Episode #176

Perspective & CBT

We tend to label events and situations as ‘Good’ or ‘Bad.’ But what does that really mean?

When we get caught up in labels, it can affect our feelings, which can result in catastrophic thinking.

How can you use CBT tools to reframe life events and situations in a more balanced way?

Join me, Dr Julie, as we talk about existential dread, catastrophic thinking, and finding perspective.

Click to listen now!

 
 

Full Episode Transcript

Hi, and welcome to My CBT Podcast. This is Dr. Julie. I'm a Doctor of Psychology and a licensed clinical social worker specializing in cognitive-behavioral therapy. I'm here to help you bring the power of CBT into your own life.

Thanks for being with me. I hope your New Year's is going well so far. And I just wanted to share a quick review someone gave me on Apple podcast, which I always appreciate.

It says,

“Great podcaster. I ran across Dr. Julie about a month ago. She opened my eyes to various ways to improve myself, took her advice and got the Mind Over Mood book. I just started working through the book. I've come to the realization there isn't a quick fix. It is a journey. Thank you, Dr. Julie.”

So that was great. Thank you. That is very true also. It is a journey. We're never done growing, and I wouldn't want to be because then what would I be doing with my life? I'm like, Okay, I'm here. Now what? There's always things coming up, good things, difficult things. And that's why we want to have our CBT tools so we can work through them. So again, I appreciate that.

If you listen on Apple, hit and subscribe. Leave a review. That's always helpful. Helps my podcast get out there to more people. And today I wanted to share with you starting off a video. Obviously, you just hear the audio. But one of my CBT colleagues, Laila, shared this with us at one of our groups one month. And I've been sharing with a lot of clients. I shared with my family. I found it really profound, I would say, and really helpful. And I'm going to connect that to the CBT tool. So I'm going to have you first listen, and then we will go from there.

Once upon a time, there was a Chinese farmer who lost a horse, ran away. And all the neighbors came around that evening and said, That's too bad. And he said, Maybe. The next day, the horse came back and brought seven wild horses with it. And all the neighbors came around and said, Why, that's great, isn't it? And he said, Maybe. The next day, his son was attempting to tame one of these horses and was riding it and was thrown and broke his leg. And all the neighbors came around in the evening and said, Well, that's too bad, isn't it? And the farmer said, Maybe. And the next day, the conscription officers came around looking for people for the army, and they rejected his son because he had a broken leg. And all the neighbors came round that evening and said, Isn't that wonderful? And he said, Maybe. The whole process of nature is an integrated process of immense complexity. And it is really impossible to tell whether anything that happens in it is good or bad, because you never know what will be the consequences of a misfortune, or you never know what will be the consequences of good fortune.

So again, this is called a Chinese Farmer's Story. The narrator is Alan Watts, and you can find it on YouTube. So I hope you guys enjoyed that. What I found so profound with it personally is it just made me sit back and think, right, about the way I think about situations and about how all of us think about situations. We tend to, a lot of times, get dramatic, catastrophic, go to worst case scenario, right? Instead of just pausing, breathing, and saying, Okay, What does this really mean in my life? Is it really a bad thing? What is it going to bring to my life because this thing happened? Instead of just like, Oh my God, that's so terrible, or that happened, or that's so sad, or this is... I'm not saying not to feel sad about things, and there are difficult challenges we go through. But when we allow ourselves to have the catastrophic thoughts, a lot of the cognitive distortions, the all or nothing, making assumptions, fortune telling, over generalizing, we really get caught up in our negative emotions and all of these hot thoughts, and it makes it harder for us to identify them.

And then we're just making, again, decisions based on how we feel. I feel so anxious, I feel so scared, I feel so depressed, I feel so overwhelmed. What am I going to do to just fix that? Fix that. And I'm assuming the worst thing is going to happen. And I'm not going to be able to cope with this. It'll never get better. I just had a breakup and I'll never meet anybody again. I've heard so many people say, I'll be alone forever once the relationship ends. So there's lots of different scenarios. I know I have some for myself. I know you have some for yourself. To think about it and listening to the story is saying maybe part of it, his son breaks his leg and you're like, Oh, that's so terrible. And then the next day, the army's coming and wants him to be in this army, and he can't go because his leg's broken. So it's like, you never know what's going on in your life and really the purpose behind it. And it's not to get, I want to say that existential dread. Because a lot of people struggle with that, with the meaning of life and getting worried and trying to figure it out.

But it's just to breathe, step back and say, Okay, what is the situation in my life? Maybe trying to tell me what else could come from it, what I want to learn from it. What's another perspective to see what's going on. That's why when we do the thought records, the first column is a situation, right? We're identifying what is happening in our lives that is so upsetting, and what are the thoughts and the feelings that are being created by that situation, right? How are we perceiving the situation? Because I could have the same situation as you, and my perception could be totally different. I could be like, Okay, I can see why this is happening. And you might be Oh, my God, the world's ending, or vice versa. That's why I say you got to pick a situation. It's not like all day Tuesday, I was anxious. When were you most anxious on Tuesday? What was going on right then? And how are you thinking about this? This is exactly what this audio I just share with you guys is all about. How are you looking at things and not jumping to conclusions, not getting yourself so upset?

And then talking about it and getting obsessive. That's another thing A lot of people do, right? A situation is happening, they just talk about it and talk about it, talk about it. Takes up a lot of energy. Instead of just pausing and saying, Okay, I may not even see what's going on right now because I'm just overwhelmed and I can't really have that reflection, but I need to just take a minute, take a day, take an hour, and maybe I can get a different perspective. I love you to think about past situations when you've had really negative thoughts, catastrophic thoughts, going to the worst case scenario and being able to look back and say, Oh, now I can see why that happened. Let me share. I guess a really good one for me would be, I was married once before for a very short time. It was about five, six year relationship, well, definitely the most difficult relationship I've ever been in. But at the time, I was angry and I was just like, it was just a mess. And brought up a lot of issues news, but it brought up my issue, which I talked to you guys about, regarding my core belief that I used to have about that I was bound to be abandoned with my parents' divorce, my mom leaving, and I never dealt with that.

I thought I was okay. And my ex-husband brought it up for me, or that relationship, I should say, brought it up for me. And today I'm like, Thank you. Thank you, thank you, thank you. I finally got into therapy myself and I found a good therapist that helped me identify this core belief that all my feelings and my freaking out was not really about this relationship. It was about my abandonment issues I had regarding my mom leaving that I needed to deal with so I could heal and get into a better marriage, which I am in now. But Now I can reflect and say, someone says, Oh, that's so sad you went through all that, or that's so sad that you got divorced. And now I would just say, Maybe. Maybe. Because it really is what I needed to allow myself to get to that level of pain that I needed to grieve. That's a big one, but there's lots of other ones. There's certain jobs that I've lost in the past. And in the moment, I was like, Oh, my God, what am I going to do? And I've always gotten into a better job.

And that happens for a lot of us. I know we've had that experience where for whatever reason we may have lost a job and we're thinking, I'm never going to find another job. Where am I going to go? And then we end up like, Oh, my God, this is so much better. I'm really glad I'm not even in that environment anymore. So I've had that with relationships, I've had it with jobs, lots of different situations. I can tell you experience I've had with my kids that I think in the moment like, Oh, I didn't really sign up for this. This isn't really fun. I'm not enjoying this. This is not good. Maybe. And I know that I've grown from those relationships, and my kids have helped me look at my own stuff that I need to work on and to help build our relationship better. That if there's not this being authentic in a relationship, looking at things where you can improve yourself and grow, then it's not going to be a very fulfilling relationship, whether it's with your kids or your friends or your spouse or whoever's in your life, Because you got to get real and you got to look at yourself and your issues and what's getting in the way or how other people are affecting you, and maybe if you have to set boundaries.

People say, Oh, that's such a shame that happened. Now you can just say, Maybe, because I don't know what What else this is going to bring to my life? What other opportunities? What other areas for me to grow? How it may be to make better decisions for myself? For me, I stayed in a really unhealthy relationship for a long time until I finally figured out what was going on because I was chasing the wrong thing. I needed to look from within and really get some clarity so that I could grow. I needed to get pushed out of certain jobs so that I would take a little more leap of faith and definitely get better jobs. And eventually, the same story was how I got into my private practice full-time. So I know all you guys could share with me different scenarios. Big big, small, medium, whatever size, that you can look back now and say, wow, even though that was a really difficult time, I'm actually glad I went through that. I'm actually glad that happened because better things came into my life that maybe I wouldn't have sought out on my own. And to help you guys use your CBT tool so you don't jump to all of those cognitive distortions that I didn't mention.

All of them, I have a podcast that talks about all the cognitive distortions. Then you can look up. But like I said, I just mentioned some of them, but those are the ones that get in the way from allowing us to take a step back and saying, Okay, how is this situation going to help me? I know it's really hard in the moment because we're just overwhelmed with our feelings. And that's why I have to say, Okay, what am I thinking that's making me feel so strong that I can't even move forward? I can't even make a decision. I can't figure out what's going on right now. What am I thinking? And that's what I need to figure out and then identify which of those thoughts are hot, the ones that are not 100% true. And To be able to walk through life a little easier, that when difficult things do come up for you or things that are challenging, things you didn't see come in, things you don't want to deal with. There's somebody comes into your life and you're like, This is uncomfortable. What can I learn from the situation? That's one of the good questions you can ask yourself.

Why am I being put in this situation? Also, I could look back. I'm thinking with some situations with my family that I can look and Those were opportunities for me to teach my kids how to have healthy boundaries, how to have good relationships going forward, because I was able to role model them, how to be with others when situations came up that were difficult, or Maybe we had to set boundaries with somebody in our family or a friend, and that our kids definitely learn from us, positive and negative. It's like, I don't want to deal with this, but hey, you know what? Here's an opportunity for me teach my kids how to handle situations that they're going to have in the future. There's, again, lots and lots of different... I mean, why did my friend even show me this video? She was just like, Oh, I have this video. I saw it. I'm like, Oh, can you show it to me? I have shared it with so many people, and all my clients I share it with, they're like, Wow. Because it makes you stop and say, maybe, where are the maybes in your life?

Where do you need to maybe stop spinning and take a breath and sit down and think through it for yourself, talk to a friend, if you have your therapist, and say, I'm trying to figure out if this is a lesson for me to learn, what's maybe going to come from this. Sometimes, again, we just need to give it time and see it unravel in a good way on its own, see the process go through. With his son having the broken leg, that day was just like, Oh, no, this is terrible. The next day, you're like, Oh, thank God he's got broken leg, they're not taking him into the army now. Or, Oh, no. I had one horse ran away. Now they brought seven back. It was very small situations that can really show us a lot of what we're going through in our lives. Take a minute, write down some situations that you're struggling with right now, that you feel like you really don't understand the purpose. You don't know why you're going through so much pain. You don't know why somebody maybe would have treated you so badly, maybe felt you feel betrayed, that you're feeling maybe stuck.

You can't stop feeling anxious or worried or depressed. You can't stop obsessing or ruminating about something because you're trying to just figure it out and figure it out. I think that's part of the message is we can't always figure everything out when we want to. We have to just have a little bit of faith in the process and along the way, identify what we're thinking and being able to come up with more balanced thoughts and just know that maybe I'll get an answer today, maybe it'll be tomorrow, maybe it'll be in a week, maybe it'll be in a year. Maybe it'll be in many years that you can look back and say, Oh, now I understand what was going on then. Now I understand the lesson to be learned. That many things work out in life, and we to be patient and not think that we have to have the answers right away, because that's the other thing, too. People are like, I got to figure this out right now. I got to figure this out right now. And I'm like, No, just slow down. Just slow down and let's focus on what we can do for ourselves today How can you make decisions based on what's best for you today, not how you feel?

And something's like, I just got to give this one some time. I always say more would be revealed, which is very true. It's like, I don't really understand what's going on or with somebody in my life, maybe someone's struggling. I'm like, I really don't understand all the details or what's really happening. And to give myself some calmness, I'll just say more would be revealed. That usually is very true. Something else about the story or about the situation is explained or comes up without me even asking. It's just there, and I'm like, Oh, now I understand. Now I get it. I couldn't have guessed this before, but I gave it some time and more was revealed. There's lots of different things you can take from this, I think that was a minute long little video. Again, you can watch on YouTube if you want to see it. I love Alan Watts, who has a great voice, but when he laughs at the end, because it's just the irony of life and the joke on us sometimes, that, like he said, life is so intricate that we don't know what's going to come from something good as well as something not so good.

But the not so good, a lot of times, is what we all need to push ourselves and to grow and to really create that life that we want, that life that we deserve. As I'm talking to you right now, my head's spinning with like, Oh, yeah, I remember that story, or a client's story, or it's like, Wow, that seemed really upsetting, but you needed to find that out so you could finally make it decision to move on with your life, or to set other boundaries, or to start honoring yourself, as I said earlier, and say, What's good for me? I'm going to stop putting everybody else in front of me. I'm going to take care of myself first. What I'm asking you to do today, whether you can do it this moment or when you go home, is, again, think about what are some things I'm struggling with right now. I can't seem to get the answers to. I don't really understand. But I'm going to write down the situations. I'm going to work through a thought record. And some of the things that I'm going through, I might just say, I just need to give this more time, but I'm going to just go home and take care of myself.

I'm going to get good sleep. I'm going to get a good meal. I'm going to make a point of reaching out to people that make me feel loved and cared for and supported. I'm going to go hang out maybe with your dog or your cat or any pet you have that makes you feel happy. Whatever it is in your life, it's the self-care That if you don't have the answers right now, to learn to let that go for the moment and remember that more would be revealed and that there's a process in all this and something good may come out of something that doesn't seem that good. I want to be able to learn from my life experiences and to be able to grow and really get something from that. I am very grateful for some of the most difficult things I've gone through in my life, but it took time for me to see that. I was not able to see that I was in the midst of it. It was very, very difficult. But I definitely am stronger from it. I have better insight about myself. I can make better decisions for me.

I'm not going to repeat the things I went through before because now I can see the purpose in them and what the message is. And remembering because life is so intricate that we're not going to have all the answers even though we want to. Our brain wants to get that little shot of dopamine of like, Oh, I understand why this is going on, or I know why that person did that. And when we don't get that and we're just left in limbo, it's very hard to just sit with that. But if you have some faith in yourself and knowing you can handle whatever comes your way, and that I do have tools in the meantime, all my CBT tools, to care for myself and be grounded and walk through some difficult things, then I can give this a little more time, and that life is just going to show me what the message is here for me to receive and to work on. And sometimes not working on anything because it's not even about you. Other people are causing chaos in your life, and you don't have to get involved in that. You just need to have those boundaries and just keep doing what you're doing Because what you're doing is healthy.

Maybe deciding if these people are going to be in your life anymore. Why are they being difficult? Maybe I need to see that. Maybe I need to see that so I can set better boundaries. Maybe I need to see that so that they don't take advantage of me anymore and treat me like a doormat. Maybe. So I hope this got you thinking a little bit, a different way of thinking about things. I know when I'm saying... Me and my husband watch this video and we laugh now and we're like, Oh, maybe, when something comes up, and we chuckle, right? Because I think whatever the issue is, it just takes that anxiety away of like, I don't need to know right now. I can just be focused and present and keep doing what I'm doing in the moment, and we'll see where it takes us. And if I have to take any action, and maybe I don't need to take any action. Let me know what you think. Share this with others that you may benefit. I think everyone can benefit from it, right? And be more present and not thinking like, I have to take action all the time because then you're going to just be reacting.

And I say often, let's just pause and breathe. Let's just pause and breathe right now. And maybe tomorrow I'm going to focus on this problem I'm having that I just can't make a good decision right now or can't see the forest through the trees as they say. I'm not going to make a good decision right now because I'm feeling too emotional. I'm just going to focus on being present right now. And you know what? Tomorrow I'm going to have a conversation with that person. Or again, I'm maybe going to talk to my... I have a therapy appointment coming up, or I'm going to go find the right person to talk to. Maybe I'm going to journal. Again, I'm going to do a thaw record. I'm going to do some breathing exercises, some meditation. I'm going to go take a walk. Maybe I'm just going to go to sleep. There's lots of things you can do for yourself to take that pause and breathe and figure out what your maybe is.

So as always, thanks for listening.

You know where to find me at myCBT podcast on Instagram.

You can look up Dr. Julie Osborn on YouTube and Facebook.

My website is mycognitivebehavioraltherapy.com.

My store I've shared with you guys is mycbt.store.

Again, my store is just going to be there for about another month or two, and then it's going to be gone. So if there's anything you're interested in, go check it out on my website. I'm keeping my mugs on sale until my website... I mean, my store is not there anymore. So they all have my mantra on it, so I can give you a daily reminder.

I love hearing from you. Again, send me your ideas, your questions. I always respond.

And as always, make decisions based on what's best for you, not how you feel.