Topic Tuesday // Tues, 15 March, 7pm AEDT // Managing and changing your thoughts

[CherryBomb]

No need to apologise @Former-Member - I was just trying to give you an update so that you wouldn't need to read over. 

[Jacques]

I do try to change the way i think, but how do i combat it when i have mums friends and family, politicians and media commentators saying such awful things about people on welfare, it is so hard to change my thought patterns when their are so many sources of distress for me 😞

[Shaz51]

Hi @Shimmer,  my husband and I work together , and I usually plan the week with the jobs we have , after each job and at the end of the day i will bring up all the postive things we have done .

Like -- My husband will say oh no it is raining

But I will say -- lucky we have a inside job today

[CherryBomb]

@Shimmer are there any other techniques that we could use to challenge unhelpful thinking?

[CherryBomb]

---

@Shaz51 wrote:

Hi @Shimmer,  my husband and I work together , and I usually plan the week with the jobs we have , after each job and at the end of the day i will bring up all the postive things we have done .

Like -- My husband will say oh no it is raining

But I will say -- lucky we have a inside job today

---

I love this @Shaz51 because it shows us how we can gently challenge others way of thinking too. 

[Shimmer]

Changing your thinking patterns does not just influence your thoughts - it also affects your emotions and the way you approach situations.

Over time, you can develop new patterns of thinking that are more helpful, that is, that produce more positive emotions and actions. As these new patterns become more automatic, they can lead to more positive experiences that can modify your beliefs about yourself, others and the world, breaking the patterns that keep you stuck feeling distressed.

To use @CherryBomb's example, changing "I don't belong here, I feel like an imposter" to "I do belong here, I was invited just like everyone else" is likely to increase her confidence in approaching presentations, and make her more likley to put herself forward. This gives her an opportunity to challenge the belief that she is an imposter, by seeing what actually happens when she does present. If she then gets a good reception from the audience, this becomes evidence against the belief that she is an imposter, and further opens up her opportunities to increase her confidence. Even if the presentation doesn't go as well as she hopes, she has still shown that she can do it, and cope with the anxiety it may bring. So then it becomes a positive trajectory, rather than a negative cycle.

[CherryBomb]

TIME CHECK: only another 15 minutes left, so it's now time to start sharing some final remarks for tonight. 

[Shimmer]

Hey @CherryBomb, yes, there is another way of managing distressing thoughts other than challenging them directly - you can use a mindfulness approach. 

This is when you can notice thoughts in a curious and non-judgmental way, and allow them to pass without having an effect on your emotions or behaviours. You can consider thoughts like clouds passing through the sky, which you can observe, without needing to respond. One simple way to recognise that thoughts are just thoughts is to add the statement “I’m having the thought that…” to whatever you are thinking. Another is by naming the story e.g. "the I'm not good enough story", and whenever thoughts in line with the story come up again you can just think "there's the I'm not good enough story again - thanks mind!" then keep doing whatever you were doing.

Is anyone familiar with mindfulness techniques like these? If you’re interested in finding out more you might like to look into mindfulness and Acceptance and Commitment Therapy approaches.

[Former-Member]

Thank you @Shimmer and @CherryBomb for the info tonight. Thanks to everyone for sharing,
Cheers
Lj

[CherryBomb]

@Shimmer Are there specific diagnoses that CBT is more relevant for? What happens if CBT doesn’t work for me? Different approaches?