Guests We Never Invited — Resigning from Yourself

The Little Shirt Sleeve

Lina closed the interview email and put her phone in her bag before knocking on her sister’s door. She was still keeping Wednesday evenings free for her design course. Some of her work was now in a small portfolio. She had sent it with a job application weeks earlier. At the door, her sister said, “You’re just in time.”

Her sister placed her baby daughter in Lina’s arms and went back to the kitchen. Now in her sixth month, the baby had begun grabbing whatever she could reach. She gripped Lina’s sleeve and pulled it toward her mouth. Lina laughed and gently drew the fabric away.

Then an image flashed through her mind: the baby slipping from her hands. Nothing happened. The baby kept holding the sleeve, making little sounds at odds with the nausea suddenly rising in Lina’s throat.

Her sister called from the kitchen, “The tissues are beside you.” Lina looked at her hands as if seeing them for the first time. Her fingers spread around the baby’s back instead of relaxing. She wanted to call her sister. But what would she say about a second in which nothing had happened?

Lina handed the baby back to her sister and said she needed some water. On her next visit, she avoided sitting near the cradle. Her sister asked her to hold the baby while she finished making tea. “My back hurts,” Lina said.

She found herself replaying the image to make sure she had not wanted it. She reassured herself, then ran the test again. Each time it took longer. She pulled out a tissue and folded it twice on her knee. From the kitchen, her sister asked, “Sugar?” “A little,” she said. It was a simple question that could bring her attention back to the visit. But she kept searching for an answer to the question she had created on her own.

In a silent hall, the thought of shouting may cross your mind, though you do not want to shout. Does the thought describe what you wish for, or something that passed through your head? And what do you do when this guest shocks you: chase it, or stop your day to investigate what it says about you?

Having a Thought Does Not Mean Wanting It

If a thought like this crosses your mind, does that mean you really want it, or that it reveals something hidden inside you? Neither is true.

Your mind produces random thoughts all day. Some are pleasant, some strange, some very disturbing. Most pass unnoticed. A few shock us, and we linger over them.

In an early study, researchers Jack Rachman and Padmal de Silva asked ordinary people, rather than patients, a question: did they experience disturbing, aggressive, or strange thoughts?¹

About 80% said yes. The form and some of the content of their thoughts resembled those of people with obsessive-compulsive disorder. But the thoughts differed in their frequency, duration, intensity, and effects.

Decades later, an international research team collected data from hundreds of university students in 13 countries across six continents². More than 90% confirmed that unwanted thoughts visited them from time to time: sometimes about harm, sometimes doubts, sometimes images they did not want to see. Almost no one was exempt, however calm they seemed on the outside.

Some thoughts reflect your preoccupations or your fears for what you care about. Others pass through without a cause you can identify. You do not have to know the reason for every thought to let it pass.

When You Believe the Guest, or Force It Away

The first mistake is believing the guest: thinking the thought reveals a genuine inner intention. Therapist Russ Harris calls this fusion. In his book The Happiness Trap³, he explains that when a thought sticks to you, it becomes you, instead of remaining a thought or an image that passed through your mind.

The alternative is defusion: noticing the thought from a distance. You tell yourself, “I notice that I had this thought,” rather than “This is who I am.” That distance alone weakens its grip. Why give a passing guest the power to pass judgment on us?

The second mistake is trying to force the guest away, repeating to ourselves, “Don’t think about this. Don’t think about this.” Here comes the paradox.

In his book “White Bears and Other Unwanted Thoughts”⁴, psychologist Daniel Wegner explains why it is hard to drive a thought away. He asked a group to avoid thinking about a white bear for five minutes and to ring a bell whenever they thought of one⁵. They tried hard, yet rang the bell repeatedly. More surprisingly, when they were later asked to think about it, they thought about it more than a group asked to think about it from the outset.

The difference between suppression and defusion is no small detail. Trying to force a thought out says, “Leave.” That alone keeps your attention fixed on it. Defusion says, “Pass through if you like. I won’t stop you or chase you.” You do not have to feel immediate relief from it. Continuing with what matters to you while it is still there is the change you are practicing.

When the Question Was Spoken Aloud

Abu Hurayrah recounts that some of the Prophet’s ﷺ companions came to ask him about thoughts they experienced but considered too grave to speak of. He asked whether they had experienced them, and they said yes. The account gives the question and answer. It does not name those who had the thoughts or describe their thoughts one by one⁶.

They came and asked. What they were experiencing became a question spoken aloud, rather than a judgment each made about himself in isolation.

“That is the faith manifest.” (Muslim 132)

The Prophet ﷺ said this to companions who had come to complain of thoughts they felt too ashamed to voice. He did not rebuke them. He reassured them: finding the thought grave and being troubled by it is pure faith itself, rather than its opposite. Elsewhere, there is a practical step for intrusive whispers that cross the mind: “one should seek refuge with Allah and give up such thoughts.” (Al-Bukhari 3276)⁷, meaning: stop pursuing the thought through argument. Do not open an endless conversation with it.

The Passing Guest

When to use it: When you turn a disturbing thought into a judgment on your intentions or yourself. Time needed: A moment to name it, then a return to what you are doing. Do not wait for it to disappear within a set time.

Let it pass. Do not stop your day to watch for its departure.

Call it a thought, not a fact: When a disturbing thought passes through, silently tell yourself, “This is a passing thought,” rather than “This is me.” The first phrase opens up distance. The second closes it.
Do not argue with it: Do not enter a repeated interrogation: why did I think this? What if I really want it? You do not have to wring certainty out of every thought.
Do not drive it out: Let it be present without giving it all your attention or checking every moment to see whether it has gone.
Return to a concrete action: Finish the page you were reading, return to the lecture, or keep folding the laundry. Do not wait for the thought to disappear before continuing your day.
Try it tonight: The next time a disturbing thought visits, call it “a passing guest.” Then continue what you were doing, even if some discomfort remains.

If you fall: If you return to arguing with the thought, notice it and return to the same action. Do not start a second trial because the first went on too long.

When Lina held the baby again, the image returned. She told herself, “I notice that I had this thought.” Then she immediately wondered whether she had said it the right way. She had begun checking her previous attempt all over again.

She noticed what she was doing and returned to the “If you fall” line: leave the argument and continue the action. She adjusted the baby’s sleeve and began talking with her sister about how much sugar she had put in the tea. Some discomfort remained. And she stayed for the visit.

Before leaving, she told her sister, “I had an image of her falling from my hands. It frightened me, and I didn’t want it.” Her sister put her spoon on the saucer and sat down. “And you didn’t tell me?” Lina said, “I thought having it meant something about me.”

She told her about the interview email too. Only Lina’s husband and her friend had known the date. Her father, who still said, “An accountant at a respectable company,” knew about neither the course nor the interview. In the hallway, Lina said, “The thought passes through, and I choose what I do.” Then she reached out and held the baby to say goodbye.

When should you seek help?

What we have described is a process most people experience, not an illness. But if these thoughts, or the rituals you repeat to reassure yourself, cause noticeable distress, disrupt your life, or take up a great deal of your time, consult a professional for an assessment. You do not need to have all these signs. Rituals are not always visible actions, such as repeated checking. They can happen entirely in the mind: endless reviewing or a search for certainty that never comes. This may be what professionals call obsessive-compulsive disorder. Assessing it is the professional’s job, not the book’s. It has an effective treatment known as exposure and response prevention. Sometimes obsessions take a religious form: repeated fear that worship or intention is invalid, despite taking great care with them. Seeking help for this is not a sign of weak faith. It is a step toward the peace everyone deserves. It does not cancel the steps above. It adds support for anyone who needs more help than those steps can offer.

The Guest Book

Write in a notebook, or somewhere that will not distract you. Take your time. Some questions call for more honesty than others:

What thought has visited you more than once, without your telling anyone?
When a thought like this passes through, what do you usually do: argue with it, force it away, or let it pass?
Can you leave “What does this thought mean about me?” unanswered for now, then return to an action you choose?

On the night before the interview, Lina turned off the light at ten and told herself she would sleep. She arranged her shoes beside the door and put her portfolio on top of her bag. Then she lay down with her phone within reach.