21 FEBRUARY 2024 – SHARLA BORROWMAN
Challenging Thoughts
Today on the blog I want to explore the idea that challenging our assumptions & examining our thoughts can lead us to live fuller, happier lives. Research has shown that becoming aware of our own thought patterns and cognitive distortions, especially our pet favorites that we tend to use a lot, can be very helpful in improving our mood & allowing us to feel better more consistently. This basically means practicing watching your own brain throughout the day and noticing any negative, defensive, overblown, or anxious thoughts that might be present, quietly (or sometime not so quietly!) puppeteering things from the background. Often times our thoughts are so quick that we hardly even recognize we have thought something at all. We can end up operating on a premise that was established in our minds as young children that we have taken for granted all these years – it’s just “how things are” or ”how things should be”.
These assumptions can float around in the background of our thoughts like ambient music in our minds that we don’t realize is even playing, but it’s still setting the tone for how we interpret what is going on in our lives. These core beliefs and automatic thoughts aren’t always dysfunctional, but really paying attention to your mood, and then being willing to do a bit of mental exploration to examine what you were thinking and why, can help you discern more clearly their effect, and then decide whether they are serving you well or not. This mental observation of ourselves can eventually become freeing if we are able move away from any unhelpful messages or distortions we unintentionally keep on repeat in the background.
Cognitive Distortions
For those of you who need a little refresher, cognitive distortions are an exaggerated or irrational thought pattern that causes us to perceive reality inaccurately and often leads us to feel more negative emotions. This in turn frequently produces unhelpful behaviors and leads to unsatisfactory results in our lives. These distorted thoughts can also contribute to a more pervasive overall negative outlook not only on what’s happening day to day, but also a more generally negative view of the world at large. Naturally, this can lead us to a more depressive or anxious mental state, which is the opposite of what we really want. The meaning or interpretation we give to our experiences influences whether we become depressed and whether we stay that way for long. If these kinds of negative thought patterns continue without interruption, over time it can actually change the neurology in our brains. We can end up feeling overwhelmed by life & our circumstances, and sometimes even feel incapable of affecting them positively much at all. Sadly, this difficult state of affairs is not an uncommon predicament for many of us, but it doesn’t have to stay that way! While we may all struggle with this issue from time to time, we have immense ability to change our situation if we will practice exploring and challenging our thoughts.
There are better things ahead than any we leave behind.
– C.S. Lewis
Captain Your Own Ship
It takes consistent effort to notice what we are thinking and be willing to examine our own thoughts. We may struggle at first to remember, or even to want to try, to be self introspective. After all, it may not feel natural for certain temperaments to be that way, and it can also feel hard and scary to come face to face with your own fears and biases. It then takes even more effort to challenge them and explore other valid possibilities of viewing your circumstances or other people’s behaviors. Yet I believe it is necessary and important work to practice altering the internal messages we choose to allow and embrace. Because we are the master of our own ship, we are empowered to decide what perspective we will allow to steer our thoughts. We can choose to question ourselves and our assumptions. We can check the way we speak to, and about, ourselves and others in the private space of our own minds. I love that we can decide to think what we want and how we will approach life, choosing thoughts that allow us to feel the way we want to feel, to embrace something healthier and more positive.
All of this is a process and it takes time to get good at it. We may find that we need to simply begin to gently move our thoughts toward curiosity and neutrality at first if it feels unnatural or unrealistic to completely alter the lense we are used to viewing the world through. We might not be able to love and believe the very best about someone difficult in our lives right away, but we can still move toward wondering if maybe their own motives or behaviors are not quite what we thought. We can begin to gradually make room to give them the benefit of the doubt, (always assuming abuse is not part of the relationship in question).
It’s been said that one does not discover new lands without consenting to lose sight of the shore – it can feel disorienting to shake up your familiar mental pathways. Your brain often doesn’t like things to change too much because what is unfamiliar feels uncertain, and uncertainty feels less safe. So we often have to fight our brains initially as they do what they think they should in trying to keep us safe. It’s not only ok, but necessary, to speak to yourself and remind yourself that even though it might feel unnatural at first, you are better off not going down the same mental pathway just because it’s familiar. We want to embrace exploring that new shore.
“There are better things ahead than any we leave behind.” - C.S. Lewis
I believe this is true for many situations, and certainly here in the realm of training your brain to challenge thoughts that are not serving you well, no matter how familiar. Doubts may arise about new healthier beliefs because our brain is naturally wired to seek evidence that what we have believed for so long is right, but we do not always need to heed those doubts. Dr Slade is fond of reminding us that we can believe something with a great deal of conviction and be completely wrong. So be willing to leave behind those thoughts that are not allowing you to progress forward in healthy and happy ways in your relationship with yourself and others. Fighting those tides will be worth it!
-RESOURCES-
If you are interested in learning more about this topic, you can listen to a couple great interview podcasts by Dr Denim Slade on his Healthy + Happy channel on YouTube or on Spotify. A couple specifically geared toward rewiring the brain include his year 2020 episode 9 “Core beliefs and rewiring the brain”, or year 2022 episode 21 “Core beliefs: what it takes to change them”.
Alternatively, if you would like help with exploring some of your own uncharted mental emotional waters, we are happy to help assist you in your journey! You can join our Healthy + Happy Program at you.drdenimslade.com/