Stop Fighting Unwanted Thoughts | Psychology Today
The harder you fight your unwanted thoughts, the louder they get. Neuroscience shows us alternatives. Let your body do what it knows how to do – heal. Journalist Benoit Denizet-Lewis1 recently ended a New York Times essay on self-transformation with a cartoon: a butterfly peering down at a caterpillar, dispensing advice with the easy authority of someone who has only recently sprouted wings. “The thing is,” the butterfly says, “you have to really want to change.” The joke, as Denizet-Lewis points out, is obvious. The caterpillar’s transformation has nothing to do with wanting. It becomes what it becomes. Another way to put it is that your body knows how to heal if you can learn to get out of the way. After more than three decades as a spine surgeon, I have watched this same paradox destroy people’s chances of getting better. Not because they didn’t try hard enough — but because they tried too hard, in exactly the wrong direction. The Invisible Trap Most people I see with chronic mental and physical pain are …
