Feeling Thought Loops

It  goes like this:  You have a feeling, say anxiety, and a thought comes with it, say "I gotta get outa here."  It's more like a command, isn't it?  So you obey, right.  You try to get out.  But maybe you can't, so you get more anxious; as you get more anxious, your mind develops the thought, embellishing the fantasy of disaster if you fail to escape.  More anxiety.  Shall I go on?  Have you been there?

Actually, let's do another run.  You're bummed because you missed the train.  Sad sinking feeling.  Your brain, responding helpfully, remembers all other sad sinking moments; times you failed, times you lost things, and then even more helpfully (because the brain loves to be in control), starts predicting more failure in the future.  How are you doing?

Luckily there is a way out of this rat chase.  Drive a wedge between feeling and thought.   When I say to my patients/clients, 'what is the feeling?'  I am listening for sensation, separate from thought.  Sometimes I really push it, because we can get so caught in the thought that we mistake it for a fact.  or even a feeling, as in "I feel that he is a big asshole."  This is not a feeling.  The feeling is anger.  The sensation is, well anger is complicated, but the sensation might be the heart racing, blood rushing, energy surging.  Focusing on just that, letting it rise and fade away like all phenomena.  

Now if you've been through this, you will immediately notice that the thought returns.  True, but with less conviction.  Accept the feeling.  Suspect the thought,  I like to say. When we understand the thought as thought and not reality, then we can play with it, turn it around, shift perspective, become agile and in the process get exactly what we want.