Thinking About Your Thinking

It is not uncommon for me to ask a client, "So, have you been thinking about your thinking?". They generally laugh and reply, "Yes, I have!" Initially it is quite hard to think about thinking. We do it on automatic pilot all day everyday. A recent study out of Harvard University indicates that the more detached we are in thought to what we are actually doing the more unhappy we are. So if you are playing a board game with your young child, yet worrying internally about the balance in the checking account you will have a greater chance of being unhappy and further attaching your discontent to a benign and potentially enjoyable activity such as playing with your child. So, it makes sense that we would want to learn to become more accountable for what we are thinking.

One starter exercise I offer to my clients is to make a personal inventory every night before going to sleep. A personal inventory is lifted from the 12 Step Tradition, Step Ten to be exact. I ask clients to review their day, just that day and list the bad and good. I urge them not to work another person's inventory, just theirs. So if there is something someone did that ticked you off, you note your reaction solely. So your co-worker did X, how did you reply? What did you do? How did you feel? We can only make changes in how we think and feel when we become accountable for our thinking patterns. Thinking leads to more thinking, which often leads to emotions and sometimes to behavior.

Sometimes our thinking is distorted. For example we might reflect on what that co-worker did today and hold a dialogue with that person solely in our head without any checks and balances and most likely with some significant distortion. So the next time we see that co-worker not only are we angry about the actual event but we have also built up more resentment because of that dialogue or argument we had with that co-worker in our head.

Additionally when we are thinking in distorted patterns we often make up truths. Again with the co-worker, we may start using the distortion of "Mind Reading" implying that we know the motives and thinking of another person without checking it out as fact. This only layers on to our pattern of distorted thinking and makes us feel worse.

It is important to remind my clients that our brains don't know the difference between what we tell it and what is 100% fact. So, a person cuts you off on the highway in an attempt to not miss an exit. You might think, "That person is a jerk that doesn't take anyone but themselves into account when they are driving!" Your brain hears that as truth, 100% truth and begins to experience feelings, anger, upset, and fury. Now, bring it to the judge, do you know for certain, that is what is happening with that person? No! Who knows, that person's wife could be in the passenger seat ready to give birth and he is anxious, almost missed his exit. That person could be a mother with a small child in the back seat who is sick, that person may be very anxious about driving on the highway and not familiar with the area and just made a human mistake. All are possible. How do you feel or think in one of those scenarios? Less angry? More empathetic? More accommodating?

Again, I remind my clients to "bring it to the judge" when they are getting into a funk due to their patterns of thinking. Can you say that your thinking is all fact base? Is it an assumption? Did you check it out with the person you are holding in mental contempt? If the answer is no, then you cannot have that thought. Perhaps you can re-frame the thought. Most likely when you do you will feel less distress over the given situation.

So, think about your thinking and remember your brain doesn't know the difference between what you tell it and the truth!


Mary Jackson Lee, LCSW is in private practice in Wheaton, IL. Visit her website to learn more about her practice and services.