The Power of Anxious Thoughts: CBT for Anxiety and Cognitive Defusion

Thoughts can feel so powerful, especially when you have anxiety.

Thoughts can get really loud and seem really overwhelming. Thoughts can feel huge. Thoughts can cloud your judgement and get in the way of you moving forward.

But taking a step back, we recognize … thoughts are just thoughts. Your brain is just firing off neurons, and sending chemicals across different synapses. Thoughts are just a normal bunch of noise. They’re not all powerful or all knowing. They’re just there.

Your brain tells you that all of your thoughts are facts, but that’s not really the case.

If you closed your eyes, and thought about your brother’s hair turning blue, would that actually change the color of his hair? Of course not. Not all of our thoughts are believable or actually happening, but we often act as if they are.

Thoughts aren’t always important. Thoughts aren’t always wise.

Sometimes, our thoughts are just nonsense. Our thoughts can act like 5-year-olds, making up stories, telling us we’re being doo-doo heads, throwing tantrums, bossing us around, and just generally being ridiculous. Why on earth should we treat our thoughts as all powerful and all knowing?

Does this mean you should talk back to your thoughts, or call them names, or try and push them away?

If you’ve ever babysat before, or if you have a much younger sibling or cousin, you know that it’s not ok to be mean to a 5-year-old, no matter how annoying they’re being. You can be firm, or you can be gentle, but always either ignoring or screaming at a little kid is pretty inappropriate.

So rather than getting super upset or trying to really ignore your thoughts, let’s treat those pesky thoughts like 5-year-olds. Notice when they’re being silly or being mean, and then let them run off again. If they come back to you with another mean or silly thing, tell them yep, you hear what they’re saying, and they can go off and play again. A 5-year-old would never be in charge of you, right?

Photo by Jesús Rodríguez on Unsplash

Your thoughts aren’t bad - and neither are you.

If you’ve had years and years of always assuming your thoughts were bad, it’s going to take time and work to coach you and your thoughts to get along better. That’s ok! We can put in the work and learn the strategies to help you feel a little less overwhelmed the next time your thoughts get too loud.

Let’s assume the best of our brains.

Our brains and the thoughts they come up with are not evil. They’re not out to hurt us. If anything, they’re trying to help us and protect us. Sometimes, they go too far in the other direction, get too loud, and feel too overwhelming. Even when this happens, they’re trying to help us out. They just don’t know how to do it.

Non-judgmental observation is key!

When we can observe our thoughts without judgement, we can more easily see the links between what happened, what we thought, and how we respond. Just like defusing a bomb, we need to be able to gently untangle all the wires to really see what’s going on and make a helpful plan from there, before we explode. It doesn’t really work if we’re freaking out about defusing the bomb! We get too overwhelmed. 

This sounds great… but how do I do this?

If you were defusing a bomb, would you just try and do it all on your own? Of course not. You’d need some training, and you might even want supervision from an expert bomb defuser. That’s where therapy comes in.

Therapy: Here to help you defuse your brain bombs

Your therapist can help you identify when thoughts are coming up for you that are catastrophic. They can help your brain come up with ways to gently respond or redirect your thoughts.

Your therapist can ALSO help you just sit with your thoughts, instead of trying to jump in and fix them up right away. You can get some space to calm down.

Thoughts are always going to happen, even if we don’t want them to.

Therapy helps us deal with thoughts, notice thoughts, and move forward from our thoughts, without getting stuck or feeling like our thoughts are bad.

Thoughts are just thoughts.

So, let’s work together to feel less overwhelmed by them.

Kelsey Torgerson Dunn, MSW, LCSW is the owner of Compassionate Counseling St. Louis and author of “When Anxiety Makes You Angry,” which will be published by New Harbinger in 2022.

Curious to learn more about cognitive defusion and cognitive coping? Do your thoughts get way too loud? Compassionate Counseling St. Louis provides specialized anger management and anxiety therapy in St. Louis for kids, teens, and college students. We love helping with thoughts, feelings, and behaviors. We work in Clayton, MO and serve kids, teens, and college students throughout St. Louis City, St. Louis County, Ladue, University City, Town and Country, Webster Groves, Creve Coeur, Kirkwood, Richmond Heights, and Brentwood. You can set up your free phone screening to see if we’re a good fit for your needs right on our website. 

Thumbnail image provided by: Jesús Rodríguez