How accepting thoughts/emotions help?

I read many articles about this, cause i dont know how to accept thoughts, and i hear "just let it come in, let it make you feel bad, let it make you feel anxious or depressed. So in my entire life, everytime i will have a negative thought, intrusive thought or disturbing thought, i let it make me feel how it wants. Im in a depressive season right now, i have many disturbing thoughts, i have to accept all of them to come in my mind and im acknowledging every thought and letting them make me feel how they want? Poeple are angry here that i ask this many times but i dont see any progression there...I tried to do that and gave me a huge depressive feeling and i started to panic. Now im overthinking if that depression means something deeply about me or not... and also if i find some thought patterns, should i change them? Or just dont engage in them? Also not engaging for me sounds like avoidance,.cause i avoid to engage in it. This "sit with it, accept them, work through them" doesnt make sense to me. When should i say this is an ocd thought in dont have to figure it out or this is something that i have to think about?

Username: NicaNica

Date posted: 20w ago

You need to look into Thich Nhat Hanh and start your mindfulness journey. He explains how to accept ALL emotions/images/feelings with detachment and not playing into them. This is why mindfulness is so heavily recommended.

Username: kbrainkbrain

Date posted: 20w ago

Someone told me once set a timer whether that timer is physical or not for maybe let’s say 5 minutes. You sit with the thoughts and feel the feeling for that amount of time then you move on. I know the moving on part is the most difficult for me but dwelling or as I say going down the rabbit hole only makes the depression or anxiety or compulsions stronger. At least that’s how it works for me. In letting it go you can imagine a wave, it comes in you sit with it and it flows out. But you don’t stay with it. Does that make sense? I know it is easier said than done.

Username: NicaNica

Date posted: 20w ago

And no, you aren’t acknowledging every thought that comes into your mind—that is a waste of time and that is impossible. You’re letting them be like clouds in the sky. They’re there, but you do nothing and then they float away.

Username: kbrainkbrain

Date posted: 20w ago

@Nica I agree this isn’t for every thought as I have a million a day. But some thoughts come and we let ourselves feel then let it go. If we don’t let them go we dwell instead.

Username: PRIV8PRIV8

Date posted: 20w ago

I got so stressed that i started to have suicidal thoughts (that i call ocd) and because the deep work i want to do, it made me thought it means something again. Im judging thoughts so easily. Currently im going through grief and sometimes thoughts a d feeling are bad but i can accept them and go through them. But today ti got so bad, i couldnt accept everything, i felt that it will make me stuck or i will believe it. Sometimes thats why i avoid thoughts cause i know it i start to work on them i will believe them which makes me feel worse. Or just working on them i noticed it makes the depression worse... Idk when should i work on my thoughts cause now my brain tells me im avoiding and i should work on the suicidal thoughts cause it means something... Its really hard for me to allow thoughts to be cause i will engage it them. If i let the emotions (depression,panic) to be there then im just engaging with them

Username: kbrainkbrain

Date posted: 20w ago

@PRIV8 I get what you are saying when it’s that bad for me I honestly turn on classical music or something and count over and over or put things in alphabetical order in my mind or do something to distract the thoughts/ these thoughts aren’t the real you

Username: kbrainkbrain

Date posted: 20w ago

@kbrain You don’t have to feel guilty for trying to think of something different - even me posting on here is distracting my mind

Username: PRIV8PRIV8

Date posted: 20w ago

@kbrain If i dont need to do that with every thought, how do i know which one i need to acknowledge and which one not. Im beating myself over that i dont do recovery work in the right way... whenever i try to do something i have thoughts that im doing what is wrong and then i feel like im supressing things

Username: kbrainkbrain

Date posted: 20w ago

@PRIV8 I feel that way too sometimes I think when the thoughts are obsessive it’s ok to distract- but if the thought is important to you find a time of day to process those feelings by taking it out with someone safe or a therapist or even writing it out but that’s not for all thoughts and sometimes I agree it is difficult to differentiate

Username: PRIV8PRIV8

Date posted: 20w ago

Now i realized the depression i feel is not bc of healthy grief... im beating myself over that my dog was suffering in his last days. We accepted that he will die bc of an illness but now there are things we think about like maybe he wouldnt die,it might have been other problem cause he started to heal pretty well and then suddenly he just got so bad. We think might have been depression that made it worse and i realized i keep beating myself over it. Im blaming myself cause i couldve done more... he was really scared... I hope in the other world we i meet him and he will forgive us. I want to believe he already did but its hard. So yeah this is noz healthy grief, this is beating myself over what happened. Thats why i dont like to imediatelly accept whatever i feel and go throught it, az first i did that and i was so depressed today... i thought this is normal or theres something wrong with me that i cant process it. But now i see this is not healthy grief

Username: JaJoWo

Date posted: 3y ago

When you're taught to embrace your OCD thoughts and deal with them, how does one do that exactly? Example, I get a disturbing thought or uncomfortable feeling, we're taught to embrace it or accept it... How so? It's an unwanted thought.. So how do you embrace something that's so dang annoying or unanswerable? I often find my OCD wanting to get technical and "reading the fine print" of any and all advice given. So annoying.

Username: Rrk

Date posted: 1y ago

Any advice?

Hi All, I’m struggling with understanding something. Im scared that if I accept my thoughts and don’t react to them, then that means I’m okay with them. What if I start accepting my intrusive thoughts and then think it’s okay to act on them? Any advice?

Username: mantradragon

Date posted: 1y ago

Letting Myself Feel?

Hello! Now I'm trying to let all these thoughts come to my head and accept the anxiety that's coming with them without challenging them - just leaving then unanswered. But my head keeps telling me things like, 'but maybe that actually was a bad thing you did, and you're just trying to push it away' or 'you might still go to hell, because this might not be OCD but you just being a bad person and trying to ignore it.' I can recognize all these as OCD thoughts but they undermine my coping strategies. Does this stuff get better with time and practice?

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How accepting thoughts/emotions help?

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