And hello to you and welcome to the Richard Nichols podcast, the Personal Development

podcast series that's here to help inspire, educate and motivate you to be the best you can be.

I'm psychotherapist Richard Nichols, and this is episode 168.

It's titled, Dealing with Crazy Thoughts.

And if you're ready, we'll start the show.

So, regularly, clients will tell me that they've had bizarre thoughts,

and are a bit freaked out by them.

And I think it's worth everyone knowing about this so that you don't think the same way about your thoughts.

Because what they say is that they might, out of nowhere, suddenly start having thoughts about hurting someone, maybe killing someone, even,

maybe hurting or killing themselves, or maybe even snogging their boss or their cousin. Yeah,

it's weird. We do have weird thoughts, all of us, and we don't tend to talk about it outside of the therapy room anyway.

So I want to put your mind at rest that if you have some crazy thoughts, you need to remember that they're just thoughts.

They're not reality.

Thinking about pushing someone in front of a bus doesn't mean you're a potential murderer.

It just means that you have a brain and that it works.

And I know if they get a bit crazy these thoughts, you might sometimes think that there's

something wrong with you, but believe me, there isn't.

It's perfectly normal to have weird thoughts like this.

No matter how dangerous they are, they are still just

thoughts, which in themselves are actually completely harmless. Thoughts do nothing, but they have

the potential to frighten you. Our thoughts have the potential to grab our attention and make us

question our own sanity,

...