Mindfully Noticing and Labeling a Thought as a Thought

One way to counteract this problem of getting stuck in your obsessions is to step back in your mind and see your thoughts for what they are, just thoughts. When you take a mindful perspective on the activity of your mind, thoughts are simply thoughts, no more and no less. Just having a thought doesn’t mean that you have to act on it or that you will act on it at some point. Thoughts and actions are two different things. We all have many different types of thoughts that we never act on. Think of how many times you’ve been attracted to someone you have seen in a public place and thought of asking that person out. How many of those times did you just walk up to the person and ask? Maybe you did this some of the time, but probably not every time. Similarly, think of all the times you have had strong cravings for or thoughts about a particular type of food. There are times when you acted on your thoughts or cravings and other times when you did not. So, remember that a thought is just a thought, even if it feels powerful, compelling, and important, as obsessions often do.

Exercise 9.4 Mindfully Notice Your Thoughts

There are many ways to mindfully step back and notice your thoughts. Here are a few that you can practice. At first, we recommend that you practice these strategies in a quiet place where nobody will bother you, when you feel relatively relaxed. Also, the first time you practice these strategies, it may be best to do so with thoughts that are going through your mind at the time, but not with obsessive thoughts. This is because it’s often best to give yourself an easier task when you are first practicing a new skill, rather than to expect yourself to use the skill effectively when it’s most difficult (when you feel consumed by obsessive thoughts). Over time, you will find that you can employ the strategy much more easily and automatically, just as over time, the behaviors involved in driving with a stick shift become nearly “automatic.”

1. This exercise involves you imagining your thoughts on train cars and watching them roll by (McKay et al. 2007). If you are good at using your imagination and visualizing, then this might be a useful way for you to practice. This exercise works best with your eyes closed. Imagine that you are sitting on the side of a small, grassy hill. The sun is shining outside, the birds are chirping in a nearby tree, and you see dandelions and daffodils throughout the grass. Do your best to jump into this scene in your imagination and experience all of the sights, sounds, textures, and smells that you notice. Below you, about thirty feet away, is a train track. Watch the train as it goes by. Imagine that it is going by at about medium to slow speed, not too fast for you to see the individual cars, but not too slow either. Whenever you notice a thought going through your mind, see if you can imagine it written on one of the train cars as the train goes by. Imagine that each train car is one of your thoughts. Whenever a thought enters your mind, just “see” it on the train car as it goes by. Watch the thought, or train car, glide on by, and then look at the next one and see what thought you see on that one. Don’t jump on the thought train; just let it continue to go by. If you notice no thoughts, then just observe blank train cars with nothing written on them. But then, if you have a thought about having no thoughts (Hey, I’m not having any thoughts), put that thought on the next train car and watch it too. Remind yourself that a thought is just a thought. You can step back and notice it without acting on it. You can do this imagery exercise with train cars, clouds floating by in the sky, leaves on a stream, helium balloons floating up into the sky, or whatever works best for you. Also, if you have trouble seeing the written thoughts on the train cars or the clouds, then just imagine that you see a train car with nothing written on it (or a cloud) each time you have a thought, and then watch it pass on by. The people we have worked with have found this quite helpful and have had all sorts of creative ideas about how to use this strategy, so we hope that you find it helpful too.

2. Another way to practice mindfulness of your thoughts is to categorize them. If you have trouble visualizing, then this strategy might be the best one for you. But, even if you are adept at visualizing things, this is still quite a helpful strategy. You can do this exercise with your eyes open or closed. The first thing to do is to stop and notice the thoughts going through your mind. Whenever you notice a thought, stop yourself there, pay attention to the thought, and then categorize it. Find a category in which to put the thought. For example, if you had the thought I’m hungry; I wonder what I’ll make for dinner, you could say to yourself Thought about dinner. If you had the thought I wonder if I checked the lock on the door before I left, you could say to yourself Thought about the door, and so on. Just keep stopping with each thought you have, find an appropriate (but very brief) category for it, and then step back and wait for other thoughts. Many people find that this strategy helps calm their minds and that they feel a lot less wrapped up or stuck in their thoughts the more they practice it. Here’s an example using thoughts one of us had while sitting in a library:

Exercise 9.5 Mindfully Notice the Sensations of the Moment

Another way to disentangle yourself from your thoughts is to step back and mindfully pay attention to and notice all of the sensations of the present moment. This might be an easier strategy to use than in exercise 9.1 when your thoughts are overwhelming. The idea here is to basically jump out of your head and into your current surroundings. When you catch yourself getting all tangled up in your thoughts (obsessive or otherwise), immediately step back from your thoughts, tell yourself I’m obsessing, and redirect your attention outward to the things around you, using all of your five senses. Start with sight. Look around you and notice what you see. Then, label and describe what you see, using the following table. Do the same with smell. Focus on your nose and any sensations of smell that you might be experiencing. Really zero in with your attention, like a laser beam, on the sensations of smell, and then use words to label or describe what you noticed. Move on to hearing, and to touch and taste as well, doing the exact same thing. Keep your mind anchored in your external environment, and whenever your thoughts start to pull you back, gently guide your mind back to your surroundings.

Another way to practice redirecting your attention to sensations is to purposely create sensations for yourself to focus on. For example, you could use some of the self-­soothing strategies discussed in chapter 3 to produce soothing or calming sensations of sight, sound, touch, taste, or hearing, and then notice and label those experiences. The main idea is to get yourself out of your head and into your experiences of the present moment.

Exercise 9.6 Label and Describe the Sensations of the Moment