In cases where I am having a lot of repetitive thoughts or worries, instead of trying to stop them, I just assign a part of my brain to do the thinking/worrying and have that go on in the background so it doesn't interfere with what I am doing in the moment. I visualize it like throwing a dog a bone and letting them gnaw on it as much as they want in a corner of the brain somewhere. So the need to think about this topic is not thwarted but it doesn't take center stage and interfere too much with what I need to get done in "real life." I can feel the brain "gnawing" on the topic somewhere distantly but it doesn't cause impairment. And sometimes that distant gnawing actually results in solutions that I find helpful and then they pop into my forward mind--case solved! Nice doggie.