"Don't believe everything you think" is an especially apt phrase for a therapists office. If you haven't been to therapy, or if you have, you probably know that a lot of time in therapy is spent talking about your thoughts and feelings. As it turns out, the two are more related than I ever used to think before I learned of cognitive-behavioral therapy (CBT).
CBT holds that people's mental sufferings are at the core, based on their defective thoughts. It goes like this: a thought happens, you have a feeling based on that thought, and you act on your feeling. So all your actions, based on your beliefs, your interpersonal relations, things you do with your time, and your ideas of self worth stem from your thoughts. So, the bottom line is creating more healthier, positive thoughts to base your mindset on to contribute to a better feeling and acting person.
This begs the question, is there something wrong with our thoughts? What are thoughts? Thoughts can't be seen, not even in expensive brain MRI equipment. They flit through our mental neural network- leading in turn to fear, anxiety, worry, happiness. So, why not believe your thoughts?
Well, while thoughts are a natural biological process, that doesn't mean they are good or free from bias. All our thoughts are created from an infinitely long collection of our past thoughts, our thought-judgements becoming a habitual force in our lives. CBT tells us that often its the case that our thoughts themselves are distorted. David Burns, pioneer of CBT, wrote of common cognitive distortions that cause problems for us down the road.
For example, ones that affect me most are:
overgeneralizing (taking one bad thing that happened and acting like that is always what happens),
filtering, amplifying the negative, disqualifying the positive (picking out the negative to dwell on and obscuring / minimizing /disqualifying the positive),
all or nothing thinking (thinking that what happens is all bad, rather than noticing pros and cons; crisis versus opportunity, and if something is short of perfect, its all bad),
comparing (comparing yourself to others when in reality everyone's situation in relation to your personal histories makes it unwise and useless to compare between people),
using should statements (I should have fun stuff to do on the weekends), which makes you unsatisfied, and includes comparisons and upholding false self beliefs,
and taking things personally (believing that really the person in responding to you and only you, and that everything bad that happens in your life is automatically your fault, versus being an external situation that you have little part in)
acting based on jumping to conclusions, like that you 'know' someone
dislikes you, and that you 'know' how the situation will work out,
rather than listening to evidence to the contrary,
acting based on emotional feeling (this feels scary, so it is scary, so I'm going to avoid it)
labeling ('I messed up so I'm a sucky loser), and labeling too harshly
Cognitive distortions that don't affect me are heaven's reward (people should act according to a rewards system, acting good will earn you a reward), projecting yourself onto others and being dissatisfied when they don't act as you would (assuming people should act in a way that makes sense to you), needing to be in control of the situation.
Thinking negatively or pessimistically in general, which causes you to obscure or forget positive things, what fun is that? I have a negative dad and trust me, its no fun at all. Be aware that your own negativity is easily transferred onto others and it will spoil their mood, especially if they don't have the defenses to cope with it. Now to add to cognitive distortions that there are self defeating beliefs like 'Life should be easy, I should be happy, Life is terrible if alone and unloved, without love I can't be happy, feeling victimized, I'm inferior - and there is too much wrong with me to fix, I can never live up to my expectations'. These statements are cognitive distortions, but they are different mainly because they are self critical and therefore self defeating, rather than merely negative.
These statements greatly contribute to one's feeling hopeless and helpless about their past, current, and future situations. Letting go of these thoughts is hard because the are automatically brought on my stress and situations which remind us of past situations where low self esteem failed us, and it feels ingrained, that our outlook on life has been justly deserved by our past failures. This leads myself and others to feeling unempowered, which contributes to hopelessness and helplessness. We feel as though we fail ourselves, day after day, holding onto unfair expectations and belittling our efforts, or ceasing to make effort in the case of depression. For me, depression is unhappiness, dissatisfaction, and a copious and odious lack of empowerment. These cognitive distortions lead to feelings of depression because they can cause misinterpretation of events and circumstances and contribute to feeling low. In simple terms, as my therapist said, 'thinking negatively makes you feel bad'.
It is helpful to know at this point that while many of us have cognitive distortions ingrained from years or a lifetime of habit, such thoughts, and the feelings and behaviors they encapsulate, can change. They have the potential to be reworked and revamped into something more true and accessibly positive. Again and again, awareness seems to be the ticket for change. Being aware of your thoughts, such the distortions and negative and overly self critical judgements, allows you notice that you can be too harsh on yourself and may be causing or adding to your suffering. Incorporating awareness can let us challenge our thoughts and
open yourself up to other ways of thinking and being. Its positive psychology at the core. You can try it out for yourself by asking the question - should I believe what I think?
Also I'd like to write a post about the interesting overlays between CBT and Buddhism; it seems that CBT and Buddhism are the same in regards to thinking, and merely that Buddhism overlaps CBT by some 2,000 years. There's alot of examples, like that being negative makes us feel low, the thought distortions like 'life should be easy (not if you believe in eternal suffering!). CBT is just a modern, thought out and specified version, but I noticed so many similarities in CBT thought restructuring as with Buddhism, purifying your mind.
In conclusion, "thoughts crystallize into habits, habits solidify into circumstances". I like this quote because it makes me think of the point in science/chemistry where you learn about change-of-state, from solid to liquid to gas. And the imagery is nice of crystallization, of it being a process that can be changed, and of solidification being the direct effect of your thoughts crystallizing. But that what now seems solidified can still change because the crystals can be shattered; you can change your thinking and form a new platform on which for better thoughts to form and solidify and hopefully lead to better circumstances for yourself and others.
And don't believe everything you think because your thinking may be severely distorted. Maybe don't even believe what you know to be true, since that could be based on past distortions too. Sorry if this muddles you, but it probably gives you alot to think about.
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