Label a thought as just a thought
The mind generates a constant automatic stream of comments, and most of them aren't worth trusting. When a thought appears, name it as a thought rather than a fact, then choose whether it deserves to be acted on — instead of automatically believing every stupid thing that pops into your head.
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The brain runs a near-constant background stream of automatic commentary, and a lot of it is junk: harsh, catastrophic, or simply wrong. Treating every passing thought as a true statement about reality keeps you reactive to noise. The move is cognitive defusion — putting a small gap between the thought and your response.
When a thought arrives, label it: ‘that’s a thought,’ not ‘that’s a fact.’ From that half-step of distance you can decide whether it’s worth acting on, rather than being yanked along by it. A regular mind-training practice (meditation, or studying contemplative traditions that drill attention) builds this capacity over time — the practice makes you less reactionary and lets you redirect attention more easily, so the gap between thought and reaction widens with repetition. None of this is about suppressing thoughts or arguing them down in the moment; it’s about no longer granting automatic belief to the stream, which lowers the emotional charge that intrusive loops and rumination feed on.