Dear  Scott:

You wrote: “The thoughts feel so painful at times and at other times don’t really phase me”-

At times the thoughts are associated with emotion (pain/ distress). At other times the thoughts are not associated with emotion. When you think of your girlfriend sexual past again, notice: are the thoughts associated with emotion, this time, or are they separated from emotion? Notice when you feel the beginning of an emotion, the beginning sensations (heart beating faster?)

Then, take a few deep breaths and remember those other times when these thoughts do not phase you, when they are divorced from emotion and … sort of, go to that place in your brain that made that possible in the past. Duplicate it, so to speak.

Do it again and again, every time you notice the beginning of the thinking.

anita