It’s not that your thoughts aren’t valid. Let’s look at it differently. You are aware of muscle memory right? The idea you can train your body enough that an action can become easily repeatable.
Your mind is similar, it has a mental muscle memory. If your mind is filled with a reservoir of negative emotions about a particular thought, when your mind reaches for an emotion to react with, there’s a high chance you’re going to pull a negative emotion out of your emotional tool belt.
CBT is about manually forcing yourself to recognize and reframe those negative thoughts so that you slowly build up that positive reservoir of emotions.
You want the odds you’re going to pull a positive emotion out of that tool belt to be more 50-50. It’s not about eliminating negative thought or emotion entirely, but rather just giving yourself an even chance at reacting positively. Leveling the odds.
Negative emotion is just as valid as positive emotion and vice versa. And negative emotion isn’t inherently negative. It’s what you do with the emotions that truly makes them good or bad for us. Rage could inspire someone to murder but it could also inspire someone to act against injustice.
Conversely, there’s nothing wrong with recognizing that an overly negative mindset is just bringing unhappiness and forcing yourself to slowly recalibrate that negative baseline.
It’s not that your thoughts aren’t valid. Let’s look at it differently. You are aware of muscle memory right? The idea you can train your body enough that an action can become easily repeatable.
Your mind is similar, it has a mental muscle memory. If your mind is filled with a reservoir of negative emotions about a particular thought, when your mind reaches for an emotion to react with, there’s a high chance you’re going to pull a negative emotion out of your emotional tool belt.
CBT is about manually forcing yourself to recognize and reframe those negative thoughts so that you slowly build up that positive reservoir of emotions.
You want the odds you’re going to pull a positive emotion out of that tool belt to be more 50-50. It’s not about eliminating negative thought or emotion entirely, but rather just giving yourself an even chance at reacting positively. Leveling the odds.
Negative emotion is just as valid as positive emotion and vice versa. And negative emotion isn’t inherently negative. It’s what you do with the emotions that truly makes them good or bad for us. Rage could inspire someone to murder but it could also inspire someone to act against injustice.
Conversely, there’s nothing wrong with recognizing that an overly negative mindset is just bringing unhappiness and forcing yourself to slowly recalibrate that negative baseline.