Most of us have a default response to challenging thoughts.
We change the subject. Pick up our phone. Make a snack. Start a task we’ve been putting off. Anything to create distance between ourselves and whatever just surfaced uninvited.
For a little while, it works. But challenging thoughts have a way of circling back — louder, sometimes, for having been ignored.
What if the move isn’t to avoid them? What if sitting with them, even briefly, changes something?
Why challenging thoughts feel so threatening
Intrusive thoughts tend to arrive with urgency. They feel like they’re telling you something true and terrible about yourself or your situation.
Here’s what’s worth noticing: that urgency isn’t the thought itself. It’s the resistance to it.
In other words, the more we sidestep something, the more weight it carries. Unwanted thoughts aren’t necessarily as heavy as the effort we spend not thinking about them.
Worth noting, too, that avoidance rarely makes anything quieter. It just pushes the noise underground.
What does it actually look like to challenge your thoughts?
Challenging a thought doesn’t mean fighting it. It doesn’t mean telling yourself you shouldn’t feel that way.
Instead, it means getting curious rather than afraid.
It means asking: is this true? Is it always true? What’s underneath it?
For instance, try asking what you’d say to a friend who brought this same thought to you. That shift in perspective alone can loosen a lot.
Unsettling thoughts often look much smaller once you’re facing them directly. Not always — but more often than you’d expect.
A few gentle ways to hold space for challenging thoughts
You don’t have to go deep all at once. This is slow, quiet work — and small steps count.
- Write the thought down exactly as it came. Don’t soften or explain it yet — just move it out of your head and onto paper.
- Sit with it for two minutes. Set a timer if that helps. Notice what it feels like in your body, not just your mind.
- Ask it one question: “what are you trying to protect me from?” You might be surprised by what surfaces.
- Notice whether the thought is a fact or a fear. They feel identical sometimes. They aren’t.
- Let it stay unresolved. Acknowledging something is enough — you don’t have to fix it today.
What shifts when you stop running
Challenging thoughts don’t disappear when you face them head-on. That’s not really the point.
The point is that they lose their grip. When you’ve genuinely looked at something — really faced it, not just glanced nervously in its direction — it can’t ambush you the same way.
And there’s something steadying about that. Knowing you can sit with your own unsettling thoughts and come through still okay.
Not fixed. Not certain. Just… okay.
What thought have you been avoiding lately? You don’t have to answer out loud. Just notice it. That’s enough for now. 🌿