Though Restructuring

In this psychotherapy talk, I discuss the process of restructuring our thoughts. It will cover the effects of our thoughts on various areas of life. It will cover a realistic three-step approach to working on and changing unwanted or unhelpful thoughts.

Transcript

Hi and welcome. My name is Sarah Nielsen and I'm an LPC and I'm here today to talk to you about neuroplasticity. This will be a psychotherapy talk on the malleability of the brain and a process that we call cognitive restructuring to work on your thoughts. Again, My name is Sarah Nielsen and I'm an LPC licensed practicing counselor and I'm entering my 20th year of practice and I'm also a teacher here on Insight Timeline. So, Without further ado, Let's get into it. Let's talk about it. So, The good news is that our brain is malleable. That means we can change the way we think. We can change the way it follows. We didn't always know that in my field, But we know that now and we've known that for a while. Anyways, Let's get into it. So, Cognitive restructuring is changing our thoughts and thought patterns. So, You may wonder why? What is the importance of that? Well, When we think certain ways, Whatever way that is, It has an effect on many areas of life and I'm going to mention a few. However, It affects other areas of life as well, Including our emotional regulation, Our mood, Our perspective, Our self-esteem or confidence, And even our relationships. And I'm going to get in more as to why and explain that. And we're going to go over a three-step process, Okay? So, Stay with me on this. So, One of the first things I like to talk about when we talk about thought work, Okay, Aka cognitive restructuring. Our thoughts have been around for a long time. They are habitual. Therefore, You are not going to change your thoughts overnight. But again, The good news is that they can change, But it takes time and it takes consistency and it takes diligence and you're capable. You just got to stick with it. You can feel frustrated at times. Let's validate that and honor that, But the payoff is so much bigger, Okay? Now, Another thing to remember as you're doing this is whatever negative thoughts you have about yourself or the world, Most of us didn't develop those overnight. They took time. They took repetition. And the same is for the opposite direction. When we are injecting positive thoughts, Rational thoughts, More helpful thoughts, More balanced thoughts, Whatever the case may be, It takes time for our brain to believe them. It is repetition that allows that belief to come in, Okay? So, Let me say it directly. What that means is when you start working in replacing your thoughts and bringing in new thoughts, You may not believe them at first. And that's okay. I want you to acknowledge and accept that part. It's okay. It's okay if you don't believe them. And again, Remember that change will happen with diligence and consistency. You will come to believe them. And the old thoughts, Guess what? They won't come as often. And they will not be as strong, Which means you will not believe them as much. Both of those factors will go down. And I'm going to plug in diligence and consistency just once more. I want to give you a statistic that will keep one other thing kind of in the frame of mind, Which is our brain produces anywhere from 60, 000 to 85, 000 thoughts a day. That is a lot of thoughts. And that's from various sources. About 65% of those thoughts are repeated. So, Take a moment and imagine if most, Much of your thoughts are negative or irrational or unhelpful, Whatever the case may be. Think about how many of those are on repeat. And I'm also going to talk about top hits. So, We're going to hold that thought for a moment. So, It's a challenge, Right? But I know that you're up for the challenge to work on this. Why? Again, Why is it so important to work on our thoughts? Because of the cycle as human beings. So, In my mind, What makes sense is to go back to the beginning of the cycle. But you probably would like to know what that cycle is, Right? So, That cycle is, As humans, We have thoughts. Those thoughts evoke feelings. Those feelings lead to behaviors, Choices, Decisions, Hence outcomes. So, In my mind, My little brain, It says, Go back to the beginning. That's how we change the loop. That's how we change the cycle. One way of changing my feelings and then my behaviors, Choices, And decisions is if I can change the way I think about things, Okay? So, You know, And again, Those thoughts may be negative towards yourself or others. They may just be unhelpful thoughts, Unrealistic thoughts. We could get into cognitive distortions, But I'm going to save that for a separate psychotherapy talk. Cognitive distortions, Which are, Another word is thinking ears. So, Come back for that. But let's get into the three-step process. Okay, We've got these thoughts we don't like. They're taking up space in our head. What do we do about them? How do we deal with them? Well, The first step is observation. I always say you cannot change what you don't recognize. It is very important and vital to take time to observe your thoughts. And I'm going to get into a little bit more on how I recommend you implement this process. So, Step one, Observe the thoughts. We can't change what we don't know, What we don't recognize. Step two is optional. You can place a objective label on the thought, I. E. , Oh, That was a negative thought. That was an irrational thought. Nope, I am not saying, I am thinking irrational, Because I want to get distance from those thoughts. That is irrational. Third step is to replace it, Okay, To think in a different way. And I want to say this, We don't have to do the opposite. I'm going to give a rudimentary example, But it's a common thought. I am so stupid, Okay? The replacement thought doesn't have to be, I am brilliant. I am smart. It can be. There's nothing wrong with that. But it can also be things like, I am a person of worth. I am a hard worker. Get the idea? We can also use this process in the way we interpret situations. A situation that I like to give as just, Again, Another basic, Easy example is, Let's say I said hi to a coworker. They didn't say hi to me. I could think in my head, They don't like me. They're mad at me. Or I could pause and recognize those thoughts and think, Maybe they didn't hear me. Maybe they were lost in their own thoughts. Maybe they were having a bad day. Think about the outcomes of the difference between those two. If I think to myself, They're mad at me. They don't like me. Think about the feelings that I'm going to have because of that. Versus, They didn't hear me. So I just want to plug that really quick because it applies to a lot of different situations. So, Again, Just remember that these thought patterns are long-standing patterns. They are going to take time. And, Again, The new ones you may not believe. For example, Such a loser. And then your replacement thought is, Wait a minute, That is a negative thought. I am a person of worth. You may not believe that at first, And that's okay. Keep repeating it. And you can even add a because. I love becauses without getting into affirmations, Which I do have a talk on here. I am a person of worth because I am helpful to others. Okay? There's just a little example. So let's go back through the process again. I want you to take time to observe. I find it very useful to take one to two weeks just to observe your thoughts. Don't change them. Don't work with them. Just notice them. Particularly cue into what I call your top hits, Which are the ones that you recognize occurring at a very frequent rate. Now, Again, So your process is I noted it. Now I can put a label on it, And then I can replace it with other thoughts. So there's different ways you can do this, And I even recommend doing it in writing because it's more powerful to the brain. Here's a few examples of some thought journaling you can do. You can write the thought. You can write the trigger to the thought. You can write how that thought made you feel. How much you believe that thought. And then you can write the replacement thought with the same process. With that replacement thought, How does that thought now make you feel? And what is the strength of that thought? Maybe how much you believe that thought. You can explore some other alternatives. And again, The other thing you can do is just simply write your original thought and your new thought. It's more powerful when your brain sees it in black and white. So I really encourage you to work on your thoughts. OK, I will do another part on, Well, Another talk on cognitive distortions, And we'll get into that more. And I hope you guys get the idea. So catch those unrealistic, Unhelpful, Negative, Depreciating thoughts, And let's change them and replace them with something else so we can increase our emotional regulation, Our mood, Our perspective, Our relationships, And so on. I hope you come back for some of my other talks. Thank you so much.