“THINK”
🧐

Once we notice our thoughts and get some distance from them, we need to “THINK” deeper by asking more effective questions about them. The following strategies help us better examine, adjust, or reframe our thoughts. This slows down the mind’s ability to influence our feelings and actions over “stories” that are mostly incomplete and moving us away from reality and our values.

Ask yourself: Is this thought…

True?
Helpful?
Inspiring?
Necessary?
Kind?

True?

Consider the presence and absence of evidence, multiple perspectives, or alternative explanations (“the bigger picture”).

Expand Perspective

• Consider multiple perspectives, interpretations, and explanations rather than jumping to conclusions, assuming the worst, or letting the mind selectively filter out negative/positive aspects of things. This creates a more complete and realistic perception of a situation or problem. You mostly see what is in front of you and miss the other side, the bigger picture. If you have a limited picture, this is what you end up working with and responding to, often causing more problems and confusion.

• Reflect on past historical experiences and resolutions to provide perspective on current situations, avoiding narrow and rigid assumptions or predictions.

• Consider or ask how a friend or peer (someone you can trust) might view this situation.

Balance Thinking

• Rather than seeing a thought as absolute or binary (all-or-nothing, black-or-white, 0% or 100% > “true/false”, “good/bad”, “all perfect/completely worthless”), put a percentage to the thought: what percentage of this thought is actually true? What percentage of it is based on actual evidence? What percentage of this thought is helpful? What percentage of this thought is realistic?

• Reattribute appropriate amounts of responsibility for events before you start placing inappropriate blame on yourself, other people, other things, God, astrology, etc. Again, you can use percentage to place a more nuanced and appropriate amount of responsibility on yourself and things outside of your control.

• This reduces our mind’s tendency to want to over-simplify things, leave out details and nuance about a situation, and focus on worst case scenarios (for survival). We can start to understand that two opposing ideas or feelings can exist at the same time and that most (if not all) things in life are imperfect and gray. The mind loves over-simplification of the world/life because that simply requires less work and energy!

Gather & Examine the Evidence

• Is there even enough evidence to support this “thought as true” or “feeling as fact”? Gather and examine all of the evidence possible to distinguish between reality and your mind’s perception of reality.

• Do not simply let your thoughts/mind “fill in the gaps”. Instead, do your research and survey people who can provide more evidence or feedback.

• Be aware that this also has the potential to turn into obsessive, unproductive research (this is the mind demanding certainty and control). If you get to this point and keep looking for evidence or validation, expect diminishing returns. Don’t feed your anxiety with more research and validation: sit with it, don’t struggle with the mind, let it pass on its own while you are focusing on something else more meaningful.

• If it’s not possible to gather more evidence (now or ever), don’t feed the mind’s insatiable need for control and certainty. Yes, it would be preferable to find more evidence but that’s not possible right now… Fully and willingly accept that to stop getting caught up in what the mind is doing! It distracts you from focusing on your goals and values. “Let the mind do its job while you do yours”.

Identify the Distorted Thinking Pattern(s)

• When you identify a thought that seems off or irrational, identify what type of distorted thinking pattern it is. You will become increasingly aware of just how much your automatic thinking is distorted, over-simplified, and negatively skewed. Giving it a label or language helps us see it for what it is.

Behavioral Experimentation & Exposure

• One of the best ways to modify your personal programming and belief system is to prove thoughts wrong/right through personal experience and exposure. Write down what your mind assumes/predicts and consider how much it feels true right now (0-100%). Create “controlled experiments” (with realistic and fair parameters outside of your comfort zone) where you will experience or expose yourself to what your mind assumes/predicts. This helps test the accuracy of your mind’s assumptions. After the experience/exposure, reflect on how much it feels true now.

• By doing the work and accepting the temporary pain/stress it initially comes with it, you’ll also teach the mind over and over again that you will survive and that you can handle it (even when it’s uncomfortable because you are more committed to living in accordance to your values, which doesn’t always provide immediate gratification). This gradually reprograms what your mind assumes is scary, unhelpful, or unworthy of pursuing. Even when your mind tells you “you can’t” or “it’s too hard”, you can rely on personal experience and exposure

Helpful?

Set aside the “literal” meaning of thoughts and consider the deeper purpose/function of this thinking (what the mind is trying to do, help, or protect).

Adaptive/Functional Reframe

• All of our thoughts and feelings have evolved for an adaptive purpose or function. Consider how some of the cruelest thoughts or painful feelings have kept us safe or pushed us to succeed. Don’t get caught up in what this thought or feeling literally sounds like. Focus more on trying to understand what’s it trying to serve but also consider what it’s costing you when you continually engage with the thought/feeling in a “literal way”.

• “Negative” thoughts are actually self-protective and self-preserving in nature and function. Although they literally sound cruel and discouraging, they are usually just trying to keep you out of danger and ready to respond to it (helping you avoid pain, stress, rejection, disappointment, etc). This is how our ancestors’ minds needed to evolve for survival. The problem today is not just the fact that the modern world makes it super easy to have a 500% increase in negative thoughts: it’s that we fail to understand how to navigate, manage, and make better use of our thoughts.

• “Positive” thoughts can actually be harmful and unsupportive. If you always trust your mind that you are “doing enough”, you may never realize the you actually are not doing enough. Instead, your mind may protect you by never acknowledging the evidence you are failing or blaming everything else for your problems. This means you will never need to feel guilt/shame or have to put in the work (which is bundled with temporary stress or pain).

Cost-Benefit Analysis

• At some point, you need to make the decision of whether you will respond to or make use of a thought… Or simply let the thought “be a thought” (like spam mail or scam calls). List the pros and cons of a thought or belief to evaluate its complete usefulness or accuracy.

• “Helpful” means “will it move you closer to your values, to build a full and meaningful life, or to cultivate better habits of acting like the person we want to and need to be?”

Inspiring?

Does this thinking inspire, motivate, or lead us to doing and responding to things based on personal values and needs?

Values Clarification

• Reflecting on personal values and beliefs to provide context and meaning to thoughts and actions.

Downward Arrow Technique

• Digging deeper into beliefs by repeatedly asking what the implication of a belief is, often uncovering underlying core beliefs. It can show you what you value and care about or inform you about what needs to change or happen.

Play out script (so what/if this then what?); Best Case/Worst Case/Realistic Case Scenario:

• Imagining the best, worst, and most realistic outcomes of a situation to gain perspective. Figure out what you are really worried about.

Necessary?

Even if this thought is partially or completely true + helpful + inspiring… Is it necessary to focus on it right now? Later? Ever?!

Big Picture

• Step back to see the whole picture. See the situation in a larger context, including a focus on long-term implications, things that are happening in the background, things that have happened in the past that contribute to things today, or how it fits into the broader scheme of life.

• Widen your scale of time: “will this thought/problem matter tomorrow? A week from now? A year from now? A decade from now? Does it ever really matter or serve me in any meaningful way?!”…

• Recall a time in the past where you felt really sucked in and caught up in a thought or feeling (especially when it felt like it would last forever even though it is so small and trivial now to the point you could even laugh at it). Notice how the mind has a tendency to conflate and inflate perceived threats.

Defusion (“De-Literalization”) - Mindfulness/Awareness of Thought

• I always recommend starting with getting some distance and curiosity about what our mind is doing/telling you before doing anything else with your thoughts & feelings. Otherwise, you may end up getting caught up in what your mind is doing/telling you, you will endlessly debate with it, fight with it, argue with it, and unproductively struggle with it. When you can “notice yourself having the thought or feeling of…” or “notice your mind is giving you the thought of…”, you can then examine the thought(s) and feeling(s), understand why it is showing up this way, at this frequency, this loudly, intensely, or quietly/subtly. This space allows us to gauge just how much value this thinking actually has (i.e., does this thinking move me closer to my values). We can then choose to engage with, act on, or make use of the thought and feeling (even if it’s not so positive or pleasant).

Kind?

Double Standard Method (Self-Compassion)

• Consider how you would talk to or support someone you cared about in a similar situation, having similar thoughts. Although your mind may be more focused on using critical, cruel, and fearful thoughts to motivate you toward safety, you can start to talk to yourself about this situation or these thoughts in that same compassionate way. Treat yourself with the same kindness and understanding you would offer to someone you care about and trust. Fostering a compassionate and understanding attitude towards oneself, especially in the face of mistakes or failures.

Gratitude

• Expand your perception to what is good, what you do care about, and what you value. Appreciate these things no matter the scale or size of them. Do not rush through gratitude expecting some grandiose sense of transcendence or pleasure to overcome you. Sit with the feeling and don’t rush the process. Gratitude is like walking: the benefits are subtle but huge when you consistently commit to it (viewing it as a healthy part of your daily “mental diet”).