Chapter 8 Cognitive Restructuring

Cognitive restructuring means changing a perception from a negative interpretation to a neutral or a positive one. When you do this you can make your perceptions less stressful. This process is also called reappraisal, relabeling, reframing, and attitude adjustment. Perception All stimuli received by the brain are processed through interpretation. They are classified as negative, neutral, or positive. This process is called perception. All of our stress related behaviors are initiated by our perceptions. These negative and self-defeating perceptions can be changed so that we can reduce our stress. It is our perception and interpretation of a situation that causes us to experience more stress than the actual circumstances does itself. That thing that we do where we make mountains out of mole-hills actually has a name to it. It is called Cognitive Distortions. Cognitive Distortions are what we do when we exaggerate a relatively minor problem into a gigantic problem; aka the drama that we create in our lives. Cognitive Restructuring: Altering Our Perceptions and Interpretations Most of our negative emotional responses are old, habitual responses to perceived threats and dangers. We can learn to break those old patterns in a variety of ways. One way is by using Cognitive Restructuring to alter our perceptions and interpretations. Cognitive restructuring is one way to deal with and dismantle the stress monsters that we constantly wrestle with. Cognitive restructuring is done by changing our cognition. In other words, we literally restructure or change the way we think (called our cognition) about the things we think about. We also change our reasoning style. We can actually change the way we reason through the things that we do so that we do not get swept away and buried by the stress of it all. We can learn to think before we react. We can learn to act, coming from our hearts rather than coming from our hurt, fears, or anger. When we stop focusing on the problems in our lives, the solutions tend to appear. Let s look at how we do this. We CAN Change Our Thoughts The majority of the thoughts that we think about on a daily basis are fleeting and for the most part they are not harmful in any way. Many of our thoughts are positive and helpful to us and others. Many are not. The lesson is for us to recognize our power to take charge of our thinking and when we are not being helped by it, to be willing to change it. If you do not like what you are thinking, particularly if why you are thinking is harmful to you or others, you CAN change it! Why wouldn t you do so? Remember this: any thought we continue to think about is a thought that we give power to. As a result, the thought determines with our blessings what kind of experience we will have. When we take charge of and change our negative mind frame into a more positive mind frame, we are using the technique called cognitive restructuring. When we allow ourselves to not be accountable for our own thoughts we allow ourselves to wallow in our self-consciousness, self-pity, insecurity, and indecisiveness. When we give ourselves permission to stew on our rage, we allow ourselves to feel as if we are being treated unfairly. When we indulge ourselves in these negative thoughts and feelings, we continuously sidestep the lessons we would have otherwise learned and needed to learn had we allowed ourselves to have had more honest exchanges

with other people. When we take responsibility for our thoughts and feelings, we no longer need an excuse or an escape plan for how our life is going. Our World Is a Function of Our Perceptions and Interpretations Our thoughts determine who we are and how we perceive ourselves, mentally, physically, emotionally and spiritually. Our thoughts determine how we perceive others and how we plan for and experience our lives on a daily basis. Imagine that! Our entire world is a function of how we perceive and interpret it. Nothing is real but our thoughts and they create whatever reality we perceive. So if you do not like your reality you can change it! Change your thoughts and they way you think about things! We tend to cling to our old thoughts because no matter how much misery they cause us at least we know what to expect. Our old habitual thoughts lend us security, albeit a false security, but at least we have something we can count on! The thoughts that hold us hostage were handed down to us by our parents, educators, friends, and other loved ones in our lives. These thoughts are NOT written in stone. We can let go of them. We can free ourselves from the past and fro any thoughts that do not comfort us. When your thoughts no longer fit your reality, CHANGE them. When to Seek Changing Your Thoughts If you are content with your thoughts and your life, certainly there is no reason for you to seek change. If you are occasionally agitated, you may want to consider alternatives to the way you perceive your world and find alternatives for what you choose to think about. But if you are unhappy and ill at ease, or you often feel stressed out and argumentative or you are unable to concentrate, you may want to seek another way of perceiving your world around you. You may want to lay aside your judgments and opinions and instead devote some tie to feeling gratitude for the many blessings you have in your life. Adopt an Attitude of Gratitude! Most of us have grown so accustomed to our negative thoughts and judgments that we aren t even aware that we have them. Our thoughts surface so subtly that we pretend we do not own them. But we are the owners of our thoughts and when they do not serve us, we can discard them. Giving up our judgmental attitudes and opinions requires that we replace them with other more productive ones. Our minds will not remain idle. So, it is wise to replace our negative thoughts with positive ones. The best attitude to cultivate and one that changes everything and everyone is gratitude. Having an attitude of gratitude is what allows us to see everyone on our path as being necessary to our own evolution and seeing them as an opportunity for us to express our unconditional love. Choose to See Only the Good The choice to focus on and see the good in everyone and everything is always available to us. It s a mindset we can practice in order to reduce our stress and for the benefit of all of those around us. The best part is that we can feel an immediate shift in our attitude and a decrease in our level of stress. We may need to recreate this choice many times throughout the day. When we choose to see only the good in others and in every situation, rather than focusing o what we interpret as stressful or negative, we feel better about ourselves. We also increase our capacity for forgiveness while simultaneously reducing our stress. Our level of confidence and well being increases and our spirits are lifted, allowing us to feel more peaceful. Now that is a real Bonus! Remember the theory of Entrainment and the theory of Chaos which asserts that we are more likely to have our thoughts and feelings deteriorate and go in a negative direction rather than go in a positive

direction. As a result, we are looking to redirect and soften our negative thinking to make it less threatening and less stressful. We are looking to change our thinking away from a negative and selfdefeating attitude to a more supportive and positive attitude. We want to allow ourselves to find and to create a more positive way of looking at the world and of being in the world. This can be done it is just an issue of knowing that you can do it. Then all it takes is doing the work and the practice that it takes to maintain positive thinking. The first step toward changing our thoughts is to acknowledge our personal power over them. Our minds are not empty vessels that just fill up randomly. Whatever is in there, we put there! If you don t like what is in there, change it! Albert Ellis and Rational Emotive Therapy Albert Ellis was the father of a psychotherapeutic process called Rational Emotive Therapy (RET). Ellis felt that our stress related behaviors are initiated by our perceptions or the fundamental way in which we see the world. He felt that our experience of stress is actually triggered by the way we view our world. We view our world through the filter of our perceptions and the filter of our past. If our past and our current perceptions about the world are threatening or negative, we view our world in a threatening and negative light. If our perceptions and our past are positive, we view the world in a positive light. It is up to us to choose how we see, interpret, and interact with the world. Know and trust that we do have the capacity to heal from our negative or painful past and to view our world more favorably. Using RET is one of the many ways to so. Using RET can decrease your feelings of stress. It s Really Our Choice How we view the world is really our choice. Ellis felt that by doing the necessary work, we are able to change our self-defeating thoughts and perceptions. He felt that when we are stressed out, the stress we experience actually dims our ability to think rationally and clearly. Our biased, bitter focus narrows our field of vision and hardens and closes our hearts. As a result, we cannot see things clearly because we are too clouded by and too tied-up in our past painful emotions. Think about it. He is correct, yes? The worst part is that all of this takes a huge and a negative toll on our bodies. Please take a closer look at the Chakras and how emotions affect our physiology. When you are stuck in an irrational thought or when you are consumed with worrying or stressing about something, why is it that we continue to obsess on it over and over again? Why do we continue to stress over something that we know we cannot do anything about? Is it because we feel that looking at and exploring every possible scenario will bring us to a solution or resolution? Do you obsess on whatever it is because you do not know how to stop your compulsive and obsessive worrying over the situation? Ask yourself what the reason is that you do not let go of your irrational thoughts when they strike you? Ellis asserted that with education and lots of practice, we can learn to alter our negative, self-defeating, stress related perceptions that he calls irrational thoughts. With practice, we can change our negative, self-destructive thoughts to be more nurturing, positive thoughts, feelings, and attitudes. The Purpose of Cognitive Restructuring Cognitive restructuring is aimed to modify one s internal self dialogue by tuning into the conversation within the mind. The purpose of this process of cognitive restructuring is to widen one s conscience perspective and thus allow room for change in perception. This cognitive restructuring process allows us to alter our fundamental perceptions and interpretations of stress and this will allow us to decrease our response to stress. Stressed Out: Our Field of Vision Constricts

When we are stressed out, physiologically our field of vision constricts and narrows. This physical process of our field of vision narrowing was designed as an inherent safety mechanism. This safety mechanism evolved so that we could stay focused on the one thing that was causing us the stress. Focusing on one thing and one thing only had its place during ancient times when the Fight or Flight response was necessary for survival. In present day, it turns out that this once useful and helpful safety mechanism has essentially backfired on us and it has become a design flaw in us that causes enormous stress. Stressed Out: You Can t See the Bigger Picture What happens physiologically when we are stressed out is that our peripheral field of vision constricts and narrows so that we literally do not and cannot see the bigger picture of what is going on. The physiological constriction and narrowing of your field of vision is a function of the FFHR. Unfortunately, as we continue to encounter and relate to our world in such a stressful way, we stay chronically stressed out. We don t change because we either do not know how to or we have forgotten how to relax enough to see our world from a different and less stressful perspective. When we allow ourselves to step out of our history and we look at the world through someone else s eyes, when we apply the principles of Cognitive Restructuring, we allow ourselves to get back in touch with being able to see the bigger picture again. Like Pulling Weeds in Your Garden To create and maintain a positive mind frame takes work and serious practice. It s like pulling weeds in a garden. You get to keep doing it all of the time. Like it or not. Toxic Thoughts Toxic Thoughts are negative perceptions that result from low self esteem. Negative thoughts are learned when you are child. You hear them from your significant others. You hear negative and critical things from your parents, family, teachers, friends, and anyone who is important in your life. You learn to repeat those negative thoughts and perceptions in your head. You then continue to carry these negative thoughts into your adulthood by unconsciously repeating them over and over again. This is known as repetition compulsion. When we do this repetition compulsion, we do it unconsciously. Unconsciously or not, we still do it and we will subsequently pay the price for it. The consequence of this repetition compulsion is terribly negative and terribly stressful to us. The worst part is that we all do this and we do it all of the time. What Are You Toxic Thoughts What are the toxic thoughts that you unconsciously repeat in your heart? Listen in and you will hear them. It is helpful to listen up so you can begin to hear and being to know what unconscious and negative messages you are repeatedly giving yourself. What can you do to change those negative thoughts to thoughts that are less stressful and ore peaceful, positive, and nurturing to you? Negative Thoughts are Addictive Having those chronic negative thoughts constantly repeat in the background of your head has a negative impact and a negative consequence on your mind and body. Perhaps the worst part of the repetitiveness of these negative thoughts is that they have an addictive quality to them. So we repeat them over and over and over again. There is that repetition compulsion thing again. Changing your mid from being agitated and stressed out to being peaceful and calm requires very little effort really. You begin by taking a deep breath and then letting your breath go before you respond to any situation. It is that simple. Try it!

There s No Such Thing as an Accurate Perception Our perceptions are affected by the way we perceive and interpret information through our own past experiences, our fears, insecurities, and our own determination of control. No one person ever has the last word on there being only one accurate or correct way to perceive an event, a situation, or a person. In other words, when you are stuck in a situation where you are wrestling with someone to acknowledge that you are right they are wrong well, you might as well just give up that notion and reduce your stress a big bunch! Positive Thoughts ~ an Option When we have a positive attitude we promote having sound physical and mental health as well. Having a positive attitude allows us to live a long, healthy life of quality. Like I have said before it is up to you. You get to choose how you think and how you live. Having a chronically negative attitude perpetuates our physical and mental stress and our subsequent deterioration. Chronic negative thinking suppresses our immune system and it leads to an increase in the potential for having an accident or for incurring an illness or a disease. Remember this: do NOT let someone else s attitude, behavior, or opinion negatively impact you or your day. Every situation that we encounter allows us the opportunity to choose the high road in our interactions with others. When someone is unkind, rude, hurtful or otherwise not nice to us, we do not have to reciprocate in a like manner. It is no more difficult to choose to respond from a place of love than it is to choose to be unkind. It is just a different choice. See which one feels better for you. If you have not done so, see the movie Pay It Forward. Negative Comments A study was done to determine what factors contributed to this thinking process called toxic thinking. The results of the study demonstrated that for every 1 positive comment that was spoken to a child there were approximately 400 negative comments spoken to the child as well. Neuro-Linguistic Programming (NLP) NLP is a process designed to uncover the hidden negative comments and messages that we have woven into our own thinking and into our speaking. NLP works to remove these expressions so you can develop a more positive nurturing way of being in your life. With NLP you literally reprogram the software in your head. You reprogram the pre-conditioning of your inner self. With NLP, you push the eject button on that old, negative self talk CD that is playing on in your head. You then replace it with a new, positive self talk CD that you can listen to instead. Self-Talk Our minds chatter on constantly. We put ourselves down; we judge ourselves and others; we replay the past; we criticize; we worry about failure; or we worry about the future. Our thoughts generally pull us off course and they can easily drive us to distraction! They are busy fitting one scenario to the next, practically all of the time. But, it doesn t have to be that way. We can manage our self-talk. We can decrease our stress to enjoy peace and experience serenity. Self-talk is the ongoing dialogue that we hear as the background dialogue that constantly goes on in our head. It is that negative stuff that we hear ourselves telling ourselves over and over again. The majority of our self talk is negative self talk! How much of the time does negative self talk go on? It does on 99% of the time. It is the non-stop dialogue that goes on in our head. Stop and listen to it for a moment. What is it that you hear? What are you saying to yourself? Any Negative Thought Can Be Released

Having negative thoughts is no crime. It does however increase your level of stress. We can take charge of our thoughts whenever we need to or want to. Don t you feel better already just knowing that? No one can make you think a thought you do not want to think. You are as happy, serene, self assured and peaceful as you think you are! Whoever you think you are, you are. Any thought that doesn t nurture and support you in a positive way must be discarded right now! Sound too easy? Try it. Just one time, try it. Here is how you do it. It is really simple. When a negative thought begins to move through your mind, envision yourself blowing it away or shaking it out of your head. When a mindless or busy-making repetitive thought takes up space in your mind, blow it away also. I realize and understand that this may sound and feel really silly. It may not seem very therapeutic or sophisticated, but it works! Not every thought we have needs to be analyzed for its hidden meaning. Go figure! Doesn t it just make more sense to use whatever means you can to get rid of the negative thoughts that are stressing you out and making you unhappy? Whatever You Cultivate Grows This process is like cultivating the ground before you plant seeds to grow flowers. You have to remove the weeds and discard the rocks that are in the soil before you can dig the spaces to plant the seeds. What we plant in the ground, what we cultivate in our minds, is what grows. It s not rocket science! Now try it. Blow away those negative thoughts. Now do it again and again. You are in the driver s seat. You will only be as content and as peaceful as you change your mind to be. Let Go of Your Negative Feelings and Thoughts Negative feelings must be resolved and let go of. When it comes to letting go of old repetitive thoughts realize that sometimes it takes more strength to let go than it does to hang on. Then let go! Techniques to Change Your Thinking Here are some techniques for you to use to help you change your negative thinking and your negative self talk. They include: 1. Reframing it is a way of looking at the same old situation from a brand new angle. It means allowing yourself permission to let go of your stubborn, old opinions to see things and do things newly and differently. 2. Thought Stopping it is literally a process of catching yourself and stopping your negative, self defeating and pessimistic thinking. You get better at this process with repeated practice. This doesn t take some serious repeated practice. It may take you the same amount of time to practice and correct your negative thinking as it took you to initiate and perpetuate your negative thinking in the first place. But what have you got to lose? Time will pass anyway. You might as well focus on healing and stopping your negative self talk and changing it to self affirming and life affirming self talk. That way you can feel better about yourself. Right? Acceptance Acceptance is the ability to just let things be the way they already are. This is perhaps the most difficult frame of mind to adopt and to maintain. Yet, think about it just let things be the way they already are how easy is that? Go with the flow? There s an idea. Acceptance and Control

There is a very fine line between acceptance and control. Please do NOT get them confused. As human beings, we are more prone to want to control things than we are to accept them for the way they are. We are such competitive animals that we think that accepting things and having them be the way they are means we are being passive losers. So we diligently try to change things. Changing things by getting a better education will in the long run pay off. That is a good thing. Trying to change the impossible and only you what that impossible situation is for you in your life is like trying to wave a magic wand and make your past disappear. Perfectionism Note: being a perfectionist is not accepting things for the way they are. Choose your battles. See which things you can accept and which things you feel you must change. Then meditate on it. When you meditate on it, let go of all of your emotional charge and all of your reaction to or about the situation. Then look to see if you can just accept the situation as it is and make your life easier. IN other words, stop thinking it is necessary for you to stop the sun and the moon from revolving around the earth. The sun-moon cycle will happen whether you attempt to intervene and fix it or not. So relax! Try This: If you have a compulsive behavior patterns such as smoking, overeating, drinking, watching TV, addiction to the internet, or whatever your addiction may be, this is something you may want to try. When you notice the compulsive need arising in you, STOP, and take three conscious breaths. This will generate awareness in you. Then for a few minutes be aware of the compulsive urge itself as an energy field inside of you. Consciously feel that need to be physically or mentally ingest or consume a particular substance or the desire to act out some form of compulsive behavior. Then take a few more conscious breaths. After that you may find that the compulsive urge has disappeared at least for the time being. If the feeling still overpowers you and you feel you cannot help but indulge yourself in it or act it out, don t make it into a big problem. Let it go and see if the next time your compulsion arises that you have more authority over it and know that like everything else this too will pass! Comfort on difficult days, Smiles when sadness intrudes, Rainbows to follow the clouds, Laughter to kiss your lips, Sunsets to warm your heart, Gentle hugs when spirits sag, Friendships to brighten your being, Beauty for your eyes to see, Confidence for when you doubt, Faith so that you can believe, Courage to know yourself, Patience to accept the truth, And love to complete your life. And if you can t have all that Then I wish you enough chocolate to make it through the tough times.

Everywhere you look today there are problems. Turn on your TV or computer, pick up a magazine or paper, and what do you see? Problems. Talk to your spouse, co-workers, family members or friends, and within minutes someone will bring up a problem...or two or three. In an unforgettable way, Michael McMillan teaches us that many problems aren't problems at all - only opportunities for unseen solutions waiting to be formed! Please watch the short video titled Pink Bat at: http://www.pinkbatmovie.com/?cm_mmc=CheetahMail-_-TH-_-01.07.11-_Ways to Reduce Stress An Angel says, Never borrow from the future. If you worry about what may happen tomorrow and it doesn t happen, you have worried in vain. Even if it does happen, you have to worry twice. Go to bed on time. Get up on time so you can start the day unrushed. Say NO to projects that won t fit into your time schedule or that will compromise your mental health. Delegate tasks to capable others. Simplify and unclutter your life. Less is more. (Although one is often not enough, two are often too many) Allow extra time to do things and to get to places. Pace yourself. Spread out big changes and difficult projects over time; don t lump the hard things all together. Take one day at a time. Talk less; listen more. Slow down. Live within your budget; don t use credit cards for ordinary purchases. Have backups; an extra car key in your wallet, an extra house key buried in the garden, extra stamps, etc. K.M.S. (Keep Mouth Shut) This single piece of advice can prevent an enormous amount of trouble. Do something for the Kid in You every day. Get enough rest. Eat right. Get organized so everything has its place. Listen to a tape while driving that can help improve your quality of life. Write down thoughts and inspirations. Every day, find time to be alone. Remind yourself that you are not the general manager of the universe. Laugh. Laugh some more! Take you work seriously, but not yourself at all. Develop a forgiving attitude (most people are doing the best they can) Be kind to unkind people (they probably need it the most) Sit on your ego. Great Story Think How It Relates to You An American businessman was at the pier of a small coastal Mexican village when a small boat with just one fisherman docked. Inside the small boat were several large yellow fin tuna. The American complimented the Mexican on the quality of his fish and asked how long it took to catch them. The Mexican replied only a little while. The American then asked why didn t he stay out longer and catch more fish. The Mexican said he had enough to support his family s immediate needs.

The American then asked, but what do you do with the rest of your time? The Mexican fisherman said, I sleep late, fish a little, play with my children, take siesta with my wife, stroll into the village each evening where I sip wine and play guitar with my amigos. I have a full and busy life senior. The American scoffed, I am a Harvard MBA and could help you. You should spend more time fishing and with the proceeds buy a bigger boat with the proceeds from the bigger boat you could buy several boats, eventually you would have a fleet of fishing boats. Instead of selling your catch to a middleman you would sell directly to the processor, eventually opening your own cannery. You would control the product, processing and distribution. You would need to leave this small coastal fishing village and move to Mexico City, then L and eventually NYC where you will run your expanding enterprise. The Mexican fisherman asked, But how long will this all take? To which the American replied, 15-20 years. But what then asked the fisherman. The American laughed and said that s the best part. When the time is right you would announce an IPO and sell your company stock to the public and become very rich. You would make millions. Millions asked the fisherman. Then what he asked? The American said, Then you would retire. Move to a small coastal fishing village where you would sleep late, fish a little, play with your kids, take siesta with your wife, stroll to the village in the evenings where you could sip wine and play your guitar with your amigos.