In this reflection we sit with the thoughts that will not leave.
It starts as a single thought. Intrusive. Unwanted. You push it away. It comes back.
You argue with it. Analyze it. Try to disprove it. The attention feeds it. It grows.
Now it is a loop. The same thought, the same fear, the same what-if circling endlessly. You are exhausted but you cannot stop. The mind keeps returning to the thing it is trying to escape.
Intrusive thoughts are not signs of who you are. They are mental noise. Everyone has them. The difference is how much weight you give them.
Anxious minds treat thoughts as threats. If I am thinking this, it must mean something. If it keeps coming back, there must be a reason. The mind assigns significance to the repetition, which makes it repeat more.
The loop is not about content. You can loop on anything—health fears, relationship doubts, past mistakes, future disasters. The specific worry matters less than the pattern. The mind has found something to chew on, and it will not let go.
Fighting the thought makes it stronger. What you resist persists. The more you try to push it away, the more it pushes back. You cannot think your way out of a thought.
What helps is not resistance but acknowledgment. Oh, that thought again. There it is. You do not have to believe it. You do not have to solve it. You just notice it and let it pass through.
Naming it helps. That is anxiety talking. That is the loop doing its thing. Creating distance between you and the thought breaks its grip. You are not the thought. You are the one noticing the thought.
Movement helps. When you are stuck in your head, getting into your body can interrupt the cycle. Walk. Breathe. Feel your feet. The loop lives in abstraction. The body lives in the present.
You are not going crazy. You are not broken. Your brain is just doing a thing that brains do. It is unpleasant, but it is not permanent.
The thought will come back. Let it. You do not have to follow it this time.