Self-Help Practice 6:
Create a Tape of Extended Obsessions
So, Worry Time is the first structured
practice and the loop tape is the second structured practice for
worries. Here's the third.
If your worries come in
the form as an extended story, with details of all
the catastrophic outcomes, you can also practice using a tape
recording of your detailed obsessions. This time, however, the
recording will be longer, describing all of your fears.
Here's how to do it. Write out a
detailed story of the feared event in the following way:
Imagine you're in the middle of a spontaneous obsession. Just put
yourself in that place. Write a moment-by-moment description of the
exact words and pictures that come into your mind. And right it in the
present tense. "I'm now standing in front of my house and I can
see that the door is open." Like that. Give as many details as
possible about the setting, your actions, the response of others, and
especially what you're feeling. Because that's what we're going to go
toward, your emotional response to the story.
Now, read your story several times,
rehearse it, and then record your story on an audio
tape with as much drama as you can. Put the emotion in your words
because you've got to listen to it repeatedly, and each time you
listen you are going to try to become as distressed as possible. So
you want the drama of the event to come through in your voice.
Each day listen
repeatedly to this tape for forty-five minutes. As
you listen to the tape, imagine that the story is actually
happening, and let yourself experience the distress
inside you that the story evokes. The more you are in touch with your
feelings while you listen, the more benefits you will gain from your
practice.
Continue daily practice,
focussing on one specific worry or obsession, until
you no longer feel highly distressed.
If you follow these directions in your practice, you should notice
that your distress is gradually lowering within five to seven days.
Then make new tapes
about other worries or obsessions that bother you,
and follow the same process again. As with the loop tape, your
progress will be slower if you allow your mind to wander while you
listen.
If you are not noticing improvement, make
sure you are doing all you can to respond to the recorded story as
intensely as you would to an actual obsession.
Let me give you a sample form our book Stop
Obsessing! of what such a script might sound like. Here's a woman
who is a washer and feels contaminated by her mother.
"I'm sitting here in the chair, the
door opens and my mother comes in. She enters the room. She sees me
and she says, 'I'm glad to see you. It's been a long time.' She comes
to me and she touches me. She wants to hug me. My mother is astonished
that I let her hug me and she says, 'I can't believe that I'm allowed
to hug my daughter again!' Now I feel the contamination spreading all
over me. I can feel her hands on my back and I begin to feel that it's
never going to go away...can never be washed off. I would like my
mother to leave and I want to take a shower, a bath, so I can get
clean again. I can't say anything. I can't move. I'm overwhelmed by
the feeling of being contaminated. My mother is standing beside me and
she's holding my hand, and I can feel how she becomes even more
contaminating. I would like her to take her hand off of me. She's
asking me, 'Are you afraid of me?' I would like to explain to her just
how afraid I am of her, but I don't say anything. I just let her hold
my hand and then it goes on, so at the end I feel trapped. She'll
never go away, she'll go on contaminating me forever, more and more
contamination. I'll never feel free again. I have the urge to leave
the room and forget everything about my mother, but her touch is
everywhere on my body.'"
That's the kind of drama that you should
put in your voice. And that's the kind of moment-by-moment detail
needed.
Now we've covered two ways to handle
obsessions in the moment: postponing and changing the ways you obsess.
And we've reviewed three structured practices: Daily Worry Time, a
short loop-tape and an audio-tape of your extended obsession.
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