Once during a therapy session I was asked what my goal for therapy was. “I just want to consistently feel good about myself,” I said. Easier said than done sometimes.
The book “Feeling Good” by David D. Burns, M.D. talks about the voices in your head. You know, the nasty little whispers and mutters about how you’re going to fail, you always fail, because you’re an impostor who inexplicably fell into this role of responsibility, certainly not because you earned it or know what you are doing, and everybody thinks you’re in over your head, etc. etc. etc.
Dr. Burns writes about a concept called “Cognitive Therapy.” The idea is that you can change how you feel by noticing and altering your thinking patterns. In particular, he recommends that you focus on forms of “distorted thinking.” For example, it is one thing to acknowledge that you have failed in some way (and ideally learn from the mistake and move on)—it is quite another to make the leap that you are a failure and to label yourself as a failure. This kind of exaggerated, catastrophic thinking is guaranteed to make you feel bad. If you can first recognize these types of feelings and then argue yourself out of them, you are on the way to feeling good.
Another kind of distorted thinking is “mind reading” – when you are sure that a friend, family member or co-worker is angry with you, or disappointed in you, or sad because of you, with no real evidence of this.
One of the ones I am an expert at is personalization – where I blame myself for things not in my realm of responsibility and take on ownership for all manner of things that have nothing to do with me. In other words, it is all about me – I knew it, I knew it.
Not only does Dr. Burns go over each of these types of “cognitive distortions,” but also he discusses in great detail, with lots of practical suggestions and worksheets, and stories and examples, how to fight off these “automatic thoughts” with rational responses – what I think of in my own case as “talking back to myself.” I strongly recommend this book – it has made a big different in how I respond to events in my life.
The book “Feeling Good” by David D. Burns, M.D. talks about the voices in your head. You know, the nasty little whispers and mutters about how you’re going to fail, you always fail, because you’re an impostor who inexplicably fell into this role of responsibility, certainly not because you earned it or know what you are doing, and everybody thinks you’re in over your head, etc. etc. etc.
Dr. Burns writes about a concept called “Cognitive Therapy.” The idea is that you can change how you feel by noticing and altering your thinking patterns. In particular, he recommends that you focus on forms of “distorted thinking.” For example, it is one thing to acknowledge that you have failed in some way (and ideally learn from the mistake and move on)—it is quite another to make the leap that you are a failure and to label yourself as a failure. This kind of exaggerated, catastrophic thinking is guaranteed to make you feel bad. If you can first recognize these types of feelings and then argue yourself out of them, you are on the way to feeling good.
Another kind of distorted thinking is “mind reading” – when you are sure that a friend, family member or co-worker is angry with you, or disappointed in you, or sad because of you, with no real evidence of this.
One of the ones I am an expert at is personalization – where I blame myself for things not in my realm of responsibility and take on ownership for all manner of things that have nothing to do with me. In other words, it is all about me – I knew it, I knew it.
Not only does Dr. Burns go over each of these types of “cognitive distortions,” but also he discusses in great detail, with lots of practical suggestions and worksheets, and stories and examples, how to fight off these “automatic thoughts” with rational responses – what I think of in my own case as “talking back to myself.” I strongly recommend this book – it has made a big different in how I respond to events in my life.
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