September 18, 2025 • 28 mins
Have you ever wondered what are intrusive thoughts, or if we all have them? 🧠✨
Join in our Episode 1 of this series of 4 on #intrusivethoughts.
We will look in detail on what thoughts are, when and how they become problematic and we will have a meditation at the end of it!
Hope you enjoy it!
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Jaime
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:01):
Hi, thank you for tuning in on another podcast on mental health
and well-being, CBT and NDR and beyond.
And if you follow us, you subscribe.
Thank you very much if you're new to it and please, I hope you
enjoy it. So what today we're going to do
(00:23):
is we're going to be talking about intrusive thoughts.
We're going to talk about what they are.
We're going to talk and how theyhappen, how often they happen, a
bit of funny introductions aboutwhat intrusive thoughts are.
Sometimes we get them quite a lot and not always are clinical.
Some of them, they are so much common that people sometimes
(00:44):
don't realize. So today is one of four and
episodes. So we're going to have today and
three more on intrusive thoughts, innovative generalized
anxiety, sort of panic, intrusive thoughts and
depression, all those sort of things and intrusive thoughts
and trouble and we'll understandwhat they mean in those contexts
(01:07):
and why we may be having that. So let's start and I hope you
enjoy it. So now, and I wanted to say if
you are hearing this on the description, you can also check
the video as I may be uploading it to YouTube, haven't decided
(01:27):
yet. And throughout today, as we're
finishing, we'll do a light exercise based on ACT and
mindfulness. So to let those thoughts go or
to be a bit more compassionate to ourselves.
OK, so first of all, it'd be very interesting to know what
thoughts, what we're referring about thoughts, right?
(01:49):
So what we are referring about thoughts, these are images that
pops in our mind. These are perhaps words,
sentences, these are perhaps memories from events that have
happened to us. These are somethings feels like
a sense of a urge to do something, because this an urge
(02:11):
is a felt sense of a thought of an urge, right.
They sometimes some people think, oh, my thought is sort of
lineal. It it has a nice flow to it.
It's a smooth. It makes perfectly sense.
That's not always the case. More often than not, they don't
(02:31):
happen this way. So they can wonder away.
They can be unproductive. They can be unreasonable.
They can not match the situation.
We can perceive them as excessive.
They don't go always where we want them to go, and they don't
come always when we want them tocome.
(02:51):
What happens is that sometimes people understand thoughts are
refractions or opinions of themselves, and sometimes they
are biases. There is a sometimes we have
bias that we have or that culturally or societally more
than we've been told so they popin our mind.
(03:12):
Sometimes there is a learn from upbringing of what the content
of the thought itself. Sorry, apologies I was meaning
about the content of the thought.
The content may be something that is innocuous is nothing
that we mean to or we want is just sort of are very variative
(03:33):
reasons that come up. Some schools of thought, there
is some theories, there is some research where there is an
element of genetics, there is a bringing of a bringing, there is
a bringing of life events. There is, you know, things that
happen to us. We'll all have a part of what
our thoughts come up. These thoughts are not always
(03:55):
smooth and not always logical. So what happens is that they can
easily break in our day. They can they can break in our
memory, right? They can shift our attention,
they can increase worry or future worry.
(04:17):
They can be daydreaming. So we can be always wondering
how things will be in the future.
And then what we know, and this is more from any quality
behavioral approach perhaps whatwe know is that these thoughts,
they do have an impact on your mood.
And once again, when I say thoughts, I mean images, words,
(04:40):
phrases, memories, urges. It's a variety of things.
That's the term we are using when I am using.
And what happens is that becausewe sometimes perceive these
thoughts as perhaps not factual,not real, not happening now,
very far fetched in the future. Sometimes they, they feel as
(05:09):
very impactful, very urgent, very, very, very needed to
respond to their thoughts and felt as true, right?
However, through this class of three years of practice, through
training and delivering CBDS, wesee time and time even that more
often than not, these, these images, these words, these
(05:34):
urges, these memories are thingsthat either they are no facts,
they're not true. They think from the past, they
think that we jump into the future and we imagine are going
to happen and then the things that we feel urged to do so to
manage some emotion. OK, we'll go into that a bit
later and I don't want to get hold on treating thoughts are
(05:59):
not facts or treating thoughts are true because that's sort of
sometimes if it's not that if it's not done in a, in a very
subtle and kind and compassionate approach can be
very invalidating because they are felt that's true as a matter
of fact. And they have felt as they are
(06:20):
happening now and they as felt as you have to respond now.
So that is what what from that perspectives of thoughts, we are
what we are referring. And actually it's quite it's,
it's very, very common. So there are some studies
showing that around 80 to 90% ofus of people, right without no
(06:47):
actual diagnosis, without actualclinical diagnosis and we get
intrusive thoughts very common and we all find this stress from
those intrusive thoughts, right.So the universality, so it's
(07:10):
universally it's common is normal is what happens to all of
us. So we we need to be thinking and
that's my intention today is sort of to this take the stigma.
So I can't remember how I tried to practice it earlier on the
stigmatize. So not the stigmatizing the
thoughts I say so especially no blaming note in a talk, no shame
(07:38):
in ourselves, no feeling guilty for them.
We want to build a kind, compassionate path that is going
to take us through the good or apositive set of mind and
well-being. Understanding our our thoughts,
right, that sometimes are unwanted.
(08:00):
They are the pop one. We don't want them and they are
sort of distracting our attention.
So now when we're thinking then,and this is what I hinted just
now, when we're thinking about intrusive thoughts, when people
talk about something that pops in my mind, something that is
unwanted, something that is automatically national intrusion
(08:24):
is a non intrusive image, intrusive words, intrusive
urges, intrusive memories, intrusive thoughts, right?
So what happens is that those tends to pop in and they create
a lot of distress and the emotional charge it increases.
So what happens is, understandably, if these
(08:47):
thoughts are from our past and they are distressing, we will
feel distressed about it. Understandably, if these
thoughts are against who we are,our values, our principles, our
beliefs as a human, it will be also create very distress.
And not only distress, it will create shame.
(09:10):
It will create embarrassment, paranoia, anxiety, right?
It will create all of these because they are popping in when
we don't want it unannounced. They've walked in our mind in
the middle of a conversation, inthe middle of a day, walking to
see friends at work and what we're trying to do, course work,
(09:32):
what we're trying to do, anything in our life.
All right, So as this is more than norm, as intrusive
thoughts, as thoughts having thoughts, intrusive thoughts is
more than norm than not. And they are unwanted and
seeming out of place. They are on that flow.
(09:53):
They feel strange that sometimespeople tend to lead and not all
of them to a belief that this isabnormal and that these thoughts
are somehow saying something about us that we are defective
or we're in shame and that's notthe truth.
(10:15):
So, but that's not the truth because then if that would be
true, then the majority of us, and I don't believe that it's 80
or 90, I'm going to say it's 100% of the people will have
intrusive thoughts for some kind100% at some point in their
life. So what it be is that we all are
(10:35):
shameful, we are all embarrassing, we are all not
normal, right? So from that perspective, that's
what thoughts and interesting thoughts are.
And then sometimes people think,oh, So what?
What sort of things are normal, what sort of things people
(10:59):
think? So a few years ago there was a
research in a population, I can't remember what it was.
I think it was in the States in the UK.
And there was some research a few years ago which has been
more research further in other populations.
And there are commonality on intrusive thoughts especially
(11:24):
there is some themes there is a harm things they are and that
could be physical harm, sexual harm, harm to others, harm to
animals, harm to ourselves. There is some inappropriateness.
So saying things inappropriate there is behaving
inappropriateness. It is about forgiving
(11:47):
forgetfulness or forgetting, doing things or forgetting light
on, forgetting the fire on, forgetting the doors open,
forgetting things, right. And also it's about illness as
well. So catching an illness, passing
an illness, being contaminated, you know, things around illness.
(12:12):
So things from fatally pushing afriend, attacking people,
hurting animals, driving cars off the road, jumping off high
places, living the off and on loved ones been in accidents,
stabbing in front of the traffic, insulting people.
So there's a lot of things that come up of those research that
(12:33):
interestingly, some of them theyrelate even to some of these
thoughts. Some some happen.
What happens is that some of us to some thoughts will be hooked
more. Will we clutter it?
Will we more like relature it? Because we find them that they
(12:56):
are more distressing. We're finding that they don't
know along who we are. Other all of us will have the
same thought, and that would be easy to let go because that
particular thought doesn't bother you, right?
Yet another thought they might be bothered more so the thoughts
(13:16):
come up and that could be from like the car or that's a nice
door. Oh, I hope no one falls on that
hole there or there's some waterthere.
Somebody's going to sleep. I thought somebody's going to
sleep. Someone is going to sleep is
more likely because I thought so.
All these thoughts would then create more or less the stress
depending on you, your life experiences, your upbringing.
(13:42):
Sometimes new diversity has an effect on intrusive thoughts and
understanding the same like biological factors, past events,
ill health, all of that will have also only the understanding
of how we feel. So I hope so far is going well
and I hope I'm not going very fast.
(14:05):
I've been giving some feedback on the podcast at
onlinehyphencbd.com e-mail that sometimes speak too fast.
Be honest with you. It's just I feel so I like so
much and I have and I want to share it with you that I just
get excited about saying things and then my mind for many
(14:28):
reasons, just keep shooting information on me that I need to
be and I don't want to forget and so on.
So that will be some of the interesting thoughts that you
may see as well. I'd rather say that all that's
important, that's important and that what it leaves to me is to
start pacing up right. So if you've got any feedback,
you're more than welcome to dropit on podcast at
(14:49):
onlinehyphencbd.com. The e-mail is in the
description. You can then check.
There is a few more links in thedescription if you want to
check. That's for the clinic.
So we, I'm a director of the online, the online therapy
clinic. And then there is a link there
(15:10):
where you can check for therapy if you want.
We have great professionals there, very experience on OCD,
very experience on the sleep. And then you can, I might try to
put a YouTube channel as well, just because once I'm recording
this in, in a camera, then I canput it on a YouTube.
So now moving forward, what we want to think now is how do
(15:36):
these thoughts, these intrusive thoughts become a problem,
right. So sometimes intrusive thoughts,
they've been there from childhood.
Let me get a bit of a sip of water.
Apologies, not yet. So sometimes these thoughts
(15:59):
appear there from childhood. Sometimes these thoughts pop in
after an event. Thoughts again, edges, images,
words, phrases, memories, right?We want to make sure that that
is what I'm referring to. So sometimes they start popular,
(16:20):
popular, popular. They come when they are not
wanted. And what sometimes happen is the
first time when they come up is they never come before.
If they always been there. People develop strategies to
cope with these thoughts. And then they, they continue
doing them through their life. And they, they, they come on a,
(16:44):
on a look, sort of a pattern on a cycle where it's continued.
Sometimes they pop from an event.
So these things just come up after an event.
And that is when they might juststart coming, you know, when
you're sleeping where you don't want them.
(17:05):
We're out places that might recall that I remember that
remind where they are or situations.
So you may have had always worried about things.
You may have passed the, or you may have been passed a message
of danger of things going bad byyour parents.
So then in adulthood, you're repeating the same.
(17:26):
And it's not like you wanted. It's sort of, you might have
these worries coming up because that's what you've been told or
you've been sort of done. What happens with that is that
while we while these thoughts continue to come in and we
(17:47):
continue our day-to-day, the thoughts may come in, may come
out, the our affect, our emotions come up, they go down.
We'll continue with our day. What then happens is that we
start to link to the situation. We start to link to the
thoughts. We might start to respond.
(18:08):
We might start avoiding things. We might to do over approaching.
So avoiding approaching, we might start avoiding situation,
we might start approaching situation.
We might start sense more responsibility of why we are
having it and it might be something about us or it might
be that I'm more responsible of things because I think about it,
(18:29):
right. So then we start to developed
perhaps some behaviours or strategies to cope with these
thoughts as we would do. And the reason we would do that
is because we are trying to protect ourselves.
We are humans and I believe humans are really adaptable and
(18:51):
I believe we're really resourceful and very intelligent
and very inventive. I do, and I believe we are of
all without difference. And I time and time again when I
do therapy, I see people coming across with more inventive ways
of dealing with the difficulties, in this case
intrusive thoughts. And what happens is that those
(19:13):
ways, sometimes they worked for years and there hasn't been a
side effect to it. It hasn't been an unwanted
outcome, right? So you'd be doing the same
thing, coping with your intrusions, coping with your
memories, coping with your thoughts, with your words.
And that has been always workingfor you.
(19:33):
And at some point that is task to become a problem, that is
task to impact your life. And from a non clinical, and I'm
going to be honest, from a non clinical perspective, we see
mental health as an spectrum. So you may be experiencing
anxiety, let's say anxiety for many years and you may be doing
all these behaviours and manage your anxiety.
(19:56):
Suddenly something happens in your life, your intrusive
thoughts in crumbs, but memoriesas your worries in crumbs
increase, all of that increases and suddenly you are going to
the other end of the spectrum when it's a 9080%.
So you know, let's say zero 100%.
I don't believe there is 0 non mental health, that there is no
0 physical health. We could be very good, we could
(20:18):
do. But anyway, that's not otherwise
I'll distract myself. So then when you are on that top
is when these intrusive thoughtsbecome problematic because you
are expending more time or is spending more energy or is
spending more headspace giving them time.
And someone said to me once I am, my thoughts are living in my
(20:43):
mind rent free and I have had enough.
And that was someone I work withand that was really insightful
from you. They are really, they are living
rent free. They're just there.
He just you can't get rid of them.
You will never be able. They're just there.
So you can if you want to give them time, you can give them
(21:06):
time, then they're charging yourrent, right.
So if you want to let those thoughts go, you want to do
that. And that's where it thus becomes
less problematic, right? So the more you are engaging
with the thoughts, remind you'retrying to do the easiest, the
(21:26):
harder it gets and the more problematic it get.
Now we'll go through these 4 episode series for the next
three and be about quick things,Quick, quick things to look
through how we can do some of these thoughts, how we are going
to deal specifically in certain presentations.
(21:49):
And I'm not going to be clinicalin certain named that people
come across often or they read online how we can do with those
thoughts. And that's what we're going to
try to do is then do specific skills about them, OK.
Some of them are going to be very similar because they are
all intrusive thoughts. So then we can do things about
(22:10):
it, not all the time, because for example, if you are trauma
informed, as I am, sometimes intrusive thoughts come from
trauma and some from trauma events.
So that's the episode #4 and we will do that later on.
And then the intrusion, the memory, the physical sensation
that comes to it, that intrusivethought that comes in urged,
(22:32):
that is a physical sensation that comes from your past.
Will it will be need to be processed for, it should be not
returning and it's a slightly different than all the type of
intrusive thoughts. We'll go through it in the next
three episodes. So what we are going to do now,
(22:54):
but I'm going to ask you if you feel comfortable, if you feel
safe, you're not driving, you'rein a public, you're not in a
publictransport.com. I'm going to ask you to close
your eyes if you are driving, ifyou are in in a public place, if
you don't feel comfortable, I'm just going to ask you to do
exactly the same with your eyes open.
(23:16):
I'm going to ask you to breathe in and breathe out in your
stomach. So let's just start.
I'm going to ask you to breathe in and breathe out in your
stomach. I'm going to ask you to breathe
in in an abdomen. Breathe out much longer.
I'm going to ask you to take onebreathe in and another bred out
(23:38):
much longer. I'm going to ask you to remember
or to come to bring to your awareness what we mention about
(23:59):
thoughts. They are images, they are words,
they are images, they are memories and that they don't
always go smooth and watch. They wonder.
They have disrupted all the timeand they sometimes stay around
(24:20):
more longer than as you're breathing in and breathing out
and you're doing so as you remember the thoughts.
Unintrusive thoughts happen to all of us, but they happen in
(24:43):
our life and they could be of many things and they can bring
shame, embarrassment, anxiety, paranoia, distress.
They can make a lot of emotionaldisorders and a heightened
effect. I want to ask to bring to your
(25:11):
awareness that you may have had or you have enough intrusive and
I want to ask to notice a universal experience that we all
have that is not stigmatising, but sometimes can be an inner
(25:40):
speech that is negative, that isself blaming and that's OK.
So we can turn around with thosemental images, physical images,
your inner speech bring the kindness and compassion.
(26:04):
And you can't remind yourself. So I may be kind to myself, I
may be compassionate to myself and experiencing these thoughts
as we all do, as you're doing. So I'm going to ask you to
(26:29):
imagine that calming praise thatyou like a place where the
thoughts don't live in your mind, that you can let them out
and they can go away. A place that they first
(26:50):
tranquil. And perhaps you may have a
thought or an image of an event that happened in the past.
You've gone through it so many times that sometimes it feels
that maybe it wasn't. What had happened once again
(27:11):
managed to bring an awareness tothe tranquil place, calm place.
I bring that inner compassion. May I be compassion to myself.
May I be kind to myself. May I understand that I'm having
a normal experience? Take a deep breath in and a
(27:37):
longer breath. I might need to return to where
you are now. As you should.
All your shoulders back. You should move around, stretch
if you can. It fails to do so.
And with that very short meditation, I'm going to leave
(28:01):
the episode here. I hope you enjoyed that.
It's the comments that it's the e-mail.
I'll ask that it's going to be apoll.
Please subscribe, share if you like, and I hope I'll see you
next time. Thank you very much.
Hi, thank you for tuning in on another podcast on mental health
and well-being, CBT and NDR and beyond.
And if you follow us, you subscribe.
Thank you very much if you're new to it and please, I hope you
enjoy it. So what today we're going to do
(00:23):
is we're going to be talking about intrusive thoughts.
We're going to talk about what they are.
We're going to talk and how theyhappen, how often they happen, a
bit of funny introductions aboutwhat intrusive thoughts are.
Sometimes we get them quite a lot and not always are clinical.
Some of them, they are so much common that people sometimes
(00:44):
don't realize. So today is one of four and
episodes. So we're going to have today and
three more on intrusive thoughts, innovative generalized
anxiety, sort of panic, intrusive thoughts and
depression, all those sort of things and intrusive thoughts
and trouble and we'll understandwhat they mean in those contexts
(01:07):
and why we may be having that. So let's start and I hope you
enjoy it. So now, and I wanted to say if
you are hearing this on the description, you can also check
the video as I may be uploading it to YouTube, haven't decided
(01:27):
yet. And throughout today, as we're
finishing, we'll do a light exercise based on ACT and
mindfulness. So to let those thoughts go or
to be a bit more compassionate to ourselves.
OK, so first of all, it'd be very interesting to know what
thoughts, what we're referring about thoughts, right?
(01:49):
So what we are referring about thoughts, these are images that
pops in our mind. These are perhaps words,
sentences, these are perhaps memories from events that have
happened to us. These are somethings feels like
a sense of a urge to do something, because this an urge
(02:11):
is a felt sense of a thought of an urge, right.
They sometimes some people think, oh, my thought is sort of
lineal. It it has a nice flow to it.
It's a smooth. It makes perfectly sense.
That's not always the case. More often than not, they don't
(02:31):
happen this way. So they can wonder away.
They can be unproductive. They can be unreasonable.
They can not match the situation.
We can perceive them as excessive.
They don't go always where we want them to go, and they don't
come always when we want them tocome.
(02:51):
What happens is that sometimes people understand thoughts are
refractions or opinions of themselves, and sometimes they
are biases. There is a sometimes we have
bias that we have or that culturally or societally more
than we've been told so they popin our mind.
(03:12):
Sometimes there is a learn from upbringing of what the content
of the thought itself. Sorry, apologies I was meaning
about the content of the thought.
The content may be something that is innocuous is nothing
that we mean to or we want is just sort of are very variative
(03:33):
reasons that come up. Some schools of thought, there
is some theories, there is some research where there is an
element of genetics, there is a bringing of a bringing, there is
a bringing of life events. There is, you know, things that
happen to us. We'll all have a part of what
our thoughts come up. These thoughts are not always
(03:55):
smooth and not always logical. So what happens is that they can
easily break in our day. They can they can break in our
memory, right? They can shift our attention,
they can increase worry or future worry.
(04:17):
They can be daydreaming. So we can be always wondering
how things will be in the future.
And then what we know, and this is more from any quality
behavioral approach perhaps whatwe know is that these thoughts,
they do have an impact on your mood.
And once again, when I say thoughts, I mean images, words,
(04:40):
phrases, memories, urges. It's a variety of things.
That's the term we are using when I am using.
And what happens is that becausewe sometimes perceive these
thoughts as perhaps not factual,not real, not happening now,
very far fetched in the future. Sometimes they, they feel as
(05:09):
very impactful, very urgent, very, very, very needed to
respond to their thoughts and felt as true, right?
However, through this class of three years of practice, through
training and delivering CBDS, wesee time and time even that more
often than not, these, these images, these words, these
(05:34):
urges, these memories are thingsthat either they are no facts,
they're not true. They think from the past, they
think that we jump into the future and we imagine are going
to happen and then the things that we feel urged to do so to
manage some emotion. OK, we'll go into that a bit
later and I don't want to get hold on treating thoughts are
(05:59):
not facts or treating thoughts are true because that's sort of
sometimes if it's not that if it's not done in a, in a very
subtle and kind and compassionate approach can be
very invalidating because they are felt that's true as a matter
of fact. And they have felt as they are
(06:20):
happening now and they as felt as you have to respond now.
So that is what what from that perspectives of thoughts, we are
what we are referring. And actually it's quite it's,
it's very, very common. So there are some studies
showing that around 80 to 90% ofus of people, right without no
(06:47):
actual diagnosis, without actualclinical diagnosis and we get
intrusive thoughts very common and we all find this stress from
those intrusive thoughts, right.So the universality, so it's
(07:10):
universally it's common is normal is what happens to all of
us. So we we need to be thinking and
that's my intention today is sort of to this take the stigma.
So I can't remember how I tried to practice it earlier on the
stigmatize. So not the stigmatizing the
thoughts I say so especially no blaming note in a talk, no shame
(07:38):
in ourselves, no feeling guilty for them.
We want to build a kind, compassionate path that is going
to take us through the good or apositive set of mind and
well-being. Understanding our our thoughts,
right, that sometimes are unwanted.
(08:00):
They are the pop one. We don't want them and they are
sort of distracting our attention.
So now when we're thinking then,and this is what I hinted just
now, when we're thinking about intrusive thoughts, when people
talk about something that pops in my mind, something that is
unwanted, something that is automatically national intrusion
(08:24):
is a non intrusive image, intrusive words, intrusive
urges, intrusive memories, intrusive thoughts, right?
So what happens is that those tends to pop in and they create
a lot of distress and the emotional charge it increases.
So what happens is, understandably, if these
(08:47):
thoughts are from our past and they are distressing, we will
feel distressed about it. Understandably, if these
thoughts are against who we are,our values, our principles, our
beliefs as a human, it will be also create very distress.
And not only distress, it will create shame.
(09:10):
It will create embarrassment, paranoia, anxiety, right?
It will create all of these because they are popping in when
we don't want it unannounced. They've walked in our mind in
the middle of a conversation, inthe middle of a day, walking to
see friends at work and what we're trying to do, course work,
(09:32):
what we're trying to do, anything in our life.
All right, So as this is more than norm, as intrusive
thoughts, as thoughts having thoughts, intrusive thoughts is
more than norm than not. And they are unwanted and
seeming out of place. They are on that flow.
(09:53):
They feel strange that sometimespeople tend to lead and not all
of them to a belief that this isabnormal and that these thoughts
are somehow saying something about us that we are defective
or we're in shame and that's notthe truth.
(10:15):
So, but that's not the truth because then if that would be
true, then the majority of us, and I don't believe that it's 80
or 90, I'm going to say it's 100% of the people will have
intrusive thoughts for some kind100% at some point in their
life. So what it be is that we all are
(10:35):
shameful, we are all embarrassing, we are all not
normal, right? So from that perspective, that's
what thoughts and interesting thoughts are.
And then sometimes people think,oh, So what?
What sort of things are normal, what sort of things people
(10:59):
think? So a few years ago there was a
research in a population, I can't remember what it was.
I think it was in the States in the UK.
And there was some research a few years ago which has been
more research further in other populations.
And there are commonality on intrusive thoughts especially
(11:24):
there is some themes there is a harm things they are and that
could be physical harm, sexual harm, harm to others, harm to
animals, harm to ourselves. There is some inappropriateness.
So saying things inappropriate there is behaving
inappropriateness. It is about forgiving
(11:47):
forgetfulness or forgetting, doing things or forgetting light
on, forgetting the fire on, forgetting the doors open,
forgetting things, right. And also it's about illness as
well. So catching an illness, passing
an illness, being contaminated, you know, things around illness.
(12:12):
So things from fatally pushing afriend, attacking people,
hurting animals, driving cars off the road, jumping off high
places, living the off and on loved ones been in accidents,
stabbing in front of the traffic, insulting people.
So there's a lot of things that come up of those research that
(12:33):
interestingly, some of them theyrelate even to some of these
thoughts. Some some happen.
What happens is that some of us to some thoughts will be hooked
more. Will we clutter it?
Will we more like relature it? Because we find them that they
(12:56):
are more distressing. We're finding that they don't
know along who we are. Other all of us will have the
same thought, and that would be easy to let go because that
particular thought doesn't bother you, right?
Yet another thought they might be bothered more so the thoughts
(13:16):
come up and that could be from like the car or that's a nice
door. Oh, I hope no one falls on that
hole there or there's some waterthere.
Somebody's going to sleep. I thought somebody's going to
sleep. Someone is going to sleep is
more likely because I thought so.
All these thoughts would then create more or less the stress
depending on you, your life experiences, your upbringing.
(13:42):
Sometimes new diversity has an effect on intrusive thoughts and
understanding the same like biological factors, past events,
ill health, all of that will have also only the understanding
of how we feel. So I hope so far is going well
and I hope I'm not going very fast.
(14:05):
I've been giving some feedback on the podcast at
onlinehyphencbd.com e-mail that sometimes speak too fast.
Be honest with you. It's just I feel so I like so
much and I have and I want to share it with you that I just
get excited about saying things and then my mind for many
(14:28):
reasons, just keep shooting information on me that I need to
be and I don't want to forget and so on.
So that will be some of the interesting thoughts that you
may see as well. I'd rather say that all that's
important, that's important and that what it leaves to me is to
start pacing up right. So if you've got any feedback,
you're more than welcome to dropit on podcast at
(14:49):
onlinehyphencbd.com. The e-mail is in the
description. You can then check.
There is a few more links in thedescription if you want to
check. That's for the clinic.
So we, I'm a director of the online, the online therapy
clinic. And then there is a link there
(15:10):
where you can check for therapy if you want.
We have great professionals there, very experience on OCD,
very experience on the sleep. And then you can, I might try to
put a YouTube channel as well, just because once I'm recording
this in, in a camera, then I canput it on a YouTube.
So now moving forward, what we want to think now is how do
(15:36):
these thoughts, these intrusive thoughts become a problem,
right. So sometimes intrusive thoughts,
they've been there from childhood.
Let me get a bit of a sip of water.
Apologies, not yet. So sometimes these thoughts
(15:59):
appear there from childhood. Sometimes these thoughts pop in
after an event. Thoughts again, edges, images,
words, phrases, memories, right?We want to make sure that that
is what I'm referring to. So sometimes they start popular,
(16:20):
popular, popular. They come when they are not
wanted. And what sometimes happen is the
first time when they come up is they never come before.
If they always been there. People develop strategies to
cope with these thoughts. And then they, they continue
doing them through their life. And they, they, they come on a,
(16:44):
on a look, sort of a pattern on a cycle where it's continued.
Sometimes they pop from an event.
So these things just come up after an event.
And that is when they might juststart coming, you know, when
you're sleeping where you don't want them.
(17:05):
We're out places that might recall that I remember that
remind where they are or situations.
So you may have had always worried about things.
You may have passed the, or you may have been passed a message
of danger of things going bad byyour parents.
So then in adulthood, you're repeating the same.
(17:26):
And it's not like you wanted. It's sort of, you might have
these worries coming up because that's what you've been told or
you've been sort of done. What happens with that is that
while we while these thoughts continue to come in and we
(17:47):
continue our day-to-day, the thoughts may come in, may come
out, the our affect, our emotions come up, they go down.
We'll continue with our day. What then happens is that we
start to link to the situation. We start to link to the
thoughts. We might start to respond.
(18:08):
We might start avoiding things. We might to do over approaching.
So avoiding approaching, we might start avoiding situation,
we might start approaching situation.
We might start sense more responsibility of why we are
having it and it might be something about us or it might
be that I'm more responsible of things because I think about it,
(18:29):
right. So then we start to developed
perhaps some behaviours or strategies to cope with these
thoughts as we would do. And the reason we would do that
is because we are trying to protect ourselves.
We are humans and I believe humans are really adaptable and
(18:51):
I believe we're really resourceful and very intelligent
and very inventive. I do, and I believe we are of
all without difference. And I time and time again when I
do therapy, I see people coming across with more inventive ways
of dealing with the difficulties, in this case
intrusive thoughts. And what happens is that those
(19:13):
ways, sometimes they worked for years and there hasn't been a
side effect to it. It hasn't been an unwanted
outcome, right? So you'd be doing the same
thing, coping with your intrusions, coping with your
memories, coping with your thoughts, with your words.
And that has been always workingfor you.
(19:33):
And at some point that is task to become a problem, that is
task to impact your life. And from a non clinical, and I'm
going to be honest, from a non clinical perspective, we see
mental health as an spectrum. So you may be experiencing
anxiety, let's say anxiety for many years and you may be doing
all these behaviours and manage your anxiety.
(19:56):
Suddenly something happens in your life, your intrusive
thoughts in crumbs, but memoriesas your worries in crumbs
increase, all of that increases and suddenly you are going to
the other end of the spectrum when it's a 9080%.
So you know, let's say zero 100%.
I don't believe there is 0 non mental health, that there is no
0 physical health. We could be very good, we could
(20:18):
do. But anyway, that's not otherwise
I'll distract myself. So then when you are on that top
is when these intrusive thoughtsbecome problematic because you
are expending more time or is spending more energy or is
spending more headspace giving them time.
And someone said to me once I am, my thoughts are living in my
(20:43):
mind rent free and I have had enough.
And that was someone I work withand that was really insightful
from you. They are really, they are living
rent free. They're just there.
He just you can't get rid of them.
You will never be able. They're just there.
So you can if you want to give them time, you can give them
(21:06):
time, then they're charging yourrent, right.
So if you want to let those thoughts go, you want to do
that. And that's where it thus becomes
less problematic, right? So the more you are engaging
with the thoughts, remind you'retrying to do the easiest, the
(21:26):
harder it gets and the more problematic it get.
Now we'll go through these 4 episode series for the next
three and be about quick things,Quick, quick things to look
through how we can do some of these thoughts, how we are going
to deal specifically in certain presentations.
(21:49):
And I'm not going to be clinicalin certain named that people
come across often or they read online how we can do with those
thoughts. And that's what we're going to
try to do is then do specific skills about them, OK.
Some of them are going to be very similar because they are
all intrusive thoughts. So then we can do things about
(22:10):
it, not all the time, because for example, if you are trauma
informed, as I am, sometimes intrusive thoughts come from
trauma and some from trauma events.
So that's the episode #4 and we will do that later on.
And then the intrusion, the memory, the physical sensation
that comes to it, that intrusivethought that comes in urged,
(22:32):
that is a physical sensation that comes from your past.
Will it will be need to be processed for, it should be not
returning and it's a slightly different than all the type of
intrusive thoughts. We'll go through it in the next
three episodes. So what we are going to do now,
(22:54):
but I'm going to ask you if you feel comfortable, if you feel
safe, you're not driving, you'rein a public, you're not in a
publictransport.com. I'm going to ask you to close
your eyes if you are driving, ifyou are in in a public place, if
you don't feel comfortable, I'm just going to ask you to do
exactly the same with your eyes open.
(23:16):
I'm going to ask you to breathe in and breathe out in your
stomach. So let's just start.
I'm going to ask you to breathe in and breathe out in your
stomach. I'm going to ask you to breathe
in in an abdomen. Breathe out much longer.
I'm going to ask you to take onebreathe in and another bred out
(23:38):
much longer. I'm going to ask you to remember
or to come to bring to your awareness what we mention about
(23:59):
thoughts. They are images, they are words,
they are images, they are memories and that they don't
always go smooth and watch. They wonder.
They have disrupted all the timeand they sometimes stay around
(24:20):
more longer than as you're breathing in and breathing out
and you're doing so as you remember the thoughts.
Unintrusive thoughts happen to all of us, but they happen in
(24:43):
our life and they could be of many things and they can bring
shame, embarrassment, anxiety, paranoia, distress.
They can make a lot of emotionaldisorders and a heightened
effect. I want to ask to bring to your
(25:11):
awareness that you may have had or you have enough intrusive and
I want to ask to notice a universal experience that we all
have that is not stigmatising, but sometimes can be an inner
(25:40):
speech that is negative, that isself blaming and that's OK.
So we can turn around with thosemental images, physical images,
your inner speech bring the kindness and compassion.
(26:04):
And you can't remind yourself. So I may be kind to myself, I
may be compassionate to myself and experiencing these thoughts
as we all do, as you're doing. So I'm going to ask you to
(26:29):
imagine that calming praise thatyou like a place where the
thoughts don't live in your mind, that you can let them out
and they can go away. A place that they first
(26:50):
tranquil. And perhaps you may have a
thought or an image of an event that happened in the past.
You've gone through it so many times that sometimes it feels
that maybe it wasn't. What had happened once again
(27:11):
managed to bring an awareness tothe tranquil place, calm place.
I bring that inner compassion. May I be compassion to myself.
May I be kind to myself. May I understand that I'm having
a normal experience? Take a deep breath in and a
(27:37):
longer breath. I might need to return to where
you are now. As you should.
All your shoulders back. You should move around, stretch
if you can. It fails to do so.
And with that very short meditation, I'm going to leave
(28:01):
the episode here. I hope you enjoyed that.
It's the comments that it's the e-mail.
I'll ask that it's going to be apoll.
Please subscribe, share if you like, and I hope I'll see you
next time. Thank you very much.
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