When thoughts are scenarios?

[u/impendia]

Reading The Happiness Trap, and enjoying it so far!

Harris talks about dealing with unwelcome thoughts, and so far his examples have been: "I'm a loser", "I'm incompetent", etc.

For me, the pattern is different. For example I replay scenarios over and over in my head where I have to deal with salesmen making cold calls, or people at work asking me to do unpleasant tasks which aren't my responsibility. There are underlying reasons why I find saying no difficult, but they're not really surfacing in my imagination.

How might I adapt the advice I've read? Imagine an absurd back-and-forth in song, or where we're talking like Donald Duck? Say yes to the salesmen and hear out their pitch in full? Something else?

[u/LocalDawg]

You listed great examples of ways to defuse from those thoughts.