Cognitive restructuring

Learning to think differently is key to a quality life.

When you sit down to reflect on life, attitudes and behaviours, an important element to explore are thoughts. Most of the attributes people might focus on when they meet us might turn out to be inconsequential when we scrutinise how we think.

Thoughts lead to words and action and have accompanying sensations, images and feelings. Our common thinking patterns are based on a belief system from conditioning.

Our thoughts are not audible to everyone, so at first sight we might meet someone who adores us because we look appealing or scrummy.

Yet, with knowing one another a bit more, we can notice the evidence of thoughts when we observe words, attitude, behaviour and their relationships. It is what we do with our thoughts that can turn off our lovers in relationships.

A helpful way to develop awareness of your thoughts is to foremost sit with something that you do not like, someone you have an aversion for, a situation that does not "feel right" or where you are being judgemental, critical or logical.

There are numerous cognitive distortions you might pick up in your self-conversation. Due to not sitting with our thoughts and feelings, we tend to believe our feelings and thoughts as absolutes.

We close ourselves off to any information that does not align with what our favourite grandfather taught us, or anything that is not in the book, or something we have not been convinced to agree with by our friends. If the professor did not say it, then it is not true.

With this attitude, we dismiss anything new, or unexplored and we remain asleep while seemingly alert. We hate, judge, ridicule and dismiss, because we have not taken the time to ask ourselves, " What else could this mean?"

It is helpful to read about cognitive distortions, and explore where you learnt to think in certain ways. We all have a specific thinking pattern, or common cognitive distortions that lead us to repeat certain behaviours and attitudes.

Consider other perspective..

Everyday, challenge your thoughts. Just one situation daily, where you recognise what you are thinking and do one of the following:

Ask yourself if your thoughts are true.

Accept new information and learn something from it. You do not have to agree with it, but to accept without taking it personally.

Find one situation where you face something you do not normally agree with. Ask yourself why you do not agree with it?

Rather than try to prove your point, let go and see how you feel.

Ask the person you do not agree with what they mean without jumping to conclusions.

If something triggerers you that is not directed at you, tell yourself or your inner critic, "this is not my monkey!"

Observe hurtful behaviour from others as "hurt people hurt people!"

Maybe I need to look within and find out what in me is bringing on this "energy!" This is not to blame yourself, but to observe your vibe or the way you are coming across. Pre-triggers, such as stress , tiredness and anxiety can lead to an offish vibe.

Your journal is a powerful place to reframe your thoughts. Yours is not the only perspective. By appreciating different thoughts, you also recognise your own as one of them. This helps you to realise why people might act differently in similar situations.

The idea is to recognise context and that what might have applied when your grandfather, professor, book or mother taught you, might not be relevant to every situation. This is why an objective evaluation matters in every situation. If you challenge your thoughts, that can change your life. Remember, this requires repeats, daily, with every thought, because you are going to need a lot of time to install a new programme and replace the one in place right now