Can some/most people really control their thoughts all the time?

When I wanted to get my mind off something, I play a video game. I recommend a Zelda game, or any of that type. Zelda requires a lot of your attention, to remember map layouts, item locations, boss techniques. Your brain is so occupied with the game, there is no room to think of anything else. Which is why little kids can’t hear their mothers calling them for dinner, when they are in the middle of a mission. And what’s best about Zelda (& like games) when you stop playing, you are constantly thinking about what to do next. Maybe a puzzle has got you tripped up & couldn’t do it the first time. All day, you will be thinking about that puzzle. Maybe a character asked you for something & you have no clue what he is talking about, or where it’s located. All day you will be back tracking your steps in the game, figuring out where/what that item is. I suppose the downside, is that you get addicted to gaming, better than drugs I suppose. Hope this helped.

Thought happens, Period.

You can work on meditation, focusing on your breath ( meditative breathing ), lsitening to soothing music, getting in touch with your bdy via focusing on the sensations of pure alivness within,

You are not ready to let go of your suffering, when you have had enough the shift will happen effortlessy. Untill then, all you can do is accpet and be kind to yourself.

@rpmpseudonym: I’m not really talking about distracting yourself.

Okay, best example.. when I am trying to sleep, my brain conjures up The Horrible Thing and I say to myself, “Stop that, think of something else.” And that just makes me think of The Horrible Thing more. I want to know if people can turn off a thought that is unpleasant at will, like changing a TV channel or radio station. Click, it’s gone.

I know it’s a weird question, but with the way people so concretely tell me to “just stop thinking about it”, I wonder if, unlike me, people actually have control over their thoughts… whereas it seems to me like I rarely ever do.

Am I making sense?

I think that most of the time people just learn that The Horrible Thing is not really that horrible in the grand scheme of things. Really horrible, life changing things will keep thinking about them for a while. Some things just aren’t worth stressing out over though.

I remember getting really upset in high school about my friends starting to drink and smoke pot. Then I realized that it didn’t actually matter in the long run at all, and stopped worrying about it.

If it’s something that you’ll still be emotionally devastated about in a year or more, you might want to see a therapist to talk about it.

If it’s not something that will matter in a year, then it probably doesn’t matter in the long run. If you can accept things that don’t actually matter for what they are then you’ll have an easier time thinking about something else.

It is all relative though, I suppose. I don’t think anyone can shut off thoughts about something that’s upsetting them easily though. The trick is just not to let anything upset you unless someone’s life is at stake or something like that.

@Fieryspoon: It’s one of those Grand Scheme things, unfortunately… and I am in therapy because of it.

Controlling one’s own thoughts is an acquired habit that comes only with practice, for most of us. If you have tried everything you can think of to stop this “bad thought,” and nothing has worked, then seeking therepy might help ( as I see you have already done ). Stick with it and work through whatever is causing this. Good luck, and do NOT give up!

Hi there Poofandmook! I am sorry you are having a hard time of it.
I have found that acceptance and forgiveness have helped me move through some extremely big and terrible problems.I can change my thinking but has only been thru some techniques i learned in a 12 step program.They involved taking responsibility for my actions and finding forgiveness for the actions of others.
At night when we are quiet is often the only time we stop long enough to examine our thoughts. If we took the time through meditation and awareness through out the day I belief things would be much quieter in our heads.
A friend of mine does use an interesting technique to help her go to sleep, that I will share: Start with the letter A and name every animal you can think of that starts with an A then move on to the letter B Example: Aardvark, alpaca, alligator, you get the idea. I have done it a few nights just for fun (it usually fall right ti sleep so I had to quite because i wanted to keep thinking of animals) At least it might help you distract you brain til you do fall to sleep.
I wish you the best of luck and I hope that you find peace.

@poofandmook I have to say that controlling one’s thought patterns, in general, is extremely difficult. I can be done, but most of the time it’s through people learning to understand how their mind functions and sort of tricking it into doing what you want. Like playing the Zelda game to distract you, or I listen to music to focus my mind on a task, by distracting the rest of it. But it’s hard, and tends to require quite a bit of self knowledge to know what to do in a given situation.

So no, just saying “don’t think about it” won’t usually help, it requires a lot more.

Now, the real way to control and understand thoughts is through understanding the causes for the thoughts, which is where therapy comes in. It will help you to understand why this thought appears, and how to deal with it, which will allow you to cut it out at the root. Thoughts never appear independently, and so to really remove a thought requires understanding it’s place in your mind and dealing with it in it’s entirety.

So, I guess what I have to say is good luck with therapy.

[Edit] Also, if you can spare the time and possible pain, some really good self evaluation can also help, just going thorough your mind and trying to understand it as much as possible. But, depending on what you’re facing, this can be very hard. So if that doesn’t seem like a good idea, stick with the therapy.

It takes a lot of practice, but it is possible. The best way to deal with your problem is to move on with life as best you can, seek support from your friends and family, and find a way to come to peace with whatever is troubling you. That said, it is possible to mould the mind to think in certain ways. Before you do though, you want to be absolutely certain that you want to think in that way, and know why you do. Be very careful if this is the path you choose.

I don’t think most people have much control of their thoughts. (I’m not even certain that most people have what I would call thoughts.) But it’s certain that being told not to dwell on yours, while good advice, won’t help. You need something else to think about: a real-world puzzle to solve, some intensely absorbing work, or, maybe most promising of all, somebody to think about besides yourself.

However, if you really can’t stop obsessing over something and you are working with a therapist, you might ask the therapist to try the EMDR technique, which can really help some people. It doesn’t make you stop thinking about something, but it can reduce the distress associated with the thoughts.

I have never been able to control mine. I’ve just learned from experience that things always work out in the end so I just don;t worry so much. No matter what happens, I will cope somehow.

I was actually beginning to think that “normal” people could just say “I’m not going to think about that” and change thoughts like a TV channel. I’ve known for most of my life that I couldn’t do it, but every time something goes wrong, the first thing people say is “don’t think about it.” It always irked me when people said that, like it’s so simple, so I just figured maybe, for “normal” people, it WAS that simple. Now that advice is going to irk me even more.

If it were that normal and easy, @poofandmook, people who are learning to meditate would not have to work so hard and practice so diligently to tame the undisciplined chatter of “monkey mind.” It is a long-established cliche that if we’re told “don’t think of a pink elephant,” we can’t think of anything but. Scarlett O’Hara’s single-minded determination (“I can’t think about that right now. If I do, I’ll go crazy. I’ll think about that tomorrow.”) impresses us because most of us can’t do that. It’s the kind of thing you expect of Olympic athletes, world-class artists, ambition-driven politicians, and the like, and not us ordinary folks whose minds run like two-year-olds on the hoof.

No.

Maybe you can try “replacing“your thoughts. Try to get your-self involved in activities that highly interest you and require your full attention and enthusiasm. (like a career choice or something) Something you feel you are driven to do. Then as you would want to do better in this activity the more your thoughts about it would want to dominate.

Try playing and watching sports that you look. Playing sports gets you highly involved in the games.

If you have good friends, socialize often and have humorous conversations.etc

Everyday at work other activites, talk to the people around you and learn about their day,, lives instead of sinking into your own mind and letting those thoughts surface.- Try and give yourself less “idle” time and always be busy.-read some books.

Make some changes in your routine, wake up early, eat healthy, change your enoviroment a bit. Like the smell in you home, the color of your curtains, perhaps some new furniture give yourself a new setting,