Any situation has the potential to impact how we think, how we feel, and how we behave. Often, I’m able to behave in a way that shifts a situation so that things feel better for me. At the same time, my influence on my environment is limited and pain is a part of life. Sometimes we’re going to be in painful situations, and our only power will be to shift our thoughts so that we’re minimizing rather than maximizing our pain.
I’m so grateful for my thoughts and my feelings. My beliefs are an enormous part of who I am. My judgement has gotten me through a lot of hard times and helped me to make decisions that align with who and how I want to be. My pleasant feelings have guided me toward goodness, and my unpleasant feelings have steered me away from things that aren’t good for me. I’m also grateful that I learned a long time ago to separate out feelings from facts from beliefs. I don’t have to know what is good or bad, right or wrong. I get to decide what I believe based on the facts available to me, and rest in the assurance that I’m not supposed to know everything and it’s not my responsibility to decide what is right or wrong for anyone else. My beliefs can guide my choices and I don’t have to know if what I believe is universally right. My emotions can guide my choices and I don’t have to worry about whether or not my feelings are right for anyone else.
In this article, I’m using the words “thought” and “belief” interchangeably to describe how a person interprets or frames available facts. I’m using the words “feeling” and “emotion” interchangeably to describe a felt sense such as happy, calm, sad, or angry. A fact describes something that is known or proven to be true and not subject to debate. It amazes me how often people fail to distinguish facts from thoughts from feelings. In the English language, people often use the phrase “I feel” as an introduction to a thought, which just confuses things further. At any rate, if we’re going to better manage our thoughts, we first need to build conscious awareness of them.
So many of our emotions are based more on our interpretations of events than on the events themselves. And thoughts can happen so quickly and automatically that we may not even realize there’s a thought in between the event and the emotional response. Over time, as we practice building conscious awareness of the thoughts that are feeding our emotions, we can also become skilled at noticing and shifting the thoughts that aren’t being helpful. This is an internal job. Other people may be able to help us notice what we’re thinking, how that’s impacting us, and propose alternative thoughts that may be helpful. But at the end of the day, it’s up to me to decide what’s helpful for me. I get to choose.
Shifting our beliefs can go awry when we try to change them too drastically. This is often where people get it wrong, and where we can confuse rather than help ourselves. If I’m telling myself “I’m not safe,” for example, that belief serves some purpose. Perhaps I want to shift this belief because I notice that it feeds my anxiety and makes it harder for me to cope. That doesn’t necessarily mean I should try to turn it 180 degrees all the way to “I am safe.” There are numerous possibilities in between. If I notice that telling myself “I’m not safe” isn’t being helpful, I may try changing it to “I don’t feel safe AND nothing bad is happening to me right now.” We don’t want to trick ourselves into believing something that doesn’t feel right, but rather expand our thinking to include whatever information is helpful while still allowing space for whatever emotions and hard realities are relevant to our experience.
Before I say more about thoughts, let me clarify that the nervous system takes precedence over the conscious mind in terms of interpreting and responding to what’s happening in the present. This is biology and we can’t change that. When we feel safe enough, there’s communication between the thinking part of the brain and the brain’s emergency response system. We can work with our thoughts in this state. When our nervous system is in emergency response mode, the thinking brain essentially goes offline and other approaches will be more helpful.
A good way to work with our thoughts is to notice if those thoughts are both realistic and helpful. If the thought isn’t based in reality, it can’t be helpful. And even a realistic thought may be unhelpful depending on how it’s impacting my emotions. All emotions, including unpleasant emotions, have the potential to be helpful. But if the intensity of the emotion doesn’t fit the current facts, or if the emotion is somehow preventing me from taking good care of myself, I may want to see about shifting the beliefs connected to those emotions.
When we come to recognize the possibility that our thoughts may be contributing to our suffering, this creates space to begin to change our thoughts. It’s often helpful to write down our thoughts or say them out loud to ourselves or another person. This gets them out of the confines of our minds and makes them more concrete and easier to work with from a helpful distance.
One exercise many people find helpful is to practice keeping a thought log. This is different from a freeform style of journaling in which you write down whatever comes to mind. A thought log is a structured approach in which you identify one very specific situation that’s impacting you. You write down (a) the situation – just the facts, (b) your thoughts about the situation – how you’re interpreting the facts, (c) your feelings – what emotions arise and in what intensity when you think about this specific situation, and (d) your behavior – what you’re doing in response to the situation. Once you’ve written this all down, you can then go back and check your thoughts to see if they’re both realistic and helpful. If not, you can write down alternative thoughts and just see where that gets you.
An alternative belief doesn’t have to feel true now, as long as it feels like there’s any possibility that it might be true. The word “and” can be helpful in bringing together hard realities with more comforting realities. The word “yet” can be helpful in opening up possibilities for a better future. The word “may” can be helpful in acknowledging the limits of our ability to know. Rather than telling myself “Something terrible is going to happen,” I can say “Something terrible may happen and something wonderful may happen. I don’t know what the future holds yet.” Rather than telling myself “Nobody loves me,” I can tell myself “I don’t have the love I want yet,” or “Even though I don’t feel loved, I know that people love me.” If it’s hard to identify alternative thoughts, it may be useful to ask another person for ideas. Over time, as you regularly use this thought log approach, you may be surprised to find that your automatic thoughts are naturally becoming more realistic and helpful.
Having identified a belief that contributes to our suffering, we can imagine new beliefs that have the potential to foster hope, meaning, and purpose - beliefs that contribute to our mental health and wellness. Working to shift our thoughts as a part of mental health recovery isn’t about “positive thinking.” Sometimes life is just hard and it’s helpful to acknowledge that. And while thoughts play a huge role in how we feel and how we behave, they’re still just one part of a much bigger picture. At the same time, it can be pleasantly surprising to notice how helpful, empowering, and reassuring shifting our beliefs can be.