Anxious times. – The very human tendency to engage in mental chatter doesn’t help. One tiny thought gets a little sunlight and it’s off to the races with all manner of distorted thinking, like kudzu on fertile ground. – One of the real gifts of spending more than 35 years
Most people engage in self-limiting cognitive activity in one form or another, to one degree or another. – Catastrophic thinking is a kind of self-limiting cognitive activity. It distorts our experience and perspective. And for those who journey with a mood disorder, this is no small thing. – Catastrophic thinking
Cognitive distortions may be the clearest view we can get on just how tangled up in a narrative we can all get. For those who journey with some variant of a mood disorder, these distortions can be debilitating.
WHERE SHOULDS HIDE.
Can you believe she did that? She should have …
I feel so bad. I should have …
I know I should, but …
Kindness is love made manifest. I believe that with all my heart. I believe it more the older I get. It can’t be the sticky, put on kindness. It has to be connected to the HEART to be love made manifest.
Janice suffers with debilitating anxiety and depression. She recently found her way to me looking for something a little “more progressive, practical and ACTUALLY helpful” than her previous FOUR years of psychotherapy.
Yesterday, I opened the back door to the porch and this guy was RIGHT THERE! With his head in the air. Yikes. I closed the door. QUICKLY.
As I caught my breath, I realized how quickly the thought, “there’s a snake on the porch,” became a story. For those few moments, that story felt REAL!
Many if not most therapists, coaches, spiritual directors would disagree on the value of the narrative in helping our clients.
Cognitive distortions may be the clearest view we can get on just how tangled up in a narrative we can all get. For those who journey with some variant of a mood disorder, these distortions can be debilitating.