“Why do you keep rehearsing the conversation?”

He entered the room for his weekly session and sat down casually, looking somewhat annoyed. But there was also a glimmer in his eye. He knew this moment was coming, and struggled to suppress a smile. He would now proceed to acknowledge something that, in retrospect, is both comical and unbelievably frustrating: that he had been working himself up all week, over and over, worrying incessantly about an upcoming conversation with his boss. Worrying this way is completely unhelpful and accomplishes nothing, but he can’t help himself.

“It’s two weeks away,” he said. “I’ve gone over it a hundred times. I can’t relax.”

“Has that helped?”

He laughed. “Uh...no, no it hasn't. Definitely not.”

It's amazing how common this experience is, I thought to myself. We realize that our worrying doesn't help at all, yet we can't seem to disengage.

“Why do you keep rehearsing the conversation?”

“I don’t know,” he said. “It’s just always there. I know the conversation’s going to piss me off. I want to be prepared. They’re going to try and screw me.”

“Do you realize—when you’re doing it—that you’re spinning your wheels? That nothing new is coming from the thirtieth rehearsal?”

He sighed. “Of course. But I’m not thinking about that in the moment. I’m just in it.”

“So when does it end for you? How long does it last?”

“Depends,” he said. “Since we started discussing it, I’ve recently noticed that I start getting angry about other things too. Totally random things.”

“Like what?”

He paused. “Like—I’ll be thinking about the meeting, and then suddenly I’m pissed about something I read in the news that morning. And then I’m thinking about a fight I had with my wife two nights ago. Getting angry about that too. None of it’s connected. I’m just spiraling. One thing triggers the next.”

“That’s pretty intense. How does it end?”

He laughs again. “I actually have no idea. It just dies down eventually. I’ll realize afterwards that I’ve moved on and I’m thinking about something else.”

Stop Resisting

This situation isn’t uncommon. Our working mind is always on the lookout. It abhors uncertainty. When faced with a threat, it springs into action. The frequency and intensity of related thoughts typically increase, sometimes at a furious pace. The thoughts are almost always exaggerated and hyperbolic. The mind will reflexively rehearse future scenarios over and over again, presumably to reduce risk and avoid threats. But this mental activity is both unpleasant and unwelcome, and it always arises unannounced. It's intrusive. Most of us try to think our way out of this mess, or suppress the thoughts altogether. Both of these approaches make things worse. If you want to break the cycle, you have to learn to let go.

Your resistance to uncomfortable thoughts causes more pain than the thoughts themselves, in part by generating more uncomfortable thoughts. The newer thoughts then fan the flames, generating even more discomfort—a vicious cycle.

You can only flow with the current carrying you along. You can't control it. We don't need to, but we often insist on it. It only makes the journey more difficult.

Learn To Ignore Your Thoughts

To move beyond this vicious cycle, you need to begin cultivating a new relationship with your thoughts.

Remember this core principle, as it may take a while to internalize:

you are not your thoughts—you are the observer of your thoughts, which are mental arisings that come and go in your field of awareness.

This may not sound significant at first glance, but in actuality it changes everything. The implication is transformational:

If your thoughts are merely mental arisings that come and go—similar to sights and sounds in the external environment—then you’re free to ignore them entirely when they’re unhelpful.

Like random sights and sounds, most thoughts are irrelevant. They arise spontaneously and they’re transient, quickly fading away. They may feel imbued with a sense of importance because of their intimacy, but most of them are not important at all.

You should spend some time each day analyzing the content of your thoughts. This is especially helpful if you find yourself in a situation where you’re intensely worrying about some future event. Do the following:

1. Try your best to create some space and observe your thoughts with detachment—like a scientist.

2. Don’t engage with the thoughts. If you realize that you’re engaged, that a thought has swept you away—that’s okay. That moment of awareness is a sign of growth. Pivot back to watching them with detachment.

3. If any particular thought is persistent or generates intense emotion, capture it. Write it down or type it out. Don’t skip this step.

4. When you’re done capturing, read what you’ve written out loud. Then throw it out, delete it and forget about it.

What you’ll find is that you don’t need to work with these thoughts. They don’t need to be analyzed and deconstructed. They don’t need to be suppressed or controlled. They will dissipate on their own as soon as you stop engaging with them.

The scenarios that are generating anxiety don’t need to be rehearsed and thought through over and over again. Most of the thoughts that you capture will seem ridiculous and exaggerated once you write them down and read them aloud.

Simply observing them and labeling them—creating space and re-establishing yourself as the observer of these mental events—is often enough to diffuse them. It breaks the cycle. The thoughts were going to fade away anyways because they have no enduring substance, but this exercise can help speed up the process.

Thoughts are endless and self-reinforcing, and they only breed more thoughts.

— David R. Hawkins, MD