Interrupt Negative Thoughts – Dan Regan Hypnotherapy Vlog
This is the transcript page to my vlog about how to interrupt negative thoughts using the 3-2-1 technique (click on image to watch video):
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Interrupt Negative Thoughts
“Hello it’s Dan here. It’s Saturday evening. I’ve just finished my last client for the week. It’s been a great week, some great results and I just wanted to take a moment to share a technique with you today that’s all about interrupting negative, anxious thoughts. And it would work equally with stress, dread, fears, but particularly with anxiety because what happens is, if we start to feel anxious, we get all those kind of feelings which lead to all those thoughts, those ‘what ifs’ worse case scenarios and it can kind of snowball until we feel completely overwhelmed, like our minds full, like everything becomes, you know, sometimes you feel fear about, and dread about, we don’t want to do things, you know, we can feel very stuck in that kind of position of being overly anxious.
So we want to interrupt those thoughts by bringing our focus, our attention, right back to now so, rather than letting it go into all those ‘what ifs’, what if this goes wrong, what if I make an idiot of myself, a fool of myself, what if I feel anxious in front of people, or any of those other anxiety thoughts, we want to bring that focus right back to here and now where essentially none of that stuff in the future exists. It doesn’t exist right now, things from the past don’t exist, dreads, worries, regrets, all those things from the past, things from the future don’t exist, because right here and right now we can be completely free of them, interrupt that thinking pattern and allow our minds and bodies to just calm down, feel more centred and in many ways you can describe some mindfulness technique, or a thinking technique and here’s how we do it.
So it’s called the 3-2-1 technique and again, like I say, it’s all about bringing our focus, bringing our attention right back to now. If you’re as old as me, you might even remember 3-2-1 in the early 80s or something with Dusty Bin and Ted Rodgers and all that kind of stuff. If you are much younger than me you will have no clue what I’m talking about there but he did that thing with his fingers which until you start swearing at people inadvertently. 3-2-1 but he did it ten times as quick as that and without swearing which is always a bonus. We used to do that in the playground. That shows how old I am. But anyway, let’s not focus on the past, let’s bring our focus, bring our awareness right back to now where none of that exists. No more dusty bin.
Anyway, right back to now. 3-2-1- to interrupt unwanted thoughts. And the way we do that is this; you want to, as soon as you notice you’re going down that path of thinking those anxious thoughts, or even just practising it as a kind of mindfulness technique to get very good at it, as soon as you start going down that path of negative thoughts, you want to in your mind bring your attention to now by describing three specific things that you can see around you. And you can do it in your mind if you’re on your own, or you might do it out aloud, but in your mind describe to yourself three specific sights that are going on around you. Once you’ve done that you move onto three specific sounds you can hear right now, and having done that you move on to three specific external sensations you can feel right now. So things like you can feel; I can anyway, I can feel the chair on my back, I can feel my foot on the floor, those kind of things. So you do three different sights, three different sounds, three different external sensations. And then you move on to doing two different ones of each, so you would describe to yourself two different sounds, two different sights to start with, you can see, hear …. Two different sights you can see, two different sounds you can hear, and then two different external sensations. And then you repeat doing one different one of each. Then you can repeat that cycle again, because it gets harder and harder every round, because there are a lot of things to see. So that might be fairly straight forward but certainly, in terms of sounds at least, it becomes harder and harder once you’ve done the obvious ones. I can hear the ticking of my clock, the cars going past outside, I can hear my aircon in the background, I don’t know if you can, but certainly once I’ve done the obvious ones it gets much harder and I really have to be right here, right now, and focus on a lot more so it brings my awareness here. As I say it’s very mindfulness in that way and you can just keep repeating those cycles as many times as you want. Now if you’re in an environment where you have to be looking in some way, like driving for example, then you might just do the sounds. So you can do three different sounds, you can do two, one, you can do five, you can just do six.
You can vary it in any way you like in that kind of regard but certainly the 3-2-1 technique works really well and, if you are on your own, or last thing at night, or if you’re in a kind of safe place where you can do so, having done the external stuff, you can even move on to your imagination. One of closing your eyes perhaps and what are three positive sights you can imagine seeing, what are three good sounds you can hear, what are three sensations that make you feel good, and then do it in that way. So as well as being able to interrupt negative thoughts, bring them back to now, you can also nudge it forward in a positive way if you wanted to. A lot of people do that in terms of getting to sleep so you see what’s outside you, you’ve interrupted all that stuff, you’re here, you’re now and then you can move it on in that way. But certainly if you want to interrupt unwanted thoughts, it really is a great technique once you get into it. Three things you can see, three sounds you can hear, three external sensations, two different of each, one different of each and you can repeat as many times as you want to break that kind of thinking pattern, that anxiety pattern that otherwise can free flow. Bring your awareness, bring your focus right back to here, to now and I think you will get the benefit of doing that. I would love to know how you get on with this technique.
Please do comment, like, message me, I just want to know. Tell me how you get on with this. Always great to hear from you and I will let you get on with the rest of your weekend. I’m looking forward to mine, I think we’re going to look at rabbits tomorrow or something like we do in the Regan household. Get another rabbit. But whatever you’re doing, have a great day and I will speak to you soon. Take care.”
Dan Regan
19 February 2018
Hypnotherapy in Ely & Newmarket
https://www.danreganhypnotherapy.co.uk/
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