There’s a big difference between having a thought and buying it. Our brains are full of thoughts. Right now in my brain I’ve got some stuff going on:

“I wonder how many words this will end up being?”
“Aww, my dog is cute”
“The movie I saw today was really fun”
“I need to defrost the hamburger meat”
“This is making me sound like an idiot”

Those are all just thoughts, though that last one is potentially a problem for me – but only if I buy it.

What can I do if I’ve already bought it?  What if the emotions and sensations I feel around the thought “I’m an idiot” are really unpleasant?  What if the energy from all that unpleasantness feeds back into the thought and makes it stronger? Then it becomes a painful high-voltage mess in a hurry.

In “Acceptance and Commitment Therapy” buying this type of thought is called “cognitive fusion,” the concept that the thought and I are one – we’re fused. The antidote is “cognitive defusion” which is a fancy way of saying, “pull the plug on it – kill the energy”… or at least start to lessen it.

There are a lot of playful tactics to help us practice pulling the plug. One is to say the thought out loud over and over like a bunch of different characters. Say “I’m an idiot” out loud in your Bugs Bunny voice. Now say it like Elmer Fudd. Now do Spongebob Squarepants. How about Batman? Now Elmo?  Yoda (“an idiot, you are”). Dora the Explorer. Scooby-Doo. Homer Simpson. Donald Duck.

After all that, check your emotions, thoughts, sensations – are they still as heavy or intense? Chances are they aren’t. Some, maybe a lot, maybe all that negative energy has drained. Thanks, Bugs!

Now I’m going to get the hamburger meat out of the freezer!