CBT treatment usually involves efforts to change thinking patterns. These strategies might include:

• Learning to recognize one’s distortions in thinking that are creating problems, and then to reevaluate them in light of reality.

• Gaining a better understanding of the behavior and motivation of others.

• Using problem-solving skills to cope with difficult situations.

• Learning to develop a greater sense of confidence in one’s own abilities.

CBT treatment also usually involves efforts to change behavioral patterns. These strategies might include:

• Facing one’s fears instead of avoiding them.

• Using role playing to prepare for potentially problematic interactions with others.

• Learning to calm one’s mind and relax one’s body.

Let’s Apply it to your Day to Day:

In essence the practice of CBT is to bring you to a heightened awareness of how important your thoughts are. Your mind is one powerful machinery, more powerful than your favorite horsepower sports car. Think of your mind like a highway and the thoughts are often racing, however there are some thoughts that are on the shoulder lane parked. These are often the thoughts that we ruminate (play over and over) in our minds. Being aware of how your mind impacts your emotions and behavior is key in having emotion regulation.

Now all of this sounds great at the surface. You may be asking yourself, well how in the world can I manage to do all that when I have complex trauma? This is a valid question. Truly, a question that I asked myself when I started my journey of healing. I want to tell you that you are not alone. The art of taking captive your thoughts and have control of your emotions and not have them control Y O U. That is the greatest journey of life. It takes actual effort to train your mind to not spiral you into a depression or a panic attack. Personally, I learned that I often acted on impulse and I allowed my emotions to take me into a roller coaster ride and I took the most loved ones along the ride in an unfair way. It was a habit and a new normal in my mind. I had to sit with myself and acknowledge the impacts that this cycle was having on me and others. Awareness is key and is often the first step. Another way to think of our mind is a new hiking trail. To create a new way of thinking it takes walking it out. Similarly, when a new trail is formed it takes walking that trail many times to where the path is formed. As you create healthier habits, you create new thought highways in your mind called, neural pathways. (More to come on the neurobiology of it all.) Walk out the journey of change one step at a time, each time your forming the legacy.

Top 10 Cognitive Distortions:

1. All or Nothing Thinking- Sometimes called ‘black and white thinking’

   Ex- If I’m not perfect I have failed, Either I do it right or not at all

2. Mental Filter

   Ex- Only paying attention to certain type of evidence. Noticing our failures but not seeing our success.

3. Jumping to Conclusions

   Ex- There are two key types of jumping to conclusions:

   • Mind Reading (imagining we know what others are thinking)

   • Fortune telling (predicting the future)

4. Emotional Reasoning

   Ex- Assuming that because we feel a certain way what we think must be true.

   • I feel embarrassed so that I must be an idiot

5. Labeling

   Ex- Assigning labels to ourselves or other people:

   • I’m a loser

   • I’m completely useless

   • They’re such an idiot

6. Over-Generalizing

   Ex- Everything is always awful, Nothing good ever happens

   • Seeing a pattern based upon a single event

   • Being overly broad in the conclusions we draw

7. Disqualifying the Positive

   Ex- Discounting the good things that have happened or that you have done for some reason or another

8. Magnification (Catasrophisation & minimisation)

   Ex- Blowing things out of proportion (catastrophizing) or innaprorpriatly shrinking something to make it seem less important

9. Should/Must

   Ex- Using critical words like “should” “must” or “ought” can make us feel guilty or like we have already failed

   • If we apply ‘shoulds’ to other people the result is often frustration

10. Personalization

    Ex- This is my fault

    • Blaming yourself or taking responsibility for something that wasn’t completely your fault.

    • Conversely, blaming other people for something that was your fault.