The Movie That Screwed Me Up As A Kid
And The Lesson I Learned About Overcoming Negative Thoughts And Behaviors
Takeaway: You don’t do less of something by doing less of it. You do less of something by doing more of something else. Also, don’t let your eight-year-old watch scary movies.
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The Movie That Screwed Me Up As A Kid, And The Lessons I Learned About Overcoming Negative Thoughts And Behaviors
When I was 8 years old, I saw the infamous shower scene from the movie, Psycho.
To this day, it is the only horror-movie scene to mess with my head afterward. It terrified me.
I had trouble sleeping for weeks. I was constantly anxious that some monster or person was going to jump out of my closet with a giant knife. I'd lay awake keeping a close eye on my closet and my door.
I couldn't even shower without checking the other side of the curtain every 30-seconds. (My mom would get particularly annoyed that I would do this, because of the resulting puddle of water outside the tub.)
I was young, and I knew the movie wasn't real. I knew the fear was in my head. I would try to avoid thinking about it to help me sleep.
It would work for a little while, but then I would notice my mind started to drift back to the scary thoughts. Every time I tried to gather myself and course-correct, eventually my mind would drift back to the thoughts that kept me awake.
This is how thoughts work.
You can't avoid negative thoughts by actively trying not to think about something. When you do, your brain makes note of the thing(s) you're avoiding and begins to scan the environment for anything that resembles it.
When I give seminars about this I love demonstrating the point to my audience. I ask them to try and avoid thinking about a polar bear. If the thought of a polar bear comes into their mind, they raise their hand.
For a few seconds I leave the powerpoint on a generic slide from the presentation.
Then, I swap the slide for a picture of a wintery scene: snow-capped trees and a nature trail with human footprints in the snow. Nothing about a polar bear.
Most people can avoid the thought of a polar bear with the generic slide in front of them, but as soon as I swap to the winter scene hands shoot up into the air. Pretty much everyone in the room, like clockwork.
There is no polar bear in the picture.
Actually, there aren't any signs of animals of any kind.
But when we're avoiding a specific thought, our brain makes note of anything that resembles that which we're avoiding. In the case of the polar bear, this also includes: snow, winter, footprints, nature, cold, ice, and other elements that we associate with polar bears.
Your brain, in an effort to help you avoid polar bears, sounds off the alarms when it notices any of these characteristics in your environment. The sight of snow makes you think of a polar bear.
This is what happened when I tried to avoid thinking about the scary thoughts that kept me awake as a kid.
I would actively try to avoid these thoughts, and so the mere sight of my dark closet, or unusual sounds, pushed me right back where I didn't want to be.
This doesn’t just apply to monsters in the closet. It’s also true of any negative thoughts or bad habits we want to eliminate.
If I want to stop eating junk food, the plan to avoid junk food usually makes me want it even more. I begin to think about it more, I almost long for the sugary, fatty goodness.
The best way to stop bad habits and negative thinking is not to simply “stop.” At least, not in the traditional sense.
Somehow as an eight-year-old I intuitively started to realize this. (Kudos to eight-year-old me.) Instead of not thinking about monsters, I would actively think of positive things—like my favorite cartoon at the time, Pokemon, or things I looked forward to at school the next day.
By actively thinking about something positive, I could distract myself from the negative thoughts.
Therein lies the real solution: addition not subtraction.
I couldn’t stop the negative thoughts by getting rid of them (subtraction), I had to stop the negative thoughts by overriding them with positive ones (addition).
By focusing on positive thoughts, I was wiring my brain to look for those positive cues. Over time, the elements that would normally trigger bad thoughts began to fade away. No more red flags. No more scary thoughts.
Ahhh, sleep never felt so good after that.
This is the same process to change your bad habits too.
If you want to stop eating junk food, don’t try to outright eliminate those behaviors. (Subtraction.) Instead, focus on doing more of the good behaviors you want to start doing. (Addition.) Eat more fruits and vegetables, drink more water, cook more food from scratch. Whatever it is, by doing more of it you’ll begin to override the trigger that leads to junk food.
You’ll begin to eat less of it without relying on willpower.
It’s counterintuitive. You don’t do less of something by doing less of it. You do less of something by doing more of something else.
If you’re trying to battle negative thoughts or bad habits, look for ways to add more positive thoughts and behaviors into your day. Keeping a journal, getting regular exercise, and even just engaging in an activity that brings you joy are all great ways to add a little something good into your life.
Work to add enough good until there’s no more room left for the bad.
~ Coach Alex