1. Catch the Thought
Sometimes in life people find that thoughts come racing through their heads. I notice this with many who are early in a recovery process. These thoughts make it hard to concentrate and also often cause emotional distress. The first thing to do is to catch the thought. Notice it and take a hold of it.
2. Check the Thought
It could be that this thought is not true or helpful. Sometimes people have thoughts that replay in their heads that are related to beliefs about themselves and the world that are not true but they never learned to challenge them. Don’t be afraid to look at these thoughts and really examine them.
3. Change the Thought
Many times the thought is not productive and if this is the case, I encourage you to change the thought to something that is true and helpful.
In my experience, helping people change how they think about themselves and the world around them is one of the most freeing things that we do in therapy. Some people have been taught from early on in life that they are not important or they will never amount to anything. Even though nothing can be farther from the truth, they interact in the world based upon this false belief about themselves. We have the ability to change this process. When we choose to choose thoughts that are true and more productive there are many benefits.
Dr. Caroline Leaf describes, “By not controlling our thoughts, we create the conditions for illness – research shows that “fear alone” triggers more than 1400 known physical and chemical responses, and activates more than 30 different hormones in the body. Science believes that thoughts are basically neurological responses to stimuli that are shaped by past experiences – therefore it is important for us to exercise extreme care with regard to what stimuli we allow to enter into our thought processes. Toxic waste generated by “toxic thoughts” causes the following illnesses: diabetes, cancer, asthma, skin problems, and allergies just to name a few. Everything we see, hear, or read has the potential to shape our thinking, and what we think about affects us physically and emotionally.
“Vitamin D deficiency causes osteopenia, osteoporosis and osteomalacia, increasing the risk of fracture. Unlike osteoporosis, which is a painless disease, osteomalacia causes aching bone pain that is often misdiagnosed as fibromyalgia or chronic pain syndrome or is simply dismissed as depression.”