processing anything, just spinning our wheels.
Prominent among the trains of thought that bring unnecessary suffering are the worry train, the unfairness train, the envy train, the “if only” train (if only such and such would happen then I’d be happy), the past regrets train, trains of personal resentment, political, social, and cultural rant trains, and the despairing “life is meaningless” train.
We may say to ourselves: “But how can I possibly not hate the fact that X, Y, or Z is so wrong or unfair? How can I not recognize or see how horrible or ugly the truth is?” Well, sure, it can be a good thing to recognize negatives as negatives—when we first encounter them. But no matter how true or valid the thought, if you are unwilling or unable to do anything about it, then thinking about it over and over again has no real-world effect other than making you miserable and increasing the unhappiness of family members who may be getting regular doses of your compelled speeches. This is to say that compelled speech is not only worse-than-useless; it’s worse-than-useless no matter how well justified.
Dispersal Technique
When a worse-than-useless thought arises, notice that you’ve begun to have one of these thought-trains as soon as possible after onset so that you can stop giving it your attention. No more cabooses! Here are some sample techniques. One of these may work well for you or you may wish to get creative.
- Shift modes of locomotion. Picture a kind of Star Wars scene where a hunk of destructive worse-than-uselessness is floating toward your spacecraft. Shoot it down with laser precision and watch it explode.
- Imagine that thinking of a worse than useless thought is like touching a hot stove—withdraw your attention the moment you notice one.
- Quietly think “let it go” and imagine a fist unclenching.
- Consider the worse-than-useless thought with an attitude of “There, there now…” as if it were tantrumming child.
What to Expect
At first it’s not so easy to disperse our worse-than-useless trains of thought; it’s easy to get caught up in them again without noticing. The level of watchfulness required on our early attempts is like that of a sentry on guard duty. Despite the simplicity of the technique, executing it is initially so difficult that I’d recommend that you wait to make your first try when you can be alone for a few days, free of distractions.
Early on, you’ll often find that you won’t notice your compelled speech until you are well into repeating some long, familiar grievance. Within only a few days, however, you begin to catch yourself at or near the start of your monologues to nip them in the bud. Although the level of conscious effort required remains high, a shift begins to take place.
Your practice of dispersal begins to change from being something that you need to repeatedly thrust into the foreground of your consciousness into more of a background alertness or attentiveness. Now it becomes possible to engage in other mental activities with concentration, yet still notice worse-than-useless thoughts when they start to form. Gradually you develop a personal rhythm, an efficient pattern of checking up on yourself no more often than necessary.
If you take a few days for intensive practice of dispersal you will begin to see an important truth: that you are the number one cause of your own suffering. You begin to see that for years, you’ve been making your way through life as if you were out for a walk in the park, except that every time you happened to spot dog poop on the ground, you’d get right down and stick your nose in it. “What a mess things are!” you would exclaim each time, and, very often: “I certainly am not enjoying my walk!”
You can now see that this manner of proceeding is sheer lunacy. Give yourself a few days off from it and you’ll never want to go back.
What about you?
Are there certain trains of thought that bring you unnecessary suffering? How do you get rid of your worse-than-useless thoughts?
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Something i like to do when i have negative thoughts is to make myself think the exact opposite. For example if i think “i have no money” i say to myself straight afterwards “i possess infinite riches” or something to that effect
Faramarz – Anxious Candy´s last blog ..2 Ways To Diminish Your Anxiety and Boost Your Power.
I recognize some of those trains and ‘poop’ in my daily walk in the park.
Thank you for the helpful suggestions on containing them before they become too destructive and damaging to the mental health.
pauline | tuti´s last blog ..argh day
I like the simplicity and the power of this technique. I’ve never tried it before, but I think I’m gonna give it a shot, and see how it works out. Thanks for posting this, Lisis!
Jay Schryer´s last blog ..The Power of A Smile
Paul,
This is SOOO my husband. I try to “shake him out of it” but I never had any concrete techniques to offer him–just empty words. I hope this works for him.
I hope Paul will have a chance to reply to comments later today, but I figured I’d say good morning and start us off:
@ Faramarz; I like that approach because it forces your unconscious mind to reprogram itself for new possibilities, instead of limiting itself to current conditions. Thanks for adding your strategy!
@ Pauline: How about that “poop in the park” analogy? It really stuck in my head and has forced me to re-think my approach to certain things.
@ Jay: I was really impressed with Paul’s simple technique, particularly since I am in desperate need of a thought-management system right now. With all the big life changes going on, I can’t help but run through some of those negative trains of thought. They key, I guess, is to recognize them and put a stop to them (or at least the power they have over me).
@ Jodi: I’m in the same situation. My husband is generally optimistic but, I find that when he’s in these trains of thought, it’s nearly impossible to derail him from them. I, on the other hand, have a constant stream of “useless” traffic going on in my head, so any one thought doesn’t have that much power over me. Perhaps my biggest challenge is finding the USEFUL thoughts!
Paul, THANK YOU so much for submitting this post and for contributing to my arsenal of tools to get me through all the craziness we’re going through these days. You’re the best!
[...] This post was mentioned on Twitter by Jay Schryer. Jay Schryer said: Paul Martin on @Serene_Balance 's Quest for Balance: How to Lose Your Worse-than-Useless Thoughts: Dispersal http://bit.ly/oyY1G [...]
Great guest post and excellent advice. Thank you, thank you, thank you!
Positively Present´s last blog ..how to diversify your life portfolio
Great post Paul. This really hit home for me:
It’s true… I have certain repetitive worries, and I find myself dialoguing with them, thinking of the same rebuttals, playing out the same scenarios in my head. The same words! It’s insane.
I love the phrase “worse-than-useless thoughts.” Thinking of them that way should help me to nip it in the bud better.
David Cain´s last blog ..What’s Your Problem? And Why?
This post is just the right ticket! I’ve been on all the wrong trains in the past. The only one I avoided was the worry train – that is, until my son shipped off to Iraq. What a horrible ride that was! Happily we are off of that now!
suzen´s last blog ..Boy Training – Meet A Great Blogger!
It really is great advice. I can’t get over how often we repeat the same behaviors and expect to end up with different results.
Suzen, I just wanted to say I’m SO glad you are off that particular worry train!!
Great post. I know this way of thinking outside of my own internal monologue but have been so overwhelmed lately that I’ve found myself caught up in it once again. Even with it being an old comfort zone way of thinking that I haven’t used for many years, it has found it’s way back in during my times of overload & stress lately.
Thanks for the reminder about its uselessness in the big picture way of thinking. I definitely needed that!
Suzanne´s last blog ..The Power of My Choice
Hi Everyone – Thanks to Lisis for the guest post and it’s great to hear that it resonates with people. This is something I made extensive use of myself at one stage in my past and that I’ve always continued to use as a reminder from time to time.
I should mention that there’s a free eBook that can be downloaded from my site – “Original Faith: Hard Times Handbook” – that includes this dispersal discussion along with other techniques that I’ve found especially helpful.
Lisis and Paul, this was great.
“Whether we say them to ourselves or to family members and friends, these trains of thought are stagnant and repetitive. It’s as though we’re compelled to give pretty much the same speech every time the subject comes to mind. We aren’t really processing anything, just spinning our wheels.”
I love that! That’s such a great way to say the basic idea.
The whole article resonates with the new me and what I’ve been saying on my blog as well. I’m definitely heading over to Paul’s site to check it out as well as the book.
Stephen – Rat Race Trap´s last blog ..Trying Harder Isn’t Always The Answer
Hi Lisis and Paul,
Beautiful post. Thank you so much for sharing it with all of us. I used to be a worrier but then I learned and realized that worrying really did not accomplish anything and was able to let it go. Whenever it starts to rear its ugly head, I thank it for sharing its point of view and then it goes away. Sounds weird but worry is the ego gone insane.
The one line that I really loved was “you are the number one cause of your suffering”. That is so true.
Nadia – Happy Lotus´s last blog ..“Working for Good” – an Antidote for Violence – My Interview with Jeff Klein
its really excellent writing. hv been in a muddle u bad thoughts a lot lately…. really needed something to help me… atually soemtimes i get tired of my awn thoughts n hv actually told myself “here i go again..”" just the way u mentioned in ur last point
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Consider the worse-than-useless thought with an attitude of “There, there now…” as if it were tantrumming child.
its insane but i neer really realised tht it had worked coz for tht time i forget abt it with a smile but teh next time around i dont use this technique…..
now i knw i hv to do it
thanks again
Great post on not getting caught up in the “what if’s” and causing ourselves unnecessary suffering. I like how you’ve called them “worse-than-useless”, they are so much worse!
That train will just speed further and further along the more fuel we give it. But so often we don’t even realize we’re on the train!
Love the techniques! When I meditate, I imagine my worse-than-useless thoughts are little clouds that just float up… I let them float away and keep floating – the further the better!
Miche | SerenityHacker´s last blog ..One Easy Way to Prevent Productivity Burnout
“Quietly think “let it go” and imagine a fist unclenching.”
I like that. I’ve found releasing is really as easy as that, with some practice. Letting go of hurtful emotions, beliefs, useless thoughts can be as easy as opening a fisted hand.
Thanks!
Kaushik´s last blog ..Days of Our Discontent — Finding Answers
Hi Lisis and Paul,
This post reminds me a lot of Cognitive Therapy; really enjoyed it and how you used trains as an analogy. I also had to stop and pause when I read the phrase that David called out in his comment (he beat me to it…).
Thoughts, like exercise or weight training, are practiced and built over time. I find that if I don’t get control of them early it actually becomes harder to redirect them as time goes on. That is why I think it is so important to handle the trains as soon as you see them coming.
I loved the techniques you listed, especially the Star Wars scene, blasting the thoughts out of existence That’s a keeper! Thank you, Paul.
Lori´s last blog ..The Thirteen
Thanks for all these insightful comments. What some of you have said brings the following to mind regarding mindfulness techniques – by which I mean methods for staying more conscious than unconscious, so to speak, in the day to day moments of one’s life. This is in distinction from sitting meditation, which goes deeper but is hard to do when your boss is watching, lol…
I’ve found that if a mindfulness technique looks like it may be helpful, it’s important to practice it consistently. This is a case where it’s a good thing to get past “beginner’s mind.” That is, initially, it’s really hard to get over your longstanding mental ticks because they’re so well established.
Beginner’s Mind – So first there’s “beginner’s mind,” which in this case is the hardest part. It can feel like you’re wrestling with your own mind – it’s a very conscious effort.
Half-Baked Mind (Not an actual Zen term…): But if you keep it up, the technique comes to half-practice itself. Employing it becomes much easier than it had been and far more rewarding than difficult.
All-Done Mind: The practice falls away because it pretty much becomes unnecessary – at least with regard to some particular line(s) of negative thinking. The negative thoughts stop bothering to repeat themselves because they know you’re not listening.
Of course nobody’s ever really all done – other issues arise. But it’s good to know you’re heading in a positive direction overall and to discover that it’s possible to leave more and more of your freight behind…
Wow Paul, everywhere I click, there you are! And it’s always a pleasure, of course:-) I like that you covered four different approaches for thought dispersal, and it’s interesting to me that there are meditation ‘techniques’ from various religions (as I know you know) that draw on each one of these. So they are all valid, and each works for different people, or at different times. I tend to use the third one the most, I think, the ‘fist unclenching’ approach. I just take a deep breath and try to release the thought – or the energy really, the emotion propelling the thought, which is how it usually manifests for me. But I also like the last one, a spin on the ‘inner child’ – having young children in the house it has become all too clear to me how toddler-like our adult egos are! XOXO Lisa
Lisa (mommymystic)´s last blog ..Musings on PEACE, in Honor of International Peace Day
I definitely know I’m the number one cause of my suffering, and every day I get better at disengaging from useless thoughts, like what you’ve written about. Combining something I read over at The Bold Life with this advice, I think I’ll use the “hot stove” method and Tess’s suggestion of repeating “Not so, not so, not so” over and over at the useless thought until it’s gone.
Thank you for such a great post!
Megan “JoyGirl!” Bord´s last blog ..Giving Our All
Lisa and Megan – Lisa, you mention how different methods of letting go of worse than useless thoughts work for different people at different times, and Megan, your comment’s a good example of how giving thought to our approach – personalizing it, making it our own – is often the key to finding something that really works for us.
Underlying it all is something that my article touches on a little but that I feel is critical to the point where it’s what my book is primarily about: motivation. While most of these methods are pretty easy to describe, implementing them successfully is hard work, especially at first. And that assumes powerful motivation…
I am going to have to implement this technique. I’m constantly over-analyzing the most unimportant things and getting down about them, when my time could be so much better spent!
Thanks!
Kristin´s last blog ..fail with finesse
Paul, I am SO thankful that you shared this guest post with us. The timing of it, for me, could not have been better. So many times since reading this, I have caught myself boarding those trains of thought. I can tell already that I am getting better at not giving in to my worse-than-useless thoughts.
THANK YOU!!!
“you are the number one cause of your own suffering.” Has there been any thought so true??
Thank you, Paul for a very useful article! And Lisis for hosting.
Jannie Funster´s last blog ..Just Plain What The Heck? — Funny Keyword Searches, 5
Kristen, Lisis, and Jannie – I’m so glad people find this article useful. At the time that this perspective originally occurred to me, I’d been reading a lot of Buddhism, and this was an aspect of my personal take-off from that and my assimilation of it. So I’ve enjoyed seeing how people reading this article are finding ways to make it their own, to assimilate it, themselves…
The biggest thing for me was actually making this train of thought visisble.
They became so part of me that they became comfortably familiar, like a safety blanket.
By giving somebody authority to point them out and then learning to observe them myself has been a great first step to finally let them go.
Having somebody taking my so called safety blanket away was another big step which was not done so easily either. But the freedom to finally be able to think solution focused thoughts rather than the what if’s ones, is enormous and does add to the quality of my life hugely.
I go forward a lot faster and a lot further in life as a consequence.
wilma ham´s last blog ..The benefits of doing completion.
Hi Lisis and Paul,
Those trains in life certainly can get to us, can’t they? Over the course of the last several years I’ve been practicing the “let it go” technique. Not only has it worked for me, but when a friend or family member starts to invite me onto one of their trains, I’ve learned by saying “let it go” to them, it helps the train come to a halt and we can turn the conversation around to something positive.
Barbara Swafford´s last blog ..Write Responsibly Right From The Start
Wilma – Absolutely – just becoming conscious that one’s trains of thought exist instead of being totally caught up in them – that’s the first essential step.
Barbara – I love that application – the idea of using the gentle “let it go” form to help friends and relatives. (But I guess a lot could depend on your tone of voice when you say it, lol!)
I always ask myself, what am I meant to learn from whatever has happened?
Viewing difficult times as learning experiences makes them far easier to bear.
Barbara Ling, Virtual Coach´s last blog ..Take a spin in my TIME machine!