Interrupt Depressive Thoughts

Interrupt Your Thoughts

Most thoughts happen automatically, triggered by events, feelings, other people, and  situations. Much of the time, this is a nice time-saving device! However, when it comes to depressive thoughts, this is a problem. Automatic, depressive thoughts get thrust upon you, taking a toll on your emotions, behavior, and experiences. It is better if you can choose your thoughts and change them if needed. In order to choose and change your thoughts, you first have to learn to be aware of and interrupt them. In this activity, you will learn to INTERRUPT  your automatic, depressive thoughts. You could use two techniques:

• stopping statements
• stopping images

Let's start with stopping statements

A stopping statement should be a brief, powerful instruction to yourself to end the depressive thought. The purpose is to interrupt the automatic part of thinking so that you are free to choose your thoughts.

Here are a few examples of stopping statements.

• Let this thought go
• Stop it now
• This thought is done
• Freeze this thought
• Halt
• Block this thought
• Shut it down
• Discontinue
• Quiet your thoughts
• End this thought

Interrupting images

You can use a interrupting statement along with an interrupting image to help you to interrupt and end depressive thoughts. Look at the images below and select one to use to interrupt and end depressive thoughts.