If Your Thoughts Scare You, Listen to This | Ep. 524

In this episode, I’m sharing six powerful skills to help you respond differently to scary intrusive thoughts, stop getting caught in the cycle of overthinking, and build a kinder, more accepting relationship with your mind.

In this episode, you’ll learn:

• Why trying to get rid of intrusive thoughts can actually make them feel more powerful.
• How to stop assigning meaning to every scary or unwanted thought your brain produces.
• My “Four Corners” technique for creating a safe, compassionate space for uncomfortable thoughts and feelings.
• How to recognize rumination, avoidance, and other behaviors that keep you stuck in the anxiety cycle.
• Why continuing to live your life, even when intrusive thoughts are present, is such an important part of recovery.
• How to practice these skills without turning them into another set of rules you feel pressured to follow perfectly.

How to Deal With Scary Intrusive Thoughts: 6 Skills That Can Help

Have you ever been going about your day, minding your own business, when suddenly a terrifying thought pops into your head?

Maybe it’s something completely out of character. Maybe it’s something that goes against everything you believe in. Or maybe it’s a thought so disturbing that you immediately start questioning what it means about you.

And just like that, your perfectly ordinary Tuesday has turned into a spiral of anxiety, fear, guilt, and uncertainty.

If you’ve experienced this, I want you to know something important: Having an intrusive thought does not make it true, and it does not mean you need to do anything about it.

I’m Kimberley Quinlan, an anxiety and OCD specialist, and today I want to share six important skills that can help you respond differently to scary intrusive thoughts.

Because here’s what I’ve learned after working with hundreds of people struggling with OCD and anxiety, teaching thousands of students, and navigating my own experiences with intrusive thoughts:

The goal isn’t to make the thoughts disappear. The goal is to create a safe, compassionate place within yourself where any thought can exist.

And that changes everything.

First, Let’s Talk About What Intrusive Thoughts Really Are

Intrusive thoughts are unwanted, repetitive, and often distressing thoughts that seem to appear out of nowhere.

They might involve things that feel frightening, inappropriate, embarrassing, or completely inconsistent with your values.

And here’s something I really want you to understand:

Every human being has intrusive thoughts. Every single one of us.

The difference is that some people experience these thoughts and move on, while others become caught in a cycle of anxiety, panic, shame, and an overwhelming need to figure out what the thoughts mean.

You might find yourself asking:

• Why would I think something like that?
• Does this mean something terrible about me?
• What if I actually want to do that?
• How can I make sure I never have this thought again?
• What if I can’t trust myself?

And before you know it, you’re spending hours trying to solve something that never needed solving in the first place.

This is where our work begins.

The Biggest Mistake We Make With Intrusive Thoughts

When a scary thought shows up, our instinct is often to get rid of it.

We think that if we can just eliminate the thought, understand it, or prevent it from ever returning, we’ll finally feel safe.

But I want to offer you a completely different perspective.

Safety doesn’t come from getting rid of intrusive thoughts. Safety comes from learning that you can have any thought and still be okay.

Instead of trying to control everything your brain produces, we want to practice creating an environment of radical acceptance.

A place where thoughts can come and go.

A place where discomfort can rise and fall.

A place where you don’t abandon yourself, criticize yourself, or punish yourself for what your brain happens to produce.

This doesn’t mean you have to like your thoughts. It doesn’t mean you agree with them.

It simply means you’re no longer going to fight every thought that makes you uncomfortable.

And with that foundation in place, let’s talk about six skills you can start practicing.

1. Remember That Thoughts Are Not Facts

This is one of the most important things I teach people struggling with intrusive thoughts.

Just because your brain produces a thought doesn’t mean it’s true, important, or worthy of your attention.

Our brains generate all kinds of thoughts throughout the day.

Some are helpful. Some are funny. Some are completely random. And some are downright bizarre.

But we don’t need to assign special importance to the ones that scare us.

When an intrusive thought appears, try gently reminding yourself:

This is a thought. I don’t have to treat it like a fact.

Notice that we’re not trying to prove the thought wrong.

We’re not arguing with it.

We’re simply recognizing it for what it is: a thought.

And then we’re allowing it to exist without turning it into an emergency.

A Small Shift That Makes a Big Difference

Instead of asking, “How do I get rid of this thought?”

Try asking, “Can I allow this thought to be here without needing to respond to it?”

That shift moves us away from controlling our thoughts and toward changing our relationship with them.

2. Stop Trying to Figure Out What Every Thought Means

Oh, my friends. This one is so important.

If you’re someone who struggles with intrusive thoughts, there’s a good chance your brain loves to analyze them.

And I get it because my brain does this, too.

Recently, I went to a concert with my husband.

He was sitting there enjoying the music, listening to the banjo and watching this incredible female drummer.

Meanwhile, my brain was going in about a hundred different directions.

I was wondering about the musicians’ relationships, their personal lives, what they were wearing, and all kinds of random things that had absolutely nothing to do with the concert.

And I could have made those thoughts mean something.

I could have started questioning my marriage, my attractions, my character, or why my brain was thinking about such strange things.

But instead, I recognized something I’ve spent years practicing:

I don’t have to make meaning out of every thought my brain produces.

My husband and I actually laughed about how quirky my brain can be.

And that’s what I want for you, too.

Not necessarily to laugh at every scary thought, because I know some of them feel incredibly distressing, but to stop treating every thought as a clue that needs to be investigated.

Practice Letting Thoughts Be Meaningless

When your brain starts asking, “But what does this mean about me?” you can practice responding with something like:

Maybe it means something. Maybe it doesn’t. I don’t need to figure that out right now.

You don’t need to analyze the thought, search for certainty, or investigate your character.

You can let your brain be quirky, unpredictable, and sometimes downright strange.

Because that’s what human brains do.

3. Create Safety Within Your Four Corners

Now we’re getting to one of my favorite skills.

I call this practice the Four Corners.

Imagine the space within your body from shoulder to shoulder and hip to hip.

That’s your four corners.

And within those four corners, I want you to practice making room for whatever discomfort shows up.

Maybe it’s anxiety.

Maybe it’s shame.

Maybe it’s uncertainty, dread, guilt, or a physical sensation that feels unbearable.

Instead of contracting around that discomfort or trying to push it away, we’re going to practice welcoming it with kindness.

You might gently say to yourself:

You are safe here.

I’m going to allow you to be here.

I’m not going to abandon myself because this feels uncomfortable.

I can make room for this feeling.

And here’s the beautiful part.

You don’t have to do this perfectly.

Every time you practice allowing discomfort, you’re building your capacity to experience difficult emotions without immediately trying to escape them.

Why Allowing Discomfort Can Change Your Life

I want you to really hear this:

The more you practice being a kind, loving friend to your discomfort, the less frightening your internal experiences can become.

When we’re constantly fighting our thoughts and feelings, our world can start to feel smaller.

We avoid things. We withdraw. We try to control every situation.

But when we practice allowing discomfort to rise and fall naturally, we begin to learn that we don’t have to organize our entire lives around avoiding anxiety.

And that creates more freedom.

Not because the thoughts have disappeared, but because we’re no longer treating them as something we must escape.

4. Get Curious About How You Respond to Intrusive Thoughts

Here’s where things get really interesting.

When a scary thought shows up, your brain is probably going to have some pretty strong opinions about what you should do next.

It might tell you to run away.

It might tell you to figure everything out.

It might tell you to check something, ask for reassurance, or mentally replay an event until you’re absolutely certain.

And sometimes your response might be so automatic that you don’t even realize you’re doing it.

That’s why this next skill is all about awareness.

What Does Your Anxiety Response Look Like?

Everyone responds differently to intrusive thoughts.

Some people become angry or frustrated.

Others isolate themselves because they feel ashamed or afraid.

Some people continue going about their day, smiling and appearing completely fine, while internally spending hours ruminating.

Others engage in physical compulsions, checking behaviors, or repeated attempts to neutralize their thoughts.

There’s no need to judge yourself for these responses.

But we do want to get curious about them.

The next time you notice yourself engaging in a behavior to escape an intrusive thought, gently ask:

What am I unwilling to feel right now?

Is it uncertainty?

Is it shame?

Is it fear?

Is it an uncomfortable physical sensation?

What feeling am I trying so desperately to avoid?

This question can help you recognize the connection between your discomfort and the behaviors that keep the cycle going.

When Rumination Becomes the Problem

For many people, rumination is one of the biggest challenges.

Rumination is when we repeatedly analyze, review, or mentally investigate something in an attempt to find certainty or relief.

It might sound like:

• What if that thought means something?
• Why did I think that?
• What if I missed something important?
• How can I be absolutely sure?
• What if I never stop thinking about this?

And the tricky part is that rumination often feels productive.

It feels like you’re solving a problem.

But frequently, you’re just getting pulled deeper into the cycle.

One of the most valuable skills you can develop is learning to catch yourself when you’re ruminating and choose a different response.

If this is something you struggle with, I’ve created a course called Rumination Reset to help you recognize rumination and learn how to respond differently.

You can learn more at cbtschool.com/reset.

Remember, awareness isn’t about criticizing yourself for getting caught in the cycle.

It’s about noticing what’s happening and gently practicing a new response.

5. Keep Living Your Life, Even When the Thoughts Are There

If I could encourage you to practice one thing consistently, it would be this:

Don’t put your life on hold because your brain gave you a thought you didn’t like.

Let’s say you’re getting ready to meet a friend, and suddenly a terrifying intrusive thought appears.

Your anxiety spikes.

You feel uncomfortable.

And your brain tells you that you need to stay home until you figure everything out.

What if, instead, you allowed the thought to be there and went to meet your friend anyway?

Not because you feel completely calm.

Not because you’ve figured out what the thought means.

But because spending time with your friend matters to you.

This is how we begin to build a life that isn’t controlled by intrusive thoughts.

Ask Yourself: What Would I Be Doing If I Weren’t Organizing My Life Around Anxiety?

If intrusive thoughts are happening frequently, I want you to think about the life you want to live.

Would you be exercising?

Spending time with friends?

Getting out of bed and enjoying breakfast?

Listening to music?

Trying a new hobby?

Making plans for your future?

Whatever those things are, I want you to start incorporating them into your day.

Even if the intrusive thoughts come along for the ride.

Let Me Give You a Personal Example

I’m currently training for a marathon.

And while I’m running, my brain regularly tells me that what I’m doing is ridiculous and that I should stop.

And you know what?

I keep running.

I don’t need to convince my brain that running is a wonderful idea.

I don’t need to eliminate every uncomfortable thought.

I’ve decided that running is something I want to do, so I keep going.

Now, I know what you might be thinking.

“Kimberley, that’s different. My thoughts are really scary. They’re about terrible things happening or doing something awful.”

I hear you.

And the same principle applies to unwanted intrusive thoughts, even when their content feels frightening or taboo.

We want to practice allowing the thoughts to exist without automatically changing our behavior to escape them.

Your life gets to be bigger than your intrusive thoughts.

You don’t have to wait until your brain feels quiet to start living it.

6. Don’t Turn These Skills Into Another Compulsion

Okay, I promised you a sixth skill, and this one is incredibly important.

Sometimes, when we learn helpful strategies for managing OCD and anxiety, our brains try to turn those strategies into rigid rules.

Suddenly, instead of practicing acceptance, you might start thinking:

• I have to accept every thought perfectly.
• I must always allow every uncomfortable feeling.
• What if I’m doing this wrong?
• Did I respond correctly?
• Am I being compassionate enough?
• What if I accidentally avoided a feeling?

And just like that, something that was meant to help you becomes another thing you’re trying to get exactly right.

I want you to watch out for this.

Recovery skills are not meant to become another set of rules you have to follow perfectly.

They’re tools.

They’re practices.

And sometimes you’re going to forget to use them.

Sometimes you’re going to get caught in rumination.

Sometimes you’re going to respond to an intrusive thought in a way that isn’t particularly helpful.

That’s okay.

You can notice what happened, offer yourself some compassion, and practice again.

We are not aiming for perfect acceptance.

We’re practicing a kinder, more flexible relationship with our thoughts and feelings.

And that takes time.

A Simple Practice for the Next Time an Intrusive Thought Shows Up

Let’s bring all six skills together.

The next time your brain throws a scary intrusive thought your way, try moving through these steps:

Step 1: Recognize the thought.

Remind yourself that having a thought doesn’t make it a fact.

Step 2: Resist the urge to analyze it.

You don’t need to determine what it means or why it appeared.

Step 3: Make room for the discomfort.

Bring your attention to your four corners and gently allow whatever feelings are present.

Step 4: Notice your urge to respond.

Are you about to ruminate, check, avoid, seek reassurance, or engage in another compulsion? Get curious about what feeling you’re trying to escape.

Step 5: Return to your life.

Continue doing what matters to you, even if the thought or discomfort is still there.

Step 6: Give yourself permission to be imperfect.

You don’t have to do any of this exactly right.

And remember, each time you practice, it’s just one repetition.

One opportunity to build a different relationship with your thoughts.

You don’t have to master it today.

The Goal Isn’t a Quiet Mind. It’s a Life You’re Free to Live.

I want to leave you with something that I hope you’ll carry with you.

You don’t have to earn safety by controlling every thought your brain produces.

You don’t have to solve every uncertainty.

And you don’t have to punish yourself for having a thought that scares you.

Instead, I want you to practice creating a kind, compassionate place within yourself where thoughts and feelings can come and go.

A place where you can experience discomfort without abandoning yourself.

A place where your brain can be messy, unpredictable, and wonderfully human.

And most importantly, a place where you can continue building a meaningful life, even when anxiety shows up.

I know this work can be incredibly hard.

I know there are days when it feels exhausting.

But I also want you to recognize how much courage it takes to practice responding differently.

Every little repetition matters.

Every moment of kindness matters.

And every time you choose to return to your life instead of getting caught in the struggle with your thoughts, you’re practicing something important.

I’m so proud of you for doing this work.

And as always, it’s a beautiful day to do hard things.

I’m sending you so much love.

Want More Help With Rumination and Overthinking?

If you find yourself constantly analyzing intrusive thoughts, replaying situations, or trying to figure out what everything means, my Rumination Reset course can help you learn to recognize those patterns and practice responding differently.

Learn more about Rumination Reset here.

Please note: This article and the resources at CBT School are educational and are not a replacement for professional mental healthcare. If you feel you would benefit from additional support, please reach out to a qualified mental health professional in your area.

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Transcription: If Your Thoughts Scare You, Listen to This

You’re going through your day and out of nowhere you have a thought that completely ruins your Tuesday, and I get it. I’ve had these before. They are terrifying. They usually go against what you value. They’re very, very scary. They create a large degree of uncertainty and urgency, and you just feel like you have to solve it, you have to make it go away, you have to figure out what it means, and probably you’re feeling a lot of shame and guilt for these thoughts.

 

Now, this is very common. This is the nature of intrusive thoughts. They are unwanted, repetitive, and distressing, and I here today want to teach you exactly what to do when you have those intrusive, scary thoughts, because how you respond really does matter. My name is Kimberly Quinlan. I’m an anxiety and OCD specialist, and I am on a mission to help 10 million people suffer less from anxiety.

 

It’s a pretty crazy goal, I know, but I’m pretty sure I can get there. It might take me decades, but that’s totally okay. I feel like it is so in line with our goal because way too many people are suffering with anxiety and they need more help.

 

Now, before we get started, I want you to understand that every single human has intrusive thoughts. There is no human that doesn’t. It is the nature of being a human being. But there are some of us that when we do have those intrusive thoughts, they get coupled with a large degree of anxiety, panic, dread, uncertainty.

 

It can be pretty distressing. And in those situations, how you respond matters. And here is the first main thing I want to share with you today. This is the biggest takeaway. When you have that intrusive thought, you think the solution is to get that thought to go away, or to solve that thought, or to make sure you never have it again.

 

You think that safety comes when we can remove that thought from your life. But I actually don’t believe that. What I have found to be true after treating hundreds and hundreds of people with OCD and anxiety and having thousands and thousands of students, and also someone who’s been through this myself, is I have found that the safety isn’t in getting the thoughts to go away.

 

The safety comes when we create a place in our body where it is safe to have any thought at all. There is no thought that we’re not willing to have. There is no feeling we’re not willing to have. There is no discomfort that we are not gonna create a kind, gentle place, an environment for it to rise and fall on its own.

 

And so the main message before we get into the nitty-gritty details and the skills that I want you to practice, I really want to make sure you understand, you, we want… We can’t move on until we get this, that you understand that safety isn’t getting rid of these thoughts. Safety is making sure that you have created the kindest, most radically accepting place for literally any thought.

 

Any thought. You have to make a deal that you are going to allow any thought to show up, that your brain can give you… Come on, brain, give me your best bet. That’s fine. That there is no thought or feeling that we are not willing to have, and we will not abandon ourselves. We will not beat ourselves up. We will not be unkind when those thoughts show up.

 

And that is the core principle that I am wanting to teach the world today. Now, there are other specific skills we’re going to use while we practice that, and so let’s get into those. So there are five things I want you to remember, but actually there’s six things, and I’m gonna g- tell you the sixth one, of course, at the end, but it’s very, very important.

 

Number one is, if you’re someone who has scary, intrusive thoughts, the first thing I need you to remember is thoughts are thoughts. They’re not facts. We don’t need to treat every single thought like it’s oh so important. Again, we are creating a place from our shoulders to shoulders, to our hips to our hips, we are creating a place where we are saying there is no thought I’m not willing to have, and we’re not going to judge some thoughts as good and some thoughts as bad.

 

All thoughts are welcome here. The second thing you then have to practice is not giving meaning to the thoughts you have. So if you’re listening to this, my guess is you’re someone who has some pretty gnarly, interesting thoughts. Am I right? I get it. I have these, too. My thoughts are odd. I just went to a concert.

 

I have to tell you this funny story. I went to a concert with my husband. He’s just sitting there enjoying the concert, and the banjo’s playing, and there’s this amazing female drummer. I literally wanted to be her when I grow up. Um, and everyone’s just enjoying them, but yet my brain is going crazy. It’s like, “I wonder who he’s married to.

 

I wonder if he cheats on his wife.” My brain’s, like, going to the weirdest places. Like, “I wonder what color boxer shorts he’s wearing. Wow, she’s really beautiful. I wonder if she works out.” Even having some pretty weird, odd thoughts about people that left me thinking like, “Who am I?” Like, what is my problem?

 

Why can’t I just go to a concert and enjoy myself? Why does my brain have to pick apart all these things and ask all these questions, wanting certainty, wanting certainty? That is the nature of my brain. My job and your job is to not make meaning of that, is to not go into what does that mean, and am I a mad person?

 

Am I odd? Do I love my husband? Am I wanting to cheat on him? Why was I thinking about that girl? Does that mean I’m attracted to that girl? Like, you can see that my brain could have gone to the weirdest place, but I have practiced that thoughts are not facts, and that just because I have some thought doesn’t mean I need to figure out what they mean.

 

In fact, I have learnt to just acknowledge and accept the quirkiness of my brain. My husband and I were laughing about it, and I want you to laugh about your thoughts, too. He was like, “That is so weird. You seriously were thinking about whether the main singer was cheating on his wife? You were thinking about what colored boxer shorts?

 

Like, that’s odd.” But for us, we were laughing. We weren’t judging me negatively. We were just laughing at the fact that my brain is bonkers sometimes, and my guess is sometimes yours is, too Now, once you’ve done that, we’re going to go back to that main point that I taught you at the beginning, which is you need to build safety in your body to allow for any discomfort to rise and fall.

 

I call it the four corners. It’s shoulder to shoulder, hip to hip, and any discomfort that shows up in that area, we are going to gently nod our head to, we’re going to smile, and we’re gonna say, “You are safe here. I will allow this gently. I will not abandon you. I will not beat you up. I’m going to practice this as being one rep of the millions of reps I’m going to have in my lifetime of allowing discomfort.”

 

The more you can practice being a kind, loving friend to your discomfort, the less scary the world is I’m gonna say that again, ’cause I really want you to hear it. The more you can allow discomfort to show up kindly, it… That’s not gonna make your world and s- life scarier. It’s going to make your world and life safer, and kinder, and gentler, and less chaotic, because you have practiced allowing these thoughts instead of constantly responding in contraction in ways that only make that symptom and that struggle worse.

 

Now, don’t get me wrong. We’re gonna do number four now, which is sometimes your brain is going to have other plans. It’s going to want to contract, and run away, and solve, and fight it, and all the things. Freeze. They are normal human responses. We don’t wanna beat yourself up for that, but we do wanna practice being aware of how our personal body responds, and we’re all different.

 

Some people, when they have these intrusive thoughts, they get really angry. Others, they isolate. They don’t wanna be around anybody. They just want to hide for the rest of their life. For others, they might spend the whole day looking fine. They’ve got a smile on their face, but they’re ruminating, ruminating, ruminating.

 

And if you’re someone who struggles with that, I’m gonna strongly encourage you to head over to CBT School. We have a course that will specifically help you with this one thing, and that is learning how to catch yourself when you’re ruminating. And that catching, learning how to catch it and then respond differently, is going to be key for your long-term recovery.

 

Hey, I’m even gonna go out on a limb here and say it’s just key for being a human. Having these skills have made me a better human, a safer human to be in my body, and a happier human, a much more joyful human. So head over to cbtschool.com/reset if you’re wanting to learn more about the rumination reset.

 

However, if you’re someone who doesn’t ruminate, and you’re more someone who does physical compulsions, you’re still going to need to become aware of when you’re doing those. And in that moment, pause and ask yourself, “Why am I doing this behavior? In my four corners, what is it that I am not willing to feel?

 

What is it that I’m not willing to tolerate? Is it uncertainty? Is it discomfort? Is it a sensation? Is it shame?” Ask her the question, “What is it that I am not willing to do that is making me now do this behavior so I don’t have to feel that feeling?” This is a key component to the… your ongoing recovery, is to get curious.

 

What is it that I am not willing to feel? Okay, so now we come to number five, and this is like the king of all kings, which is then your job- is to go about your day as if that thought didn’t happen, meaning you will do exactly the same things you had planned to do before you had that thought. Now, if you’re someone who has these thoughts all day, every day, and you know they’re coming, your job is to go, “Okay, what would I do if this was my life that I chose and that I wanted?

 

What would I do? Would I work out? Would I eat breakfast? Would I get out of bed? Would I brush my teeth? Would I listen to music? Would I meet with friends? Would I have hobbies? What hobbies would I do?” And then make a schedule where you do those things We don’t want to stop our life just because we had thoughts we didn’t like.

 

Again, we’re going back to the last question, what am I not willing to feel? Why am I pivoting? But what we want to do now is build the life you want, disregarding whether the thoughts come up or not. I’m currently trying to train for a marathon. The entire time I’m running, I’m having the thought that this is stupid and I should stop, and I just keep running.

 

I just go, “Yeah, I’m… That’s probably true, but I made the decision that I’m gonna run, and so I’m gonna run, and I’m just gonna let that thought come along.” Now, I get you’re probably thinking, “Yeah, but that’s not a really scary thought. Like, my thoughts are, like, about harming somebody or doing something terrible, or maybe they’re really taboo.”

 

No different. As I said to you, here I am sitting, watching a concert, thinking about the most random, inappropriate things. That’s what my brain does, and I just go with it. Shrug. “Okay. Thanks, brain. Thanks for telling me all that.” Now, I did promise you a sixth, which is I don’t want you to now become compulsive about this process.

 

“Oh, I have to always feel my feelings, and I have to always allow my discomfort, and I have to always do this perfectly.” That is just your brain making skills that are healthy into compulsions, and so I want you to catch that, and I want you to catch that for any skill you learn here on your anxiety toolkit because that’s what our brains do.

 

They try to create things. They try to create certainty in every little nook and cranny of your life. So if that’s something that you need to keep an eye out for, make that sixth point a part of your plan. So that’s it, guys. If you have intrusive thoughts, I want you to listen to this, and I want you to remember this, and I want you to just think of my voice telling you you’re doing great.

 

I’m so proud of you, that you are doing really hard stuff, and that this matters, you guys. This matters. I don’t want you to take that lightly. The fact that you’re here, and you’re learning this, and you’re practicing one rep at a time is so key. I really want to recognize how much you’re working, and I really want you to know how proud I am.

 

Now, as always, it’s a beautiful day to do hard things. I am sending you so much love. You can head over to cbtschool.com/reset if you want to learn how to stop overthinking and ruminating. If not, it has been a pleasure, and I will see you in the next episode.

 

Please note that this podcast or any other resources from cbtschool.com should not replace professional mental healthcare. If you feel you would benefit, please reach out to a provider in your area. Have a wonderful day, and thank you for supporting cbtschool.com.