Suppressing emotions
When I tell you not to think about elephants.... what did you do? You thought about elephants right? Yeah this is another way our brains sometimes mess with us. When something is said or thought, it is hard to focus on something else. When you try to suppress a thought or feeling it can get bigger and bigger and it can feel like the only thing we can focus on, just like the elephants.
A good way to visualise this, is to think of yourself holding a ball while you are in the water. As you try to push it down the force of the water keeps trying to push it back up. The harder the push, the more it wants to push up. Eventually your arms will get tired and when you let the ball go, it won't just rise gently to the surface - it will most likely fly up with force and break through the surface of the water and shoot up or away from you with great force. When we try to suppress feelings the same thing will happen. You can only hold them down for so long and the longer you hold them down the more force they will gather.
Try this to see how suppression works
I want you to try this little activity. I want you to think of a thought or feeling which has been troubling you or bugging you over the past week. Now I want you to set a timer for 60 seconds. During this time I want you to actively try and suppress it. Count how many times you thought about it. It was not zero, right?
Try this instead for an alternate strategy
Now I want you to set the timer again and allow yourself freedom to think about anything you want. If you find your mind drifting to that thought or feeling, just acknowledge it and let it move on, no judgement - just like waving at a passing car. At the end of the minute, how many times did you think about it this time? It was less right? So next time you have an unpleasant thought or feeling, don't jump into the car and go for a ride - just let it pass on by.
Avoiding emotions
Another favourite technique we all use when faced with unwanted thoughts and feelings is avoidance. Avoidance is when we put other thoughts, feelings or activities in the way to distract our brains to focus on something else. It can work more effectively than suppression but at the end of the day they are still lurking there and will often come out to greet us, often in disturbed sleep in the middle of the night or when we least expect it. An unrelated situation might come up and then that emotion comes out to play (like a puppy that has been cooped up inside all day and finally getting a chance at freedom).
When us counsellors talk about avoidance, we sometimes use a technique called join the DOTS: Distractions (doing something else or being somewhere else), Opting Out (hiding from it or removing yourself), Thoughts (thinking about something else, anything else) and Substances (food, alcohol, drugs, shopping even gambling). These are all things which help us feel better in the short term, but don't actually have any long term benefits on the thought, feeling or problem that you are faced with. In fact, often when we employ them, the long term impacts actually prove to be negative and have an inverse reaction to what we hoped. Let's take drinking for an example, the first glass might take the edge off the thoughts a bit but then you have a second glass and a third. You need more to drink to keep the thoughts down. In the middle of the night, the thoughts come back and you not only have to deal with them but also the guilt about drinking and any physical effects of alcohol.
Join the DOTS
If you want to find out what you are doing, think about the problematic thought or feeling. Then think about the different aspects of your life where this thought or feeling presents itself then think about the distractions, opt outs, thoughts and substances you are using to avoid it. Give them a score between 0 (not at all effective) to 10 (completely effective) of how effective they are in the short term. This score will often be quite high, there is a reason you are using them. That is OK. Now take a moment to think about the long term impacts and effectiveness of those techniques. Write down what some of the implications, impacts and efficacy are. Then score them again using the same scale, but in the long term (this might be a week, a month or a year out). Reflect on the difference in those scores and question if this is really helping you. Interesting right? Maybe there is a better alternative?
Waving at cars versus getting in and going for a ride
So thinking back to that car analogy and thinking of that thought or feeling as a passing car. How much easier was this second example? When you started to think about your thoughts and feelings as passing cars that you can wave at (or not), rather than something you need to get in and drive it feel a bit different right? This is a really good way to think of our thoughts and feelings. They are something that goes past us, we do not own them, they do not take up space in our garage, we do not need to get them serviced and maintained. They are just a thing that is there that will come and go.
Realising that we are not our thoughts and feelings - that we are more than this. We are more than a job, more than a role or a relationship, it can be quite empowering. When we realise we are not these things, we then have the ability to choose whether or not we react to them. Whether we wave at them, whether we let them pass or whether we flag the car down, jump in and go for a ride unsure of where they will take us.
Welcome to acceptance
This process is called emotional acceptance and is a core pillar of one of my favourite therapy modalities - Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT Therapy). It is about allowing yourself to sit with your thoughts and feelings without suppressing or avoiding them.
Acceptance is a practice which can be learned by anyone, pretty much from the age of 8. As it is a practice, it is never something we can be 100% perfect at, however the more we do it, the easier it becomes. Think of it like running, you start out and might only be able to do 50 meters but over time you can go further and then faster, then you can work on hills and your technique. You continue to improve, you don't just think "I nailed it and now I never have to run again". Practice with therapeutic techniques is really similar. You need to start small, maybe a couple of minutes a day and then build from there. Over time you will be able to do it more easily and for longer periods of time.
When talking about acceptance, the technique we use is called expansion practice. This is time where you sit with the thought or feeling and just allow it to be, like a car going past. Sit with the thought or feeling and observe it from a distance, remind yourself you are safe, play some quiet music if you need to and breath it out, allowing the thought to come and go. It can start out feeling quite intense and unpleasant, but at the end of the time you will realise that you are OK, that you survived. It was unpleasant, but it passed. You got through it. When you try again it will be easier and easier again and then you will find you can sit and think with these thoughts for a longer period of time.
So if you find your current strategies aren't working for you, maybe try acceptance instead. Try sitting with them and not reacting to them. Try letting them come and go.
If you are having trouble with persistent thoughts and feelings that are impacting you, maybe consider speaking with a counsellor who is trained to help you work through these things and share different tools and techniques. Mumshine is open for sessions both in person and online.
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