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You don't need to fight or fix your troublesome thoughts.

When you name your thoughts you create distance from them.

The more you create space between you and your thoughts, the less you feel a need to obey them.

"I'm having the thought that..." as I write this post, some readers may not appreciate it as much as I do. Those 5 words, I'm having the thought that may not sound like much. But they come from the principles of the well-respected, Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT), and they can fundamentally change your relationship with anxious thinking. And, by that I mean for the better—big time.

When a child says, "What if I fail my test tomorrow?" or a teen spirals into "What if they think I'm weird", or an adult lies awake obsessing about, "What if something goes wrong tomorrow?" the common thread is fusion. By that I mean that the thought does not feel like a thought. Rather, it feels like the truth.

Negative Thoughts Aren't The Problem—It's When You Get Hooked By Them

The problem is not having negative thoughts; it is that when you get hooked by them, you believe they are guilty verdicts about you or your situation. So, going back to my thought, "Some readers may not value this post as much as I do", I will tell myself that is just a thought I am having. That simple, powerful shift allows me to just notice that it is a thought. I'm not going to try to replace it with a more positive thought. Nope, I'm just going to use those 5 words—"I'm having the thought that.....", to allow me to put a small meaningful space between me and that mental noise.

So, how about you try it? Instead of saying, "What if I embarrass myself?" try saying: "I'm having the thought I might embarrass myself."

The Fancy Name For Those 5 Words Is Cognitive Defusion

In ACT, this process of stepping back from your thoughts is called cognitive defusion. It's the ability to create space from your thoughts rather than getting pulled inside them. This matters a lot because "what if" thinking can quietly paralyze people of all ages. I have seen young kids freeze before trying something new, teens avoid social situations, or adults delay decisions or overanalyze themselves into exhaustion.

Wouldn't it be much better for your emotional health not to feel so shackled to your negative thoughts? Those five words, "I'm having the thought that...." will set you free. These five words allow a child to take a test, a teen to walk down a crowded school hallway, or an adult to hit "send" when wanting to submite a resume.

Learning To Live With Challenging Thoughts Makes Them Less Loud

In my work with clients and in my book, Freeing Your Child From Overthinking, I highlight that we don't need to eliminate "what-if" thoughts to move forward. We just need to change how we relate to them. So, the next time your mind starts to spin, gently say to yourself, "I'm having the thought that...". You may find that the volume does not disappear, but it does become softer. And when you are less overwhelmed and attached to your problematic thoughts, you can step around them and no longer be stuck in your tracks.

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