Have you ever been told to stop thinking about something or felt “hooked” by a certain feeling or thought? If so, there is a concept called “defusion” which could be helpful to you. Defusion is the recognition that thoughts are just thoughts, meaning they are separate from you and do not have to hold so much power over you. To help explain, consider the fact that the opposite of defusion is fusion. If you and your thoughts are fused it makes it more difficult to gain distance or space from your thoughts, feelings, or emotions. In contrast, defusion indicates you are distinctly separate from your thoughts, and this space allows us to observe our thoughts without getting overwhelmed or controlled by them.
Here is an example of fusion vs. defusion:
Fusion – “I am so anxious right now. I am not a good athlete. I am stupid.”
Defusion – “I am feeling overwhelmed and anxious. My thoughts are telling me that I am unathletic and unintelligent. My mind is trying to play tricks on me.”
Your thoughts are just things that pop into your mind based on your experiences, feelings, emotions, and bodily sensations. Your thoughts make sense or made sense at one period of time, but you may want to try to separate yourself from them because they have a tendency to be negatively skewed and are not always the most helpful. Some initial tools to try if you feel you are getting “hooked” by your thoughts is to practice identifying or acknowledging your thoughts when they arise. For example, if a not-so-helpful thought comes in such as, “you stink, you are dumb, you should go home,” you could try to give the thought less power by doing the following: say ‘thank you thoughts,’ sing the thought in your head or out loud in a very goofy way, repeat the thought 30 times fast, or you say to yourself “wow, my thoughts are really going right now,” or “my thoughts are being quite mean right now.”
Using thought defusion techniques can seem minuscule and at times goofy, AND these tips have a tendency to decrease the power of your thoughts. Everyone has thoughts – it is what we do with them that can make them more or less powerful.
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