Help with Intrusive thoughts?

[LadyMay]

That's good! Just give it more time. Rome wasn't built in a day. :-)

[galactic_core]

Originally Posted by Classic

Is there something to be done about intusive and disturbing thoughts. I feel like im OCD, they always come up when im talking to someone directly or near a person. Its so frustuating because i cant think clearly without feeling shame and gulit for these thoughts. It also doesnt help me that when i am not having them, i am wondering when they will come up. I cringe every time they show up and try to supress them(which makes them work) I have just recently come out from a really negative spiral and am slowly getting myself somewhere. Anyways can you provide any insightful information i can use to get rid of these thoughts?

One things that you should understand about intrusive thoughts is that you yourself are not your thoughts. They are just that thoughts, so just label them as such when they come up. Treat them as if they were almost passing clouds. Acknowledge the thoughts when they come up but do your best not to get caught up in the stream of the thought. You can also do this during your meditation practice. When a disturbing or intrusive thought comes up say to yourself something like "thought" or "thinking" and go back to your practice. It also helps to focus on your breath or a word like "love", "God", "Om", whatever you choose. Remember that thoughts are just thoughts they are not you. Those thoughts do not make you a bad person, unworthy, or anything else. It's our actions and how we treat others that are the reflection of our true selves.

[Astro]

Focussing on other aspects of your self could also help to separate & rid yourself of these thoughts. For example instead of your breath, try focussing on your conciousness, or your heart, or your intuition. Experimentation can go far.

Some other suggestons: ask for any spirits nearby to move away. Pray for them (the thougts) to be taken away. Make an affirmation that you'll focus on your tasks when you feel these thoughts might distract you.

[kkfern]

in the east they teach you to say neight, neaight neaight. it means no, no, no. i found it actually helped top say it in whatever language they were using. it is kind of like erasing the thought stream. you can say it in your head really fast and it goes away.

kk

There are different forms of meditation, the ones where you sit quietly in a quiet place, making the mind quiet. But theres also a meditation that you can do anywhere, in the desert or the market place as you go about your daily life. Where there is no effort to make the mind quiet, only an alert vibrant aware state of the moment free of thought.

Its wonderful being in the moment where no thoughts give any significant to your being or distract you from the beauty around you. We shouldn't suppress our thoughts, or name them, for that is the ego, a thought, but we are not our thoughts. As a thought comes in let it go out again without holding on to it.
This can be done by being totally aware of the present. After all a thought is the past or tomorrow, its your experience or dreams, one is dead and the other an illusion. Only the present moment is real.

You cannot think about anything new, go on try it try thinking about something that you have never known or heard about before...its impossible, so thoughts are from memory, from your experience, from the past.

Yet the past is dead and distracts us from the moment. Just as thoughts of tomorrow distract us from the moment. We cannot be sensitive and aware to the beauty around and in us if our mind is lost in the future or the past.

Our awareness in the moment will be clouded by yesterday or tomorrows thoughts.
If you are totally aware in the moment you will be free of thoughts. Imagine sitting in a beautiful valley and the most beautiful amazing thing in the world appeared in front of your eyes...would you be thinking about tomorrow or yesterday?

All we have to do is to look with fresh eyes, look at everything like we have never looked before, look without memory, without naming it, as if its for the first time and we will see amazing things, we will be sensitive to everything, we will appreciate things as they are instead of thinking how they should be, we will see beauty everywhere with love in our hearts, truly being in the moment and if a thought does come in it will have no place to lay its hat as the awareness of being in the moment will be too strong for that thought to linger.

[Bluebutterflycr]

Originally Posted by inthemoment777

There are different forms of meditation, the ones where you sit quietly in a quiet place, making the mind quiet. But theres also a meditation that you can do anywhere, in the desert or the market place as you go about your daily life. Where there is no effort to make the mind quiet, only an alert vibrant aware state of the moment free of thought.

Its wonderful being in the moment where no thoughts give any significant to your being or distract you from the beauty around you. We shouldn't suppress our thoughts, or name them, for that is the ego, a thought, but we are not our thoughts. As a thought comes in let it go out again without holding on to it.
This can be done by being totally aware of the present. After all a thought is the past or tomorrow, its your experience or dreams, one is dead and the other an illusion. Only the present moment is real.

You cannot think about anything new, go on try it try thinking about something that you have never known or heard about before...its impossible, so thoughts are from memory, from your experience, from the past.

Yet the past is dead and distracts us from the moment. Just as thoughts of tomorrow distract us from the moment. We cannot be sensitive and aware to the beauty around and in us if our mind is lost in the future or the past.

Our awareness in the moment will be clouded by yesterday or tomorrows thoughts.
If you are totally aware in the moment you will be free of thoughts. Imagine sitting in a beautiful valley and the most beautiful amazing thing in the world appeared in front of your eyes...would you be thinking about tomorrow or yesterday?

All we have to do is to look with fresh eyes, look at everything like we have never looked before, look without memory, without naming it, as if its for the first time and we will see amazing things, we will be sensitive to everything, we will appreciate things as they are instead of thinking how they should be, we will see beauty everywhere with love in our hearts, truly being in the moment and if a thought does come in it will have no place to lay its hat as the awareness of being in the moment will be too strong for that thought to linger.

I think that what you wrote is very powerful, thanks!

I've had OCD, it would come and go for years, since I was very little. I would get really, really twisted thoughts. And the more guilty I felt, my mind was pushing it even further. When I realized I'm not bad or sick for having these thoughts, and it was actually OCD, I felt relieved and started "playing" with them. The key is to stop being afraid of them. What helped me was not only to let them be and follow them, but also think about them on purpose. Like making fun of them. They fled.

[fennel]

I suffer from this same version of OCD. It runs in cycles- these days I am not experiencing it much.

Here's how I deal with mine. I realize that never in a MILLION years would I ever want these thoughts to materialize in reality. I am a good person who does not wish harm upon anyone. I understand that the thoughts are an illness and that they are not my fault.

This has gone a long ways in helping me to feel better.

I hope you are doing well.