How to Manage Your Mind

We're worrying about the future . We're ruminating about the past . The ancient Stoics understood that our thoughts are nothing more than the stories that we're telling ourselves , and modern mental health professionals agree that we should challenge the thoughts that pop into our heads and not automatically accept them as a fact . Now you might be thinking that's impossible .

I have a million thoughts running through my head . It's not in my control . I'm anxious , i'm overwhelmed . Well , in today's episode , i'm going to coach you on how to use a thought record to manage your mind so you can live a more resilient , calm , joyful and compassionate life . I can't overstate how essential this work is to your well-being .

If you are feeling stressed , overwhelmed , frustrated , like the changes that you're trying to make happen just aren't sticking , listen to this episode twice . It's probably the most important . When I've done All right , let's go . What unproductive thought is taking up your brain space right now . Maybe you're thinking I want to move to Portugal , but I don't know how .

I want to start a podcast , but people will judge me . My ex never loved me . My friend is mad at me . I hate speaking in meetings . I'm going to get fired .

Epictetus said that it's not things that upset us but our opinion about them , meaning that it's not the situation or something that somebody said that's truly bothering us , but what we're making that mean , it's the stories that we're telling ourselves , it's our thoughts .

For example , my friend John and his girlfriend broke up a while ago when I'm changing some names for privacy reasons And the other day he tells me that he's on the phone with her and he hears a guy's voice at her house And she said , oh , that's just Brian . And referring to their mutual friend And John .

My friend didn't say anything to her about this , but then later to me he was catastrophizing the situation Like I don't think that was really Brian . Why would she lie to me ?

She lied to me about this , that that means that she doesn't respect me and everything about our relationship was an entire lie And he was really spinning out in this unhelpful way and creating a lot of trauma in his mind .

And quick side note , the Enneagram teacher , suzanne Stibbiel , coined the phrase chaining , which is what some personality types do when one thing goes wrong . So they take that one thing as evidence that everything that had come before must have been wrong too .

Everything is chained together , just like John thinking like , oh , this one little thing in my mind happened And now I'm making it mean that everything that came before it , like our whole relationship , was a lie , rather than just looking realistically at the current situation or instance that you're in and maybe you've experienced wild thoughts like this after a breakup

probably we all go a little bit nuts post post relationship , at least when we're younger and before we've learned and learned to manage our mind , and most people never learn to manage their mind , so so you're out of the game here by listening to this . So how do we manage our mind ? Because that sounds really hard , right ?

Well , as you've heard before on this podcast , modern cognitive behavioral therapy is rooted in stoicism and CBT is the most effective evidence based psychotherapy that there is . This stuff works and it's most popular for treating anxiety and depression , but the tools and CBT again , that's cognitive behavioral therapy they're .

They can be used by anyone who has ever experienced negative emotion , and that's everyone in the world , right ? Negative emotions are just a part of the human experience , and the basic concept of CBT is that it's not things that are happening in the external world around us that are truly upsetting us , but our internal impressions of what those things are .

And we can actually manage that . Now that sounds familiar , right ?

Albert Ellis , the founder of rational emotive behavior therapy , the first form of CBT he was borrowing directly from Epic Tidus nearly 2000 years later and Donald Robertson he has written several really interesting books on stoicism , stoicism's influence on CBT , and thinks that this idea actually goes back to Socrates .

So we cannot control most things happening in the outside world . We can only control what's happening inside ourselves , our thoughts and our feelings . If you were upset about something , epictetus would tell you that it's just a thought , it's not reality .

And to engage with the thought in that way by saying just that you're just a thought , you're not reality , and he thought getting clear on this was the most important work that you could do . Now , that sounds simple , right ? But a lot of us I would say most people have a hard time separating , like getting some distance from their thoughts .

It's really hard when you are just like kind of spinning up like John was doing about his girlfriend . You just get really into it . So how do you get out of that cycle ?

Well , one of the most effective ways that we can manage our mind is by creating what is known as a thought record , and a thought record is a CBT exercise that helps us take an objective look at what's going on in our mind by removing the drama , removing the assumptions , and the ancient Stoics practiced a similar kind of mindfulness as well , and modern , like

cognitive behavioral therapists would say , this is cognitive distancing . So not cognitive dissonance , but cognitive distancing . And in the meditations , marcus Aurelius wrote that nothing is so conducive to spiritual growth as this capacity for logical and accurate analysis of everything that happens to us .

So here's how to create a thought record , and I have created a worksheet for you . Go to Sarah mcthillcom slash thought record . And it's really important that you actually do the exercise and make this a regular practice in your life , rather than just having it be like a nice cognitive idea in your head .

All right , so here's how you do with our record Clear your mind of all the thoughts running through your brain by writing them out

. So journal out everything that is going through your head . Don't center yourself , just get everything out there . What is on your mind , you know , and this could be part of your daily journaling practice . So daily journaling was very important to the Stoics , and Marcus Aurelius's meditations is , in fact , his journal .

It wasn't a book he was writing for public view . It was his thoughts that he was writing down every day . So get all of your thoughts out of your head and then pick one thought to do a thought record on something that's been weighing on your mind that you would like help with .

And if you find , actually , that you're sitting in your chair and you're like what's on my mind , my mind feels like blank right now , maybe try doing a meditation , because as soon as you try to meditate , that's when all the thoughts start popping up .

And also meditation is like a really another really important practice to incorporate in your life , and I'll talk more about that another day , but anyway , so you journal out your thoughts , you pick the one thought that you want to do your thought record on .

Now the first step is think of an inciting incident or you know I hate the word trigger , but like a triggering event . So what's a specific situation in your life that has provoked this particular thought ? So and I'm going to walk you through an example You want to describe this situation , describe what happened in objective terms , without adding in your biases .

Now I could continue with the John example that I gave earlier , but I want to give another , another flavor of different thoughts that run through our minds . So Here's the example . So let's say that my friend Kay has not responded to my text and it's been 24 hours . So you can see that I like neutralize this first step , this inciting incident .

I'm like taking out any heat , i'm just putting facts . Kay hasn't responded to my text and it's been 24 hours . So what is the thought that is coming up for me for this in this example ? So , as I said , like , choose one thought and make it a statement , not a question . So in my example , the thought that's coming up is Kay is mad at me .

The next step is the emotion . So how does that make me feel ? So , in this example , mad . The thought that Kay is mad at me and I'm thinking like no reason . That's making me mad . And , as you can see , as you like process your thoughts like this , you can see how it can become kind of irrational . So I'm going to keep walking through this .

So my thought is that Kay's mad at me . This is making me feel mad . What the next step is like , what behavior does that lead to ? So how does this thought and feeling influence my actions ? This could cause this could be something like it's making me do something or it's making me not do something .

An important note when you are doing the behavior section of a thought record , you're not writing down like the behaviors that you wish you would do , like how you wish you would act . You're writing down how you would actually behave when , like in this example , when I'm mad because I think my friend's mad at me .

So in this example , like actions that would come up were like I'm ruminating about why Kay is in texting me and making up stories in my head . I'm not texting her back because I'm mad and I'm withdrawing . And the next step in the thought record is we're finding evidence for and against the thought that's come up in our mind .

So this is our time to challenge our thoughts . So , first step what evidence do I have to support my thought ? The evidence that Kay is mad at me ? Well , there's actually no evidence of this . I actually have no idea why she hasn't texted me , and so there's no evidence that she's mad at me . And now the evidence against my thought .

Well , kay usually takes a long time to respond to text messages , and it doesn't mean anything . She is late to responding to absolutely everyone . Now is a good time for me to check in and see how my thoughts and behaviors aren't serving me at all .

So I was thinking that my friend was mad at me when I really didn't have any idea , and this thought was causing a lot of internal drama for me in this example about my friend , and the outcome was that I was mad . This is a good time for me to step back and think what do I want out of this situation ? What is the objective here ?

If I want to be close to my friend , and that's really important to me , i can see by doing this thought record that my current thought and feeling and like behaviors are doing the exact opposite of the connection that I want . They're putting a wedge between my friend and I , at least in my mind .

She has no idea what's going on or that I might be mad , so now's the time when we can come up with an alternative thought to the original one that I had and we'll use the same situation . K has not responded to my text and it's been 24 hours . An alternative thought could be K never responds to my texts on time .

Now that seems more neutral , but it's not giving me the feeling I want , and I'm just using this as an example for you , because it's important that when you are trying to practice like a more helpful thought , that it gives you the feeling that you want . So I'm thinking K never responds to my texts on time . Now I'm feeling , i'm still feeling irritated .

So that's my emotion irritation and my behavior resulting in that could be . I'm stewing in resentment that K is not a more responsive friend , and maybe this is just like a fleeting thought in my mind , but the emotion that is tied to it can stick and keep me in a mood and the outcome is increased anger .

And maybe K is a fantastic friend and super generous in so many ways And this one little thing is needling me .

But if I haven't told her that it bothers me when it takes her days to respond to a text , well then , how was she supposed to know In her mind maybe average response times could be several days and who is to say that I am right and she is wrong ? Okay , so I wanted to give you an example of maybe an alternative thought .

That couldn't , that didn't work for me , and that thought was that K never responds to my texts on time . So that wasn't the right one . It kept me in a thought and a feeling that I didn't want , and it's important to point out that stoicism isn't just about regulating negative emotions and fostering positive ones .

It's about making you see that the thoughts causing these feelings are just impressions and not facts . We can choose to accept or reject our thoughts , and when we accept them , the stoics would say that we are assenting to them . Okay , so let's try one more alternative thought , same inciting incident K has not responded to my text , and it's been 24 hours .

All right , i am going to think about this . I'm not going to have an immediate reaction , i'm just going to like pause and think about , like , what could be going on in K's life , right ? So a thought that I could be coming up with is K has a lot going on in her life right now . What emotion does that bring up for me ?

Compassion , and what actions or behaviors are a result of compassion , i feel motivated to reach out to her and see if everything is okay , and this curiosity and concern is coming from a genuine place , and the outcome is that I want to help Kay .

So , as you can see , all three of these records that we went through had the same inciting incident that Kay has not responded to my texts , and it's been 24 hours .

Two of them left me feeling bad and angry and distancing myself from my friend in my mind , and the third one same incident , but the outcome was that I want to reach out to my friend because connection is important to me and I want to make sure that she's okay . Thoughts cause our feelings , good and bad .

When we let thoughts control us , they can harm us , but when we control them , we can transform ourselves And this benefits everyone around us .

The Stoics believe that human beings are , by nature , rational creatures , and you might be thinking what Everyone around me seems pretty irrational , including myself , but consider this We are born in essence as our highest selves , but we lose this as we acclimate to the world .

We put up defenses to protect ourselves and we slide into unconscious patterns of thinking and feeling that color our world view and how we behave . The Stoics were right that we have the capability for reason and common sense , but they understood that people act irrationally all the time . But it's our potential that they were after .

We get stuck in the trappings of our personalities and we stop seeing our potential and we feel like things can't change . But underneath everything , that essence of who you are still exists and anything is possible .

Once you wake up to your autopilot nature , it's like a mask comes off and you can start exploring how to think , feel and act in a way that feels more true to

you . The first step in this positive change is to get curious about how you think and feel and act , and you can do this through the thought record practice that we talked about today . Now , most people listening to this will think thought records are a good idea , but they're not actually going to do the exercise .

We love to learn new things and then move on without acting On what we learn , and I do this myself . It's like an easy habit to fall into . We say we don't have the time , i'm too busy , i'll do that eventually , but then we'll lose hours of sleep picking apart something that our boss said . We won't go for that promotion .

We'll go someone instead of having an uncomfortable conversation . Keeping our mind is the most important thing that we can do , and when we don't , our relationships suffer at home and at work and we stay stuck in the same place Again . Go to sarahmigatelcom slash thought record to get your worksheet so you can start practicing managing your mind yourself .

I'm so fascinated by all of this and I'm taking several courses on the neuroscience of change because I want to continue developing as a person and I want to help you do this as well .

The Stoics said that we should live with our atta , that is , live with excellence , to live as our highest selves , not just for ourselves individuals , but for the people around us and the world at large .

During our lifetimes we might not return well , we probably won't return to that pure essence that we were born with , but aiming to get closer to that is the most important work that we can do .