Break free from unwanted thoughts: CBT self-help tools

Hey there everybody, and welcome back to the Docs Knights Channel. Today we're talking about five common ruminations and how to stop them. One of the most common ruminations is past mistakes or missed opportunities. Things that you regret. I shoulda, coulda, woulda. Well, you didn't. And you can't change the past. There are no do overs in life. You can learn from these mistakes and missed opportunities, but ruminating on them, continuing to beat yourself up for it or have regrets over it uses a lot of energy that you could be using in order to avoid making that mistake or missing future opportunities. So learn from it and then move forward. Use that energy that you're using to ruminate right now. Use that energy to move toward the things that are important in your life. Social interactions are another thing that a lot of us think about over analyzing conversations or even interactions. Maybe you didn't talk at all, but what you did in a situation and worrying about how you're perceived by others can also be a source of ruminations for a lot of people. And it can be helpful to remember that just like in television, we all have outtakes. There was a time when I was working in residential treatment that I was wearing a dress and I had stockings on underneath my dress and I went to the front of the building where our restrooms were and used the restroom, you know, washed my hands, walked out and started walking down the hall of the residential center. And at this point I was the treatment director and didn't realize that I had tucked my skirt into my stockings. And so I was kind of flashing my hiney to everybody and and his brother that I walked by. I was mortified. I was mortified. But it happens. There are that happens. I mean, that particular thing doesn't necessarily happen to everybody, but we all have embarrassing moments in life. And one of the lessons I learned from that was I'm not that important. And I know that sounds harsh to say, but people are so involved in their own world and their own thoughts and their own reality that what I did on Tuesday, they probably won't even remember on Thursday. But even if they do, you know, what's the harm that's going to come from it? I also can encourage you to use the six week rule. Think to yourself, six weeks from now or a month from now, is anybody going to remember or care about this? Yes, you may have made a mistake. You may have, you know, done something that you regret. All right, it's unfortunate. However, beside you, how many people are actually going to remember that six days or six weeks from now and finally turn the table. Many times we hold ourselves accountable for being more perfect than we hold other people to. If somebody else made the same mistake, would you hold it against them? Would you? You think less of them. My guess is the answer is no. Another common rumination is negative self image. Focusing on your flaws, your shortcomings, or your perceived inadequacies. And again, none of us is perfect. We all have flaws. We all have inadequacies. However, some people perceive that they have a lot more inadequacies than they actually do. Okay, so fine. Your reality is your reality. Write down what you think your flaws and shortcomings and inadequacies are. Get it down on paper and determine for each one whether they're worth your energy to try to work on them. If, for example, one of your inadequacies is a lack of patience, think. Think to yourself, is this something that's important for me to work on? Important for me to use my energy for? Important. The answer is yes. Okay, then you can make a plan. Write down your strengths. Focusing on only your flaws, shortcomings, and inadequacies can really be unpleasant. Yes, we all have room for growth. However, it's important that we force ourselves to also acknowledge the things about us that are good, the strengths that we have, what we contribute to our relationships and the world. Focus on unconditional positive regard. And that means recognizing that you are lovable, you are worthy, because you are you. Your behaviors may not be so lovable sometimes, but you are always lovable. And a final technique you can use is identify people with the same flaws and think to yourself, do I judge them as harshly as I judge myself? If somebody is not good at math, okay, and you think that that is a huge shortcoming you have, think, find somebody else that that's not good at math. Especially if there's somebody out there that you admire and think to yourself, do I think less of them? If you've got adhd, there's a lot of lists out there of famous people and successful people who have ADHD and think to yourself, do you judge them the same way you judge yourself for your ADHD behaviors and future worries and uncertainties? It can be really tempting to. To catastrophize or constantly imagine worst case scenarios. Again, that's your brain's way of saying, you know, the stuff you've got to do tomorrow. There might be a problem if you don't feel like you're totally in control. If you're getting ready to do something that may Put you in a position for rejection or loss of control, then your brain may kind of go into overdrive saying, okay, okay, let's see how we can get power and make sure that we stay safe tomorrow when we encounter that thing. For me, going into the city is huge. I hate going into the city. It stresses me out. And I would potentially, if I had a meeting in the city, I might be laying there at night thinking about, okay, where am I going to park? What happens if I get there and I can't find somewhere to park? What if I can't find the place and I can. What if myself into the wee hours in the morning, which doesn't do me any good? What can you do about it? Envision a successful resolution. If you're worried about a job interview or a meeting you've got or a conversation you're going to have, okay, well, it, it could go bad here. I can't say that something is always going to go well, but envision a successful resolution. Know that you have the capability to handle the situation. You may not like the way it turns out, but you can envision, okay, I don't get this job. I can handle it by doing this. Write down the fears that are going on with you that are causing these thoughts and assign a probability for these catastrophic outcomes. Given the facts, what is the probability that this is actually going to happen? And then keep a log of how many times you thought the worst thing was going to happen, or you had these catastrophic thoughts and ultimately turned out to be a nothing burger, the outcome ended up being either neutral or good. Keep a log again. Your brain remembers the unpleasant things, the painful things, the stressful things, and gives them a lot more weight. So they seem a lot more frequent than maybe they really are. Just like plane crashes. Yeah, unfortunately, they do crash. But when you look at the number of planes that crash every year compared to the number of flights that go every year, it's really a very, very small percentage. And finally, traumatic experiences. Many times people who've experienced traumas remember traumas leave you feeling unsafe and powerless. Well, the brain remembers that and it says, I don't want you to be unsafe and powerless again. So I'm going to kind of keep replaying this. Sometimes people will replay this to regain a sense of control or find someone to blame. They're like, okay, how did this happen? And help me understand, help me make sense of what happened. They may also replay the event to remind themselves to stay safe. They remember whatever it was that happened that led them to be vulnerable. And they want to make sure that they don't do it again. Ultimately, to stop these kinds of ruminations is going to take processing the trauma. It's going to take getting to a place, place where you feel safe and empowered in the present. So you're going to have to work to develop that sense of safety. You can start out by acknowledging the facts in the current context, whether you're safe and empowered in the current context. But again, you still have to deal with that trauma and that underlying sense of vulnerability that you still have as a result of that trauma, and then address the guilt and blame issues. The family of if only, if only I would have done this or that, or if only you would have done this or that, then bad things wouldn't have happened. Well, maybe that's true, maybe it's not. We don't know how things would have played out, if anything would have changed. However, the if onlys keep you stuck in the past. They keep bringing you back into the past and saying, okay, let's replay, play it, and play the scene this way this time. Is that a good use of your energy? Is that going to help you move toward your rich and meaningful life? And does it, to any measurable degree, actually help you stay safer in the present? Ruminations often indicate that you feel powerless or unsafe in some way. Addressing the underlying fears can help you ruminate less. Everybody's going to ruminate sometimes. And understanding what it is, understanding its function and then addressing it. The function is to help you stay safe. So what is it that you need to do, if anything, to stay safe, given the facts in the current context?