Human truth bomb #1:You are what you think!

Hello and welcome back to the B Spot! That place that gives you almost therapy but not quite therapy. I’m Brian Heller and I’m your host and today we’re talking about one of my favorite topics, the power of thought. The idea that thoughts have real energy, and affect not only our emotions but the universe as well.  Think about how much time you spend thinking about life, about yourself, about others. Listening to that story that runs in your head all the time. There is no greater factor in determining the quality of your life, your existence, than your thoughts. 

Transcript

Hello and welcome back to the B spot. The place that's almost therapy but not quite therapy. I'm Brian Heller and I'm your host. And today we are going to kick off the five human truth bomb series with Truth bomb #1, which is you are what you think. And you know each of the five truth bombs are important, but this one is the most important because our thoughts are at the core of everything that we experience. So all of those other things have to do with our thoughts, with our thinking. And so that's really, where cognitive behavior therapy comes in and why I've chosen that is my theoretical approach to counseling because I do believe that what we tell ourselves creates the feelings that we experience and the feelings that we experience lead to the things that we do, the actions, the behaviors and those actions and behaviors lead to the next set of events that we have to deal with and think about how we're going to think about. So cognitive behavior therapy is basically the idea that it's all your fault. And how you feel is all your fault. And while that may sound harsh, it's also really cool, because if it's all your fault, that means you don't need anybody else to fix it. See if you if you don't take full responsibility for your thoughts. Then you're looking for someone else to help you fix the way you feel, but they can't because your thoughts are yours.

 So when we talk about the idea of cognitive behavior therapy, one of the easiest ways to kind of conceptualize it is called the rainy day example. So in in the rainy day example, you have a golfer and a farmer. And they both walk outside. It's pouring down rain. Golfer is mad. Farmer is happy. Rain is just rain. So what's the difference? Well, the difference is the farmer is thinking. Positively about the rain, right. The rain brings money to his and food to his table. The golfer is thinking negatively about the rain. It ruins golfer's plans. So the only difference is the the filter through which they look at the situation. So the. The lenses right. Have you seen those colored lens glasses and you put them on and everything is blue or red or are? Well, the same thing is true with our thoughts, right? So when we tell ourselves that story, it's like putting on colored lenses. So then everything looks that color.

 So some of the ways that this plays out in life, I mean it's everywhere. Everywhere, so I don't drive nearly as much now as I used to, but when I did, other drivers would frustrate me and I would sometimes find myself feeling angry alone in my car. Hunched up on the steering wheel, feeling angry. And then I got to the point where I could just look at myself in the mirror and laugh because I have no one to blame for my anger or frustration except me. I'm the one that has the narrative in my head telling me how unfair or how unpleasant this situation is, and I'm the one creating my feelings. So what do I do? I take a deep breath. Sit back, turn the music up and allow myself to just enjoy the experience of driving, reminding myself that I am the one in control of my experience because I am the one in control of my thoughts. There are many different ways I can think about that car in front of me. I can think about it as a driver who is personally attacking me, or I can think it about it as a driver that is doing the best they can. And that difference will determine. My mood while I'm driving myself alone in my car. No one else can make me mad but me.

So remembering that so our thoughts are also important because of this tricky little human condition called confirmation bias. Confirmation bias makes us all want to be right. So whatever we tell ourselves. We want to be right and we look for evidence to prove that we are right. So if we tell ourselves that people suck, then we go out and look for examples of people not being good people. If we tell ourselves that people are generally good, then we go out and we we look for and find the good in people. So those thoughts are really important because of confirmation bias and also projection. So with projection, if you have a belief in your mind about yourself, then you are going to project that onto other people and imagine that they have the same belief. So for example if I. I am insecure because I think I am short and I walk into a room and there are two taller people and they look at me and laugh. I will most likely assume and project on to them that they are laughing because they think I'm short. When in reality, that might be true, but it might also be true that they just got done telling a joke before I walked in the room, or that there's, you know, a big pile of bird poo on my shoulder that I didn't see. And they think that's funny. And you know that would that would make sense. So there are lots of other explanations, but because of projection, if I hold a belief, I'm going to project that onto other people and believe that they hold that same belief and that can create a lot of problems, as you can imagine. 

So we have to remember that every time we think something, our brains produce a chemical storm that allows us to feel a certain emotion. And so we need to be responsible with our thinking because it will lead to the way that we feel and it will be on a chemical level, which makes it really difficult. Push it away when it starts so you think about people who are angry. Well, they're angry because they are looking at the world through their angry lenses, right? They are finding lots of reasons to be angry because that's what they're looking for. People who are sad. Same thing. People who are anxious, same thing. So all of the big, major ways that we feel the dysfunctional ways that we feel. Are driven by our thoughts. So our thoughts are so important, right? And our thoughts are powerful, right? That's the the part that people forget. And you know, there have been pieces of research that have demonstrated the power of our thoughts. You know, the one that stands out is an experiment called the Double Slit experiment. In this experiment, they. Are able to shoot particles through a lead plate that has two slits in it and they measured the disbursement pattern on the backdrop and what they found is that the particles dispersed differently when they are being viewed versus when they are not. Now what are the implications of that? The implications of that are that every thought that we have emits a wave of some size, and we may not be able to see it or consciously feel it, but it is there and it is going out into the world with every thought that we have. You know, we have this idea that if I don't say it out loud, it doesn't count. So if I'm sitting beside somebody that I'm mad at and I'm thinking in my head about how mad I am at them, but as long as I don't say anything, it's fine. But that's not actually true, and it's not true for a couple of reasons. One, just by you experiencing that thought, you are creating a chemical storm of unpleasantness in your body and in your mind. And also the person who is with you is likely to feel your anger, even if they don't know what they're feeling exactly right. It's almost as if we have this orb of energy that surrounds us and all of our big emotions are within it. And when we are close to another human and our energies touch. We feel the big emotions, the big things that are swirling around that person. So if you are thinking angry thoughts, guess what? You are not really fooling anybody. That anger is still swirling around in your energy. If you're thinking guilty thoughts, guess what. You're not fooling anybody. It's swirling around in your energy. There have been a number of times where I've had couples where one person is sure the other person is up to something that they're not supposed to be doing. They just feel it. And it usually turns out they're right. Right. We have this ability to sense the energy of other people, especially when we are close to them, right, close enough for those energies to touch. So even if we don't say it out loud, it still counts and we need to take responsibility for the thoughts and that we keep to ourselves as well as the ones that we share with others. Because those thoughts will interfere with relationships, they'll they'll interfere with the way that we feel about ourselves and the way that we interact with the world. They'll interfere with our energy, the vibe that we put out to the world. So. 

So we've established that thoughts are really important and there are so many more topics on this dysfunction that we could talk about as far as cognitive distortions and lots of other ways that we mess with ourselves on a daily basis. So what do you do? It's now clear to you that thoughts are really important in determining the quality of your existence, and you recognize that. You have some unhealthy thinking, so how do you figure out what's healthy and what's unhealthy, and then what do you do with the stuff that's unhealthy? Well, one of the best ways to figure out if it's healthy or unhealthy is ask yourself if it's rational. Rational butts, his head up against emotional they rarely come together, so when we are thinking emotionally, we're likely to experience dysfunction. When we are thinking rationally, we're likely to be able to figure situations out a little bit better. So how do I determine if something's rational? The easiest way is one question. Can I prove it? If I can prove it, it's rational. If I can't prove it, it's not rational. Now there's some pretty big implications there. So that means that anytime you are thinking about anything. After this moment, you're thinking irrationally and to some extent that is true. But some of that's OK, it's about how it makes you feel. So if you're thinking irrationally and those irrational thoughts are making you feel anxious or depressed or angry or sad, then those are thoughts that need to change. If you're thinking irrationally and you're happy. You know, maybe those don't need to change as urgently. 

And so how do you change the ones that you've identified as irrational? While you treat your brain like the computer it is, you write down the thought. You draw a line through it and you rewrite the thought in a way that is rational that addresses the truth of the situation, but does so in a way that does not bring about such strong emotions. And you go through and you make a list of all the thoughts that are causing problems. When I present this to people I I'm often met with, there's no way I could do that. It would take 1000 notebooks to write down all the thoughts that I have that are causing problems. And I say, well, that may be true, but they probably fall under a handful of categories. There are probably only four or five big things big categories that your at all of your rational thoughts fall under. You know those things, those big things that those big areas of concern for you where you give yourself the? This time and when you start to write down the thoughts and pay attention to the thoughts, you notice that they fall into these categories. And so there's actually less work to do than you might think because you don't need to go through and correct every single dysfunctional thought. But you do have to correct enough to start correcting the perception that you carry right. The change that narrative. So challenge those irrational thoughts on paper and watch the change take place. 

Another thing you can do is a technique called thought stopping with thought stopping you when you noticed you were having a thought that is creating an emotion you do not like and that is most likely irrational. You can if you're alone or. Don't mind being looked at a little bit strangely. You can say out loud, stop and some people will actually print up a picture of a stop. Sign and keep that in their back pocket and on the back of that paper. I'll have them write down the things that they want to think about, things that create positive feelings for them, reminders to think about their pet or their child or their partner or their favorite place to be. Whatever brings peace. Into their mind. Learning to replace those unhealthy thoughts with healthy thoughts so thought stopping can also can be helpful. You have all the power. You have the ability to imagine things that you've never seen, and you have the ability to control your existence through. Controlling the narrative that runs in your mind, the message here is remember you have control over the story. It's yours. You are the author of the story of you. The world is not writing that story. You are through thousands of small decisions every single day.

So we've been talking a lot about thoughts today and I want to wrap it up by by addressing some realities about thoughts and anxiety, so. Learning how to control your thoughts is not the same as taking an ibuprofen when you have a headache. So you take an ibuprofen because you have a headache and you expect the ibuprofen to make the headache go away. With thoughts learning how to control your thoughts, you are building resilience, so in a proactive way, rather than a reactive way. So if you want to get the full benefit out of cognitive behavior therapy and out of the work of understanding and changing the way you think you want to take advantage of low stress moments to do this work. You don't want to try to challenge your thinking in the middle of a panic attack for the first time. That won't work. And you will continue to panic because the the biological processes that are that are creating those feelings for you aren't going to stop because you stop thinking irrationally. You likely won't be able to stop thinking irrationally in that moment. Because you're in panic mode. So the key is to do this work when you are calm. When you have a little time in the afternoon and you're feeling relaxed, start thinking about what sort of thoughts create the problems for me. Right. And then start addressing those thoughts in a proactive way rather than a reactive way. 

What it really boils down to is a question that I love to ask my kids. I love to ask my clients, I love to ask myself. What can you control? Right, that's that's really the ultimate question we should be asking ourselves. Every day in every situation. What can I control? The only thing you can control in this world is yourself. We all have to deal with the world as it is events as they are the only control we have over. That is the lenses through which we see. The filter that we use the the story that we tell ourselves, that's where our control is. And so that's the purpose of this particular truth bomb, is to remember that there are so few things in this world that you can control, but your thoughts. Are things that you can control. You can't control what pops into your head, but you can control what you do with it, what stays in your head. I have all sorts of absurd thoughts that fly through my head at various points throughout the day. But I don't give them the attention to make them real. I recognize them as absurd thoughts and move past that, and so that's what we're all going for here. 

Now, I'll also remind you that there is something else you can have some control over and that is the content of this podcast. I am very open to hearing any thoughts, concerns, questions, challenges, dilemmas. Any type of situation that you think would be helpful to discuss here. I am glad to even interrupt pre planned series to discuss things that. That come to me through e-mail, so feel free to e-mail again. That's BHellercounseling@gmail.com. You'll get to exercise some control over this content. So thank you for joining me for Truth Balm number one, you are what you think. I am thoroughly enjoying this podcast and being able to share things that I have learned and I'm hopeful that this can turn into a place that you can feel comfortable participating in and getting real benefit from. So if you've got something on your mind and you feel up to sharing it, share it, see what happens. Either way, I hope you'll tune into the B spot again, where you get almost therapy, but not quite therapy until. Until our next session. Be well.