Am I the only one with nasty intrusive thoughts??!

So I think it’ll be more about practicing the thoughts you do want until you do it without thinking. When those intrusive thoughts happen, practice a deep and then think of 3 or more kind thoughts. Make it so that the good out weight the bad.

I think we all get involuntary thoughts but the more you acknowledge them the worse it gets I think what Megan said is a brilliant idea

Yes, I have had unwanted negative thoughts based off of someone’s appearance. It seems to get worse if we feed it. Feeding it means expanding on the thought or putting yourself in a position that’s more likely to trigger more negative reactions such as exploring their page. The trick I use is to not engage in any way with the thought, and as soon as I feel the tendency to start to judge I try to place a positive thought there as soon as possible and then keep it moving. For example, if I feel a prejudice judgement coming up about how a gamer looks, I cut the feeling off right there, and say something else in my head instead like, “oh, she could be cool” or “she looks like my sister, we’d probably get along”, or “maybe she has an interesting perspective on life”. That way you plant, feed, and grow the type of thoughts you want to have, rather than trying to hack down all the negative ones.The only way to make a thought less is not focus on it until slowly that tendency withers and dies

Thanks for the advice and encouraging words ladies! Those are good ideas! I am somewhat comforted to know I’m not the only one, also. But what I’ve been doing is when I have a thought like that I say, “(my name) why would you think something like that? That’s an ugly thought, and you’re a nice person!” And I’ll go on to pray about it sometimes. But I’m gonna try replacing said negative thought with a positive one as well. That’s a great idea!

Book Recommendation: Don’t Believe Everything you Think by Joseph Nguyen

That’s a good plan. One more thing to consider is that even thinking negatively about the fact that you had the thought still feeds it. It puts attention on it, and positive or negative that’s all our neural network needs to keep a pathway open. If you can, don’t even judge the fact that the thought came, just keep brushing it off and feeding the good thought. That’s how you create new patterns in the brain.

@Philomena ok thank you! 🙏🏼

Yeah that happens to me sometimes. I actually saw a post about this phenomenon because apparently it’s really common, and the conclusion was that your initial thought reflects what you’ve been socially conditioned to think about people (a judgment) and your second thought (feeling badly about it) reflects your true self. So don’t feel bad because the real you disagrees with those thoughts!

I think it’s fine to think that way, just don’t say it. I’m very blunt and don’t have any tact so I normally ask myself how would I feel if this was said to me. Then I’d think about a better way to say stuffs. My sister once told me, don’t comment on something they can’t fix within a few minutes. So like weight, cosmetic surgery, hole in their shoe and so on. But if they have a bug on their clothes smudge on their face etc. I live by that now lol. Cause in my head I be thinking Friday movie dayummm lol