Positive-Thought-Redirection is a great way of dealing with intrusive, negative thoughts. As negative thoughts pop up during your daily life, you issue a "stop" command which acts to stop the negative thought in its tracks. Once the unnecessary, negative or burdensome thought is stopped, you then redirect your mind to a more positive thought about the situation you are confronting.
The process of redirecting your thoughts is an important component of successfully using this process. However, especially at the spur of the moment and under pressure from the potential anxiety you are facing, it is hard to redirect your thoughts to a more positive framework because you can´t think of anything positive.
Beginners to exposure therapy and Positive-Thought-Redirection need to prepare a list of the most common anxious thoughts or images that pop into your mind. You then need to put a positive spin on these thoughts and redirect your thinking away from the anxious ideas.
If you prepare ahead of time you´ll have a cheat sheet to help you when confronted with unwanted, anxious thoughts and the need to perform compulsions. For example:
1. Instead of "oh my god, I hit someone with my car", tell yourself "if I had hit someone I would have felt something and since I didn´t, everything is okay".
2. Instead of "this meat has a small discolored spot, it must be poison", tell yourself "the meat was freshly purchased at the supermarket and is not over its expiration date, everything is fine".
3. Instead of "I can´t touch the counter until it has been scrubbed clean again" tell yourself, "I cleaned the counter this morning, it is germ free and fine for me to touch this afternoon".
4. Instead of "the doors to the house are unlocked and someone is going to break in and rob us and kill my family", tell yourself "I checked the doors and windows and the security system is on, everyone is safe and I am safe and my neighborhood is safe, everyone will still be fine in the morning".
As you begin to redirect your thoughts away from dwelling on the negative, you will find more and more positive reassurances to help sooth your mind. This isn´t a quick fix or a one-time fix; you have to constantly work on redirecting your mind to focusing on what you have done to prevent your worst fears from coming true.
As you retrain your mind, you will realize that in fact, your worst fears aren´t coming true and not performing the compulsions has not brought harm, death or destruction to anyone or anything.
Now that you are armed with positive thoughts to redirect your mind to, the key is stopping the thought once it pops up in your mind. You don´t need to stop the thought from ever entering your mind; you just need to avoid having it take over your mind and drive you towards performing your ritualistic compulsions.
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