How do I stop mind reading?

[Butterscotchcrumbles]

I can't seem to stop myself trying to read other people's thoughts and emotions.

I know that I make rash assumptions on limited evidence. I know there could be alternative explanations for every assumption I make. They might not have meant it like that etc. But I find it so hard to really feel that, iykwim.

It could be in any context - work, home, friends. Generally, the assumption is negative, but sometimes it is positive - only for me to feel let down when the assumption is later proved to be inaccurate.

Does anyone have any good tips for dragging my mind away from it all?

Wish I could help Butterscotch, but I'm guilty of over analysing everything too. I struggle with telling my mind to just take things at face value rather than trying to second/third and fourth guess peoples motivations. It's exhausting and unhelpful, but can I stop it? Nope!

Ask people for clarification when they say something that you don't fully understand? ask people what they are feeling?

I am a bugger for over analysing. I make my husband 'debrief' after each and every social interaction I dissect every word, every facial expression, everything.

It screws you up! Because you just can't know what someone is thinking or feeling unless you ask them. And even then they may not tell you the truth!

So I would say that really the best thing to do would be to work on yourself. Forget what others are thinking and feeling and work on how you think and feel. Often such obsessions come from a lack of confidence and that is something you can do something about.

When you feel better about yourself, then you won't be so consumed with what others think about you. iyswim.

You have to decide to stop doing this, make a plan about how you will stop, follow the plan over the following few months and you will retrain your brain and you will have stopped. It is a habit and something which you must derive pleasure from in some way. Try and work out why you do it. Why do you need to know? Do you feel it will give you some control over the future in some way? Rationalise this. When I find myself doing this I use a word which illustrates the ridiculousness of what I'm trying to do. For me this is "I'm hallucinating" which I may as well be for all the good it does. If you find yourself doing it and you are on your own shout out loud STOP HALLUCINATING and do a ridiculous dance start smiling and purposefully choose to think of something positive or just have a phrase like "I am a kind warm positive rational being who no longer hallucinates"

It takes some work and effort. There is no magic wand but it will set your mind free, make you a nicer happier person and life will miraculously become easier.

Sounds crazy but it might just work:)

If your default setting is negative then you're simply pessimistic. There are some people who see all the things that are potentially wrong with a situation and that's not necessarily a bad thing.... as you say, you are never disappointed.... but it can suck a lot of the joy out of life. If you assume that others have negative intentions towards you all the time that's most probably a reflection of your own self-confidence and feeling of security. Others... IME.. are usually too wrapped up in themselves to be consciously working out how to make your life more difficult. It's more often thoughtlessness than malice.

I'd suggest finding the joy in small things. 'Count your blessings' & appreciate what you have. Boost your self-confidence so that you are more resilient. You can't switch off cynicism and pessimism if that's your natural way of thinking but you can try to offset it by consciously thinking about positive motives and outcomes.

Hi. I would disagree you can't change your natural default settings of pessimism and cynicism mainly because I have done exactly that. Pessimism and negativity are learned behaviours and the internal conversation needs to change. It is possible. There are steps you can take. Real plans which effect massive change in a person. Finding joy and being grateful is absolutely part of the process.

I agree with you. You can override your core programming, iyswim. It takes a lot of hard work and it requires looking very closely at yourself and understanding yourself but it can be done. It involves making conscious decisions at first but in the end it becomes more natural.

I'm currently reading a book about how to understand and manage your core personality in order to change your behaviours and responses and yes, thought patterns.

I also had extensive cbt to change my thinking about a particular issue.

It can be done. It's just bloody hard. And painful at times!

Do you mind me asking what the book is? I would like a good book like that right now.

It's called The Chimp Paradox.

It is written as though the author thinks you're a child but if you can ignore that, it's actually very good.

It is about how there is the core of us, our hardwired centre if you like, (the chimp) the computer that holds our memories, experiences, etc and the person inside us and how to understand the function of all three and how they interact and how to manage the 'chimp' in order that the adult retains control.

It is actually really good.

here

We all try to understand what the other person is thinking or feeling. It's what makes us human, in large part.

However, it can become a burden if your thoughts are too preoccupied about what other people think or feel.

One way is to keep an open mind about the other person and wait for further evidence one way or the other.

Ah yeah I remember hearing him on radio 4 when book came out. Will give it a go. Thanks:)

Seeing this thread has made me realise I do this ALL the time without being fully aware of it. It has made me miserable in the past especially where work colleagues are concerned and especially where partners/ boyfriends are concerned. Mainly people I don't know that well so you think you know what they are thinking but can't be sure

Ah yeah, very familiar - I have had bouts of severe anxiety, specifically social anxiety and 'mind reading' was a big one for me.

All the above advice is great - and you can change this. But it does take some re-training. I used the ABC technique: I had to write down after worrying incidents what had happened (just the facts) then the physical sensations, the thoughts and then re-assess against the facts i.e. 'Woman looked at me' and then re-interpret based on the facts, then re-assess my physical feelings and emotions. iveronicawalsh.wordpress.com/2012/04/15/the-abc-of-cbt-the-starter-exercisehandout-to-catch-your-negative-thoughts/
After a while, you don't write them down, your brain just does it automatically - you think 'oh no!' and then 'no, it's just a person in the street, no idea what they're thinking'.

What also really helped me (and involved no pens and paper!) was consciously trying to re-orientate how I looked at the world. Instead of trying to look at myself and judge myself from the outside-in (i.e., mind read what other people were thinking and value myself on that interpretation), I started looking from the inside-out (so I am me, looking at the world and interacting with people and making my own conclusions based on my own real experience from MY REAL perspective).

I hope all this advice helps - I feel much better than I had in years!

I had some cbt last year when I was suffering from stress and depression. I get caught in very negative thought patterns where I assume the worst, which leads into a downward spiral. The worksheets my therapist gave me were great; they involve you stating what the situation was that caused the negative thought, how it made you feel, the facts that support your negative feelings, the facts that don't support them, an alternative, more realistic view (i.e. what a friend may say to you, or you may even say to a friend if they are in the same situation) and then you re-evaluate how you feel about it after that.

Eye-opening for me. Very helpful in terms of making you see that often, you think the worst when you have no facts to back this up.

I'm also reading the Chimp Paradox but haven't got too far with it (I tend to have about three books on the go at once...)

Well done for realising what you do! Problem's half fixed already

Everybody's story will be different, but the underlying causes of my 'mind reading' were hypervigilance - explosively emotional parents, who effectively trained me to know what was really bothering them - and fear of seeming stupid; parents again. A therapist gave me simple permission to ask "What do you mean?" which suddenly opened all the windows, as it were! Bizarre as it looks from the outside, it had never occurred to me to tell folks I didn't understand where they were coming from, and ask for clarification.

I'd bet quite a lot that you were taught things like "Nobody's interested anyway," trained to anticipate criticism, and treated like a nuisance. Previous posters have given good advice on this - the trick is to identify these thoughts as they appear, then answer them back constructively. Good luck with this; you'll do fine :)

Here's a CBT thought record sheet, if you'd like it (PDF)

If I catch myself doing that, I challenge myself to come up with as many other reasons for people's behaviour as I can! E.g. if someone cuts me up on the road, and I yell swearwords from a distance, I then try and imagine all the reasons they might be speeding - someone might be giving birth on the back seat; they might be being chased by the CIA; they might be from another country where undertaking is fine; they might be escaping a violent partner; etc etc

Apart from helping to balance negative thoughts with more generous ones, it's also quite a fun creative exercise, and generally distracts you from other stressful thoughts for a while!

All the CBT stuff is fantastic, really helped me get through an anxiety episode, and helps me every day to keep on a even keel :) It seems impossible at first, but actually works amazingly well and becomes almost second nature over time.

But balancing the light/dark, good/bad in yourself is on-going and important - no one is a saint, and without the ability to see and feel both elements you wouldn't be human!! Certainly not a human anyone would want to be friends with ;) Don't beat yourself up about anything - you are who you are, and you're brilliant. If you want to change, you will.

Wow, I come back from work to find lots of very kind and helpful responses, thank you all.

I agree with all the points above, particularly the point about being raised to be over-sensitive to emotional states. My mother (a loving, wonderful mother in so many ways) suffered from depression throughout my early childhood, in a way that would manifest itself in rages that would blow up suddenly, then go away as quickly as they came.

I was always hyper sensitive to her mood, wondering if a rage was about to happen. I am currently having counselling, and my counsellor says I need to "re-parent myself". I think she means that I need to tell that young child that she had no control over her mother and wasn't responsible for those rages.

My mother also taught me to be extremely sensitive to the feelings of others. This is in many ways a positive quality, but it has manifested in such a way that I put the feelings of others above my own. I am definitely an adaptive child!

I will check out everything you have said and consider it. It is interesting, as I don't think of myself as a negative person - I am very sociable, enjoy making others laugh and pursue my dreams single mindedly. But you are all right - when it comes to judging myself in the eyes of others, I generally do it negatively. I like the idea of seeing the world from the inside out, and will definitely give it a go!