Kim’s Reviews > Overcoming Unwanted Intrusive Thoughts: A CBT-Based Guide to Getting Over Frightening, Obsessive, or Disturbing Thoughts > Status Update

“The key is not to try harder to stop thoughts; it is in changing your relationship with the thoughts and your beliefs about them. Then, they don’t need to be stopped and are no longer fed the energy that maintains them.”

“They [thoughts] do not mean what you think they mean, there isn’t reason to fear them, and they won’t go away by resisting them.”

“The simple fact is that your attempts to keep certain thoughts from coming into your mind is what makes them come round again and feel stuck.”

“Most of your distress is caused not by what you think or feel, but how you feel about and react to what you think or feel.”

Thoughts become sticky when we are not feeling 100%, but more so because we try so hard to avoid them that the opposite effect happens :/

“Will recovery be easy? Probably not, because you will have to unlearn many unhelpful thinking habits, as well as your automatic emotional reactions to these thoughts and the ways you try to avoid them.”