How to Feed your Soul: Adaptive Thinking that Leads to Wise Mind.
Two Wolves
Photo by Yannick Menard on Unsplash downloaded 11/15/23
An American Indian elder spoke to his grandchild. “Two wolves live in Everyone’s heart. They always fight. One wolf is Evil. It is anger, envy, sadness, and ego .The other is good. It is joy, peace, kindness, and love.” “Which wolf wins the fight?” asked the child. “The one you feed.” The elder answered. The story above is all too familiar to most of us. Things from our pasts, anxiety about jobs, the economy, school and so many other things can weigh upon us and lead to inner conflicts and negative self talk about ourselves and others.
This negative self talk can lead to ever more increasing anxiety, sadness, depression, isolation and mood swings/irritability and snowball out of control. However, if we learn to change these negative thoughts we can start to experience a life worth living. A body and mind that tolerate stress better, feels calmer, and can handle difficult circumstances with more ease.
In this blog I will discuss how to use Cognitive Behavioral Thought tracking to learn healthier ways to communicate with yourself, change your mindset, and learn to feed the adaptive part of your mind.
Pruning the Tree: The Science behind Thought tracking
Photo by Simon Wilkes on Unsplash downloaded 11/15/23
Just like the story above we truly do feed certain parts of our brains by the way we think, feel and behave. Our brains are made up of neural networks/pathways that are interconnected and branch out like tree branches, and ultimately can dictate how we function in life. Some of these pathways formed very early in life due to trauma and other aspects of our environment and have become habitual. The branches that are fed become stronger while the branches that are not fed disappear because our brains are very efficient and learn short cuts. We can prune off negative networks/pathways that lead us to act, feel, and think negatively through the process of thought tracking. We can think with a Wise Mind! Below is the Cognitive Behavioral Triangle. It depicts how our brains create or break these pathways/branches through repetition in thinking, feeling, and behaving.
Thoughts influence behaviors, and behaviors influence thoughts
Behaviors influence emotions, and emotions influence behaviors
Emotions influence thoughts, and thoughts influence emotions
If we think negative about ourselves or a situation we experience negative emotions and generally will act negatively.
This can come in many forms. Some act outright and explode on the outside world while others implode by self-damaging or putting themselves down. However, if we work to change a negative thought to a positive/neutral one it leads to just the opposite. Wise mind and healthy positive decisions can come from both validating our emotions and thinking factually and more positively about negative situations we experience. We begin to use the front part of our brain to think, reason, and plan instead of reacting emotionally through old pathways we learned at difficult times in our lives. The more we are able to do this the more natural it becomes just like reading or riding a bike!
How to track your thinking and communicate better with yourself
There are many different types to be found for free online. I like to use a pretty basic one myself. The sheet leads you to identify the troubling situation, emotions, negative thoughts you have about that situation, and then identify positive/adaptive thinking about the situation. Be as specific as possible about the situation without writing a whole story about it, details can lead to adaptive thinking specific to the circumstances. Next you will want to identify how the situation made you feel/emotions and any negative/triggering thoughts about it. These thoughts could be about yourself, others, or past experiences. Finally, when doing positive/adaptive thinking you can use three types of statements: validation, coaching, and factual or perceived facts. These perceived facts we don’t necessarily know to be true but can still help calm our nervous system and reactions to the triggering situation.
CBT Thought Tracking sheet
Photo by Aaron Burden on Unsplash downloaded 11/15/23
Situation: I missed the goal and it cost my team the win. Emotions: sadness, embarrassment, shame, guilt.
Negative thoughts: I am a horrible player.
I can’t do anything right.
Positive/neutral thoughts:
1. (validation): It is hard to practice all week and miss a goal in a game. It is ok to feel disapointed
2. (coaching): There is always next week. I will do better next time.
3. (factual): The best way to learn is by making mistakes, I can grow from this. I can practice that same shot more this week and do better next time. I am not the only one on the team who makes mistakes. I make goals most games. That was a really good team we were playing. Learning to communicate more healthy and assertively with yourself is a skill that can grow the more it is used and will eventually become habit. In the clinic where I used to work with highly traumatized teens it was a regular thing after a few months of this type of tracking they would come in and say, “Mr. Casey someone just called me a name and I immediately thought about all these things and stayed calm! They didn’t bother me!” By learning healthy communication with yourself you can start to use mistakes and difficult situations to grow in your life worth living!
Missouri Counseling
At Aspire Counseling our therapists are trained to work with a variety of mental health concerns such as depression, OCD, disordered eating, trauma, anxiety and much more. Along with offering services at our Lee’s Summit, Missouri location, and our Columbia, Missouri location, we also offer virtual therapy to anyone within the State of Missouri.
Our clinicians also offer a free 30 minute consultation, you can fill out our online form, and one of our amazing Client Care staff will reach out, and get you best matched up with one of our fabulous clinicians for the free consultation! Reach out today to begin your therapy journey with Aspire Counseling!
A photo of Casey Jackson, therapist at Aspire Counseling specializing in EMDR, teen therapy, anxiety, depression, grief, trauma and more.
About the Author
Casey Jackson is an LPC at Aspire Counseling. Casey believes in the power of therapy, and evidence-based practice and treatment. Casey works with teens and adults experiencing trauma, depression, grief, anxiety, and much more. When Casey isn’t working he enjoys camping, and working out!
