This is a great topic and timely and something I have been thinking about lately a lot.
I think you have gotten a lot of great feedback! the only thing I could add (and maybe it is already been said but I missed) is that ...for me it depends what the thoughts are about. The nature and the owner...for example, am I beating up myself with my mother's voice/tone? or am I just wildly daydreaming and imagining and building myself up blahahaha. So it depends. The first one used to be a huge problem for me and when it stops being my mother, it used to become whoever is annoying me (real or perceived) at that time. I used humor to shut it down. I learned rather than fighting literally and figuretively in my head, I would crack jokes and use humor. So I would go...hereeeeeeeeeeeee we go again! let us see who is the winnerrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr? I am exaggerating a bit but hope you get the gist. when I change to humor it is a reminder that was a learned behaviour or direct memory got stuck in my mind and my adult part of today can make it bigger or funny.
The latter one about distracting, daydreaming, I voice this one outloud to my husband or a co-worker etc. I am really not feeling so good today and feel like staying in my head. I am crazy enough to know normal stuff so I use proper language as not to quite off the rocker here...so either way, I use soft language to handle it within.
On intellectual level or cognitive level, I am learning now that we carry our "self" part and every other person's self part who ever crossed our path in our head as representations and sometimes truly some of those representations (especially those that abuse us, specifically as children where our memory is not as good as an adult who had abuse) can become a real "self" parts inside of us and be intrusive and can cause real mental horror....so if I am being cognitive or intellectual about it, then I teach myself how to create compassion between my "self" parts (that I was born with) and the others' "self" parts I carry from the past (both good and the bad)...since logically speaking I am alone and stressed by the memory and experience and no one is with me at the time. I sit with the cognitive empathy or compassion between all these selves (mine and others) fighting inside my head...you may call this meditation but I call it cognition sit through and let the selves become on friendly terms. Makes sense? I hope. I find doing this long enough, it becomes part of me and it is automatic or at least the intrusion is gone long periods of time.
Also, this is a side note, try as best as you can minimizing real external stress. It is hard (at least for me) to have peace inside when outside is burning.
I think you have gotten a lot of great feedback! the only thing I could add (and maybe it is already been said but I missed) is that ...for me it depends what the thoughts are about. The nature and the owner...for example, am I beating up myself with my mother's voice/tone? or am I just wildly daydreaming and imagining and building myself up blahahaha. So it depends. The first one used to be a huge problem for me and when it stops being my mother, it used to become whoever is annoying me (real or perceived) at that time. I used humor to shut it down. I learned rather than fighting literally and figuretively in my head, I would crack jokes and use humor. So I would go...hereeeeeeeeeeeee we go again! let us see who is the winnerrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr? I am exaggerating a bit but hope you get the gist. when I change to humor it is a reminder that was a learned behaviour or direct memory got stuck in my mind and my adult part of today can make it bigger or funny.
The latter one about distracting, daydreaming, I voice this one outloud to my husband or a co-worker etc. I am really not feeling so good today and feel like staying in my head. I am crazy enough to know normal stuff so I use proper language as not to quite off the rocker here...so either way, I use soft language to handle it within.
On intellectual level or cognitive level, I am learning now that we carry our "self" part and every other person's self part who ever crossed our path in our head as representations and sometimes truly some of those representations (especially those that abuse us, specifically as children where our memory is not as good as an adult who had abuse) can become a real "self" parts inside of us and be intrusive and can cause real mental horror....so if I am being cognitive or intellectual about it, then I teach myself how to create compassion between my "self" parts (that I was born with) and the others' "self" parts I carry from the past (both good and the bad)...since logically speaking I am alone and stressed by the memory and experience and no one is with me at the time. I sit with the cognitive empathy or compassion between all these selves (mine and others) fighting inside my head...you may call this meditation but I call it cognition sit through and let the selves become on friendly terms. Makes sense? I hope. I find doing this long enough, it becomes part of me and it is automatic or at least the intrusion is gone long periods of time.
Also, this is a side note, try as best as you can minimizing real external stress. It is hard (at least for me) to have peace inside when outside is burning.