This exercise describes how difficult it is for us to control our thoughts.
Suppose I tell you right now that I don't want you to think about something.
I'm going to tell you what that thing is very soon.
But when I say it,
I don't want you to think about it at all.
Not even for one second.
Here it is.
Remember,
Don't think about it.
Don't think of warm chocolate cake.
You know how it smells when it first comes out of the oven?
Don't think of it.
The taste of the chocolate icing when you bite into your first piece.
But don't think about it.
The way the warm,
Crumbly piece falls to the plate as you pick up each bit.
Don't think about it.
It's very important.
Don't think about any of this.
You may have noticed you laughed or smiled during the exercise.
Maybe your brow was furrowed in concentration.
Could you stop yourself from thinking about chocolate cake?
Did you try to think about something else instead of chocolate cake?
Did you notice yourself immediately try to push chocolate cake out of your mind and think of something else?
So even when you think not thinking about it works,
It still doesn't.
Trying not to think about chocolate cake is similar to what we normally do when we don't want to think about hard stuff.
For example,
If someone struggles with anxiety,
They might think,
Don't pay attention to your heart rate,
Or stop thinking about your breathing,
Or don't worry about how that classmate looked at you after you asked a question in class.
For the chocolate cake metaphor,
We can't 100% subtract cake deliberately because to do it deliberately,
You have to create the rule,
But since the rule contains chocolate cake,
It doesn't work.
In life,
We run into the same ineffectiveness when we try to suppress unwanted thoughts or emotions.
In the next exercise,
We will explore a different option for unwanted thoughts or emotions.
