Do you ever feel like your negative thoughts are a rogue sailboat who guides itself at sea? Instead of fighting against the stream, just try to throw down an anchor. You might not be able to make it stop right away, but you can find a pause in the middle of the flow to take a look at what is going on. Notice where the thoughts are heading. Can you tell where they are coming from? After taking a few deep breaths, spend a moment reflecting on your current situation.
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Cognitive behavioral theory draws heavily from stoic philosophers like Epictetus and Marcus Aurelius. To me the implication the above quote makes is that when we think a given thought, we add to the pool thoughts that are available when we need to navigate any given situation. When we think about something repetitively, it becomes well-rehearsed and more accessible to us, especially when emotions are strong. In REBT we are in the business of changing unhelpful beliefs so that they better serve the person doing the thinking. We do this most effectively by practicing new and more adaptive beliefs until they become more automatic or accessible than unhelpful beliefs. Imagine you live in a cabin in the woods, and resolve to go for a walk every day. If you take the same path frequently enough, you will wear it down to the dirt and it will become routine. In most circumstances you will walk on the dirt path unless you make a concerted effort not to, and after the path is established it might take years to become overgrown. Now imagine that you discover the path has become infested with insects and poison sumac, and you decide that the path is no longer a healthy one to travel. In this situation some people choose to simply avoid the path, and some choose to create a new one.
Can You Unlearn Negative Habitual Thinking?
This is especially true when we consider those completely subconscious thought patterns that dominate our minds with seemingly little control from us. Change is possible though. The key? Was it really a bad day? Or was it five minutes that you milked all day? And when you put your positive pants on, others respond in kind. Positive thoughts, feelings and actions tend to lead to positive results. Try this little activity to see what I mean. I bet they want to take the next exit. They should have been paying more attention and changed lanes ages ago.
And nothing does more to keep you down, hold you back and prevent your prosperity than getting mired in a stale thought pattern. It's the ultimate limiting belief, because it precludes most possibility thinking. And probably unhealthy. And probably unhappy. They think exactly like their parents thought, who thought exactly like their parents thought, and this cycle has go on sometimes for decades. So this is not the model you want to follow. Prosperity is often the byproduct of innovation. And innovation requires critical thinking, lateral thinking and creativity.
