Richard Taylor |

Dec
16
2007

Our perspectives on ourselves, the future, and the world and just how we think about events, and respond to our own thoughts as a constant flow of consciousness, has much to do with how we feel (our moods) and how we behave.  The message here is that thoughts and feelings determine mood.  Much of the time all of this runs on automatic such that you respond to thoughts and ways of viewing the world in a habitual manner, built up over time, and in which your moods are trapped.  As a result, mood flucuations are often cyclical or repeat themselves and/or are easily triggered off.  Intensity of moods is often determined by the stressors upon us or the responses that we are in turn making in the face of stressful events.  The approach to these issues from the 1970's and 1980's emphasised specific goals to change a behaviour or a thought pattern (cognitive and behaviour therapy).  The actual skills that you need to learn to deal with dysfunctional responses to thinking now go beyond  this initial approach.  So what skills do you need to learn?  Firstly, build awareness of your thoughts through mindfulness-based breathing exercises and also learn to take a decentered perspective on your patterns of thinking (refer to the skills of mindfulness discussed earlier).  You will always have negative thoughts and feelings but you do not have to latch on to them and have them consume your sense of self (and your well-being) in the process.  This moment is also a good time to revisit the first skill you learned, namely values.  This will help you to ask questions about your thinking such as 'What does this event or situation mean to me?' or 'What does it mean about me?'  The latter question is important in that you may have habitual negative ways of reacting to others - changing yourself first, including the way that you are thinking, can lead to big changes in the way others in turn behave.  Secondly, and in the case of thinking about the more concrete problems that you may have in the here-and-now, you may wish to generate some new perspective about the events around you.  For example, your subjective responses to events and the way you think about them may be really at odds with reality.  This is a common problem for many of my clients who make rapid assumptions about people and the world, rather than examining what is really going on.  Too often everything gets personalized and then generalized in making broad assertions about people, events, and places.  As a result an individual may poorly assess and cope badly even with everyday situations involving the behaviour of others.  If you are receiving feedback from others that this is the case, and has been for a period of time, then this is a psychological skill area that you need to develop.  In consultations with a Clinical Psychologist you will be able to determine if this problem area is a component of broader psychological health issues (as it often is).
The Dalai Lama '...I think that to a large extent, whether you suffer depends on how you respond to a given situation'.  (in The Art of Happiness)

Posted by Richard Taylor in Psychological health strategies for everyday living. Comments

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