"I wrote about this experience with intrusive thoughts in my book Easy Street: A Story of Redemption From Myself, where I described it as feeling like "I was under assault from within, both the perpetrator and the victim of a mental crime." The more I tried to make the thoughts stop, the tighter they clung. The trick, I eventually discovered, was not to tighten but to loosen. Not to control but to allow."
"Uitwaaien (pronounced OUT-vah-yen) literally means "to walk in the wind." But it is not just about a stroll. It is about letting the wind blow your head clean. The Dutch have long used this as a restorative practice. When the weather turns blustery, people put on their coats and head for the dunes, the coast, or the open fields. They let the wind do what it does best: move things around."
Intrusive thoughts can feel like an internal assault in which the mind becomes both perpetrator and victim. Attempts to forcefully stop or control such thoughts often tighten their hold. Loosening and allowing thoughts to move, rather than sealing them off, reduces their intensity. Uitwaaien, a Dutch practice meaning 'to walk in the wind,' involves deliberately going out into blustery weather to let the wind move mental clutter. Walking the dunes, coast, or open fields while exposed to wind functions as a restorative, de-centering experience. Using uitwaaien as a cue—'Time to go uitwaaien'—encourages airing thoughts and letting something larger shift mental patterns.
Read at Psychology Today
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