Get rid of your superstitions
Do you ever touch wood after talking about how well something is going? Refuse to use your umbrella indoors? Avoid the number 13.
Superstitions may seem harmless. In reality, they waste a lot of time and energy. It is a form of OCD. Imagine if you knew nothing about touching wood, and saw someone get up and walk across the room to touch a table whenever they discussed a certain topic. It would seem crazy, right? This is classic OCD and it makes us miserable.
Instead, we need to use exposure to make it easier on ourselves. Run with the number 13: it's fine. The only way we will feel better about it is if we use it and see that no undue harm comes to us. The more we do it, the better we will feel. Whatever your superstition is, it is time to decide that enough is enough. Let's kick them out of our lives.
Subtitles
| Time | Text |
|---|---|
| 00:00:07 | It is time to throw away your superstitions. |
| 00:00:11 | You know the things you do that don't really make any sense |
| 00:00:16 | You know they don't make any sense, but you do them anyway because you are worried about what is going to happen. |
| 00:00:21 | For example you talk about something going well and you have to go touch some wood and say touch wood to make everything ok. |
| 00:00:29 | Well lets have the honest conversation, you don't need to go touch that wood to make sure everything is ok. |
| 00:00:35 | And if something does go wrong it is just luck, |
| 00:00:37 | its is not that you went and touched the wood and the reason we feel the need to go and touch it. |
| 00:00:43 | and we have that compulsion, well guess what, it is anxiety |
| 00:00:51 | we worry that things would go wrong if we don't follow these habits |
| 00:00:54 | even though our higher brain function knows damn well that it has nothing to do with it. |
| 00:01:01 | There are number of negative implications of following these superstitions, |
| 00:01:07 | one is that its just a hassle, we have to get up, walk over the room find some wood and touch it. |
| 00:01:13 | And two you probably feel a bit silly doing it,right |
| 00:01:23 | And also is a great opportunity for us to challenge these automatic thoughts and behaviours and say 'no' I am going resist them |
| 00:01:31 | because that will spill over to other areas of our lives. |
| 00:01:34 | So the next time you find yourself going through the motions of following a superstition, |
| 00:01:42 | remind yourself the reason you're doing this is because anxiety not because you really need to |
| 00:01:49 | deep down, of course you know it is silly and use that to turn it around and say no I'm not going to do this |
| 00:01:55 | I might feel a little uncomfortable in the short term, but I know, in the long term |
| 00:02:00 | I'm going to see benefit from rejecting these silly superstitions. |
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