What you think matters, CBT in therapy and how it works

What you think matters

The thoughts you have about yourself, your family, your job, your abilities, etc. These all matter.

They matter because they can impact the experience of your life you have.

This is outlined in the Cognitive Behavioural Therapy model (CBT).

Our thoughts lead to our feelings
Our feelings are what we act from
How we act creates our experience in life.

And we can all have different thoughts about the SAME thing.

For example, if you are at home with your kids and they somehow got paint on the floor’, we will all have different thoughts. . . .

Those kids are so careless
That’s fine, we can scrape it off
Just another thing for me to clean up now
I should have never let them paint there
Ok, we’ll figure it out

(Of course, if we feel out of our window of tolerance, we will have different level of capacity and therefore different types of thoughts about a situation)

The first step of using the CBT model is NOTICING

Notice the thoughts you have.

Notice the stories and sentences in your head that are there about your life, yourself, your partner, your kids.

Notice how different people have different thoughts about things than you do. The temptation is to oppose them or judge them. Instead, just notice there is a difference.

Then, consider what you notice about your own thoughts, feelings and behaviours.

For instance, if you are thinking that you aren’t a good enough mom, how do you feel about yourself/your role/your life? How do you show up as a parent? What outcome is that giving you?

If you think that you are the one who always has to volunteer for everything, what are your feeling? How are you showing up for the work? What outcome is that giving you?

Maybe you could imagine thinking that your husband is ignoring you because he doesn’t text you back right away. How do you feel towards him/your marriage? What do you do from this emotion? How do you act? How does that play out in your relationship?

The point here isn’t whether or not we can prove the thought is ‘right’, but to notice how it impacts the system of our emotions, actions and experiences.

The other thing here is, yes, to consider that your thoughts aren’t always
intentional or fully true. In fact, they are loaded with opinions, assumptions and fears.

Thoughts happen on autopilot. We often aren’t intentionally choosing the thoughts we want to have. We just notice a thought and believe it is true.
- The more we think a thought, the more habitual it becomes.
  This is a way our brain saves energy, it moves things to the subconscious so it happens out of our conscious effort.
  The same way you can brush your teeth without thinking about it is the same way you can default to self-judgement, defensiveness, anxiety, etc without consciously choosing those thoughts.
Thoughts are options. Our thought life is a product of so many things: our upbringing, our culture, our experiences, our insecurities, and so on.
- We have so many thoughts that were handed down to us from our upbringing. They are thoughts about what a ‘good mom’ should be, thoughts about what needs we are allowed to have, thoughts about how people should handle conflict, and so on.
Thoughts are not always true. We have self-protective thoughts and thoughts that filter out other truths. These are called cognitive distortions. . .

And thoughts can be shifted

Yes, the thoughts you have now are habitual. They are well-established in your brain. They can happen without you even noticing and similar situations re-trigger them before you even realize what is happening.

But our brain can do something cool, it can learn new connections.

This is called Neuroplasticity.

You get to change your mind.

You can unlearn thoughts that no longer serve you or help you build up the life you want.
You can practice new thoughts that feel true, supportive and compassionate and most importantly (my favourite quality for a new thought to have) empowered.

I don’t aim to use this work to bypass the thoughts and feelings we DO have (those deserve our acceptance and caring too). I aim to use this work to show other options that are possible and to complete the picture of what shapes our experiences.

Because the tendency is to over focus on feelings.

Most of us simply want to ‘feel better’. We want to get out of any uncomfortable feelings we have.

We lose the opportunity to address our stories and take responsibility for our actions.

Or we might over-focus on the behaviours/actions.

We want to stop doing something we don’t like, or make ourselves do something we feel we ‘should’.

We get hyper-focussed on goals and habits that we forget to also do the work on our thoughts and emotions too.

Why bother with CBT work?

CBT work is evidence-based. “Numerous research studies suggest that CBT leads to significant improvement in functioning and quality of life.” (American Psychological Association)

Still, the best reason I can think of to pay attention to your thoughts and do the work of choosing the ones that are most useful to you is this: you. You matter.

How you feel about things matters.

Your experience of your life matters.

There is an opportunity to take power and ownership. There is an opportunity to do the work of shifting into thoughts that are more useful to you and the life you want.

If you are interested in learning more about CBT, check out this PowerPoint I’ve presented to groups in the past.

CBT is something I use in my work, but I use it alongside other modalities. Because it is not as simple as ‘think happy be happy’, there is more to address that we can’t bypass with positive affirmations.

But doing CBT work will set a foundation for you to really learn your own mind and heart, and start to be the leader of your own mind and heart, and therefore of your life.