What do you do with intrusive thoughts? Hopefully, this post will help you with one of our favorite and practical skills we teach our clients. First let’s address how intrusive thoughts and feelings of anxiety might be affecting how you show up in the world.
When Busyness and Avoidance Look Like Opposites but Function the Same
Many people find themselves living in a constant state of doing, moving, and filling every available moment without fully understanding why. On the surface, it can look like productivity, ambition, or a strong work ethic. Underneath it, there is often something else driving the pace. For some, staying busy becomes a way to manage an internal experience that feels too uncomfortable to sit with.
When the mind is quiet, certain thoughts tend to show up. Questions about whether you may have harmed someone without realizing it. Concerns about whether you are showing up the right way in your relationships or as a parent. Doubts about whether you were honest enough, careful enough, good enough. Even fears about your own health or safety that appear without clear evidence.
In response, many people learn to keep going. If you stay busy enough, there is less room to think. If your attention is constantly occupied, there is less opportunity for those questions to take hold. Over time, this pattern can become so familiar that it is mistaken for personality. It may even be reinforced by others who see it as a strength. Being described as someone who is always creating or always productive can feel validating, even when the behavior is being driven by something much more rigid and exhausting.
At the same time, avoidance does not always look like doing more. For many people, it looks like doing less. It looks like pulling away from everyday life. Not going places that feel uncertain. Avoiding situations that might trigger intrusive thoughts. Putting off decisions. Staying in a smaller and smaller version of life because it feels safer.
Both patterns come from the same place. Whether someone is overdoing or underdoing, the goal is the same. It is an attempt to manage what is happening internally by controlling what is happening externally. One person avoids by stepping back from life. Another avoids by running ahead of it. Both are exhausting. Both are limiting. Both keep a person stuck.
Why Avoidance Keeps the Cycle Going
What often goes unnoticed is that avoidance reinforces the very experience it is trying to escape. The more someone tries to control their thoughts or feelings, the more significant and urgent those internal experiences begin to feel. The mind starts to treat them as problems that must be solved.
A thought appears, often in the form of a question that demands certainty. The question leads to discomfort, and the discomfort leads to action. That action might look like checking, reviewing, asking for reassurance, staying constantly busy, or avoiding situations altogether. While these responses may provide temporary relief, they strengthen the belief that the thought required a response in the first place.
Over time, life begins to organize itself around this pattern. Choices are made based on what will reduce anxiety rather than what is meaningful. What once felt like being careful or productive starts to feel like pressure. What once felt like control begins to feel like restriction.
A Different Approach to Thoughts
An alternative approach begins with a different understanding of thoughts. Instead of treating every thought as something that must be answered, it becomes possible to notice thoughts as mental events that come and go.
This is where mindfulness becomes practical. It is not about clearing your mind or forcing yourself to feel calm. It is about learning how to notice what your mind is doing while you are in the middle of your life.
You might find yourself saying, I am noticing a thought that I might have hurt someone. I am noticing a question about whether I am a bad parent. I am noticing the urge to check. I am noticing my brain asking for certainty again.
The content of the thought may not change, but your relationship to it begins to shift. You are no longer automatically treating it as something that needs to be solved.
There is usually a strong pull to respond. The thought feels important. It feels different. It feels like something you should not ignore. Instead of arguing with that feeling, you begin to notice that as well. I am noticing that my brain is trying to get me to figure this out right now. I am noticing how urgent this feels.
From there, you gently bring your attention back to what you were doing. Not perfectly. Not without discomfort. Just intentionally. This is how the cycle begins to change.
Guided Practice: Noticing Without Answering
I want you to think about a current worry you have. Not your biggest one, just something that has been lingering or popping up throughout your day. It might be a question about whether you did something wrong, whether you hurt someone, or whether you made the right decision.
Now, instead of answering the worry, begin to notice it.
Imagine your worry is, I might have said something that accidentally offended or harmed someone.
Rather than replaying the conversation or trying to figure it out, you begin to narrate your experience in the present moment.
I am noticing a thought that I might have said something offensive.
I am noticing a feeling of anxiety in my chest.
I am noticing the urge to go back and replay the conversation.
I am noticing my brain asking me to figure this out and make sure everything is okay.
I am noticing how important this feels right now.
I am noticing a pull to reach out and check.
I am noticing discomfort as I choose not to do that.
I am noticing my attention wanting to go back to the thought again.
I am noticing that the thought is still here.
And then, gently, you return your attention to what you are doing. You do not wait for the thought to go away. You do not try to make yourself feel calm first. You simply continue, with the thought still present.
The Unwanted Guest
Another way to understand this is to imagine your life as something you are actively participating in. Your relationships, your work, your responsibilities, and the things that matter to you are all happening in real time.
Then an intrusive thought shows up. It interrupts, demands attention, and pulls you toward it.
Avoidance, in either direction, takes you out of that participation. You either step back from your life or you overextend yourself within it. In both cases, your attention becomes centered on managing the thought rather than living.
The thought is like an uninvited guest. It is loud, uncomfortable, and persistent. Your instinct may be to focus on it, monitor it, or try to get rid of it.
Instead, you acknowledge that it is there.
I am noticing that this thought has shown up again.
I am noticing that it wants me to solve it.
And then you make a different choice. You allow it to exist while you return to your life. You do not have to agree with it. You do not have to like it. You also do not have to remove it before you move forward.
Staying in Your Life
At first, this can feel unnatural. The urge to respond may feel very strong. Your mind may continue to pull you back toward the question. That is part of the process. Each time you notice and return, you are reinforcing a new pattern.
Whether avoidance has been showing up as overdoing or underdoing, the path forward is the same. It is learning how to stay in your life while your mind is asking you to step away from it.
Over time, this creates a different kind of freedom. Not the absence of thoughts, but the ability to have them without being controlled by them.
We have so many more of these skills that actually promote you getting back into your life. This is not even a nibble into what we teach our clients! If this was helpful, and you want to know more about our programs for moms, click here. We are so glad you stopped by. Don’t forget to follow us on Instagram!
