Necessary Conditions for Positive Thoughts

Welcome to the Feeling Good podcast Have you ever wondered why you keep feeling the same way Even when you're trying to change Anxiety, habits, relationship struggles sometometimes it can feel like nothing really sticks therapist Kevin Cornelius And each week I sit down with Dr. David Burns one of the world's greatest authorities on cognitive behavioral therapy and the creator of Team CBT This podcast is all about practical tools that actually work Clear techniques you can use to overcome anxiety and depression Iprove your relationships and build real confidence No fluff No vague advice just effective tools that can help you change the way you think The way you feel, and the way you live Let's get started . That was a nice greeting. I appreciate that It's great to be here with you again and And we've got an exciting topic to talk about today that I really love because it's going to be super practical and help people with doing their best at filling out a daily moodlog so they can really help themselves with that tool Yeah. I would say if I can disagree with you respectfully and with great admiration on one thing It's not an exciting topic. It's a boring topic Like the details of the daily mood loog But the implications of it are extraordinary And and they really have to do with whether or not you're going to be able to use the tools that we've created to change your life And we're really looking for some big fish when we're when we're fishing here We're not just talking about going out in a boat and, you know, throwing the line over and then maybe getting a couple of nibbles We're talking about capturing a really big fish and that big fish would be when you're feeling down or depressed would be to sudden Hilly have feeling of confidence and self esteem and joy. And what can arguably be be called enlightenment And it's the same with with anxiety. We're not looking for you to feel you know, a tad less anxious but to Blow the anxiety out of the water And to do that, you were using the daily mood log And it's a step by step process and it looks simple enough likeike anything, there are certain principles involved And if you understand those principles and follow the rules, you will have a much higher chance of success And if you don't understand the rules and the principles and you just kind of do it on your own Y chance of failure will be really, really high Yes, and I do get personersonally excited overboring things quite often, by the way But that's because I'm so excited that I've seen people use the Daily mood vog to such great success and find right there in that moment, even in one session a huge change Yeah and their feelings, you know, so. And I love that we're doing this because you already are so generous with what you give away to people are't like you've already shared a blank daby mood log on your website for people to download and news and you've given lots of instruction for how to use them to use a Daily Mood log in other podcasts and of course, in your books and and videos And today, we just got this great opportunity to focus in on How to make it as effective as possible by avoiding the common mistakes that people make Y when they fill it out, right Yeah, Well, let let's dive in and go ahead and down a daily mood log or daily mood journal. It has those two different names, but it's the same the same tool exactly and it's roughly a five step process And the first step is incredibly important and it seems kind of trivial, but it's right up at the top. It says describe the upsetting event or moment And what are some of the errors that people make in the first step there on a daily moodlg Yeah, I think a big error would be not choosing a specific moment, but rather putting a generic problem. Like U maybe they might write I'm not good enough at the time of their as there upsetting event or Um I didn't get the promotion that I should have or something like that. They're sort of just they're describing a situation, but but they theyre they're not kicking One moment in time when, for instance, not being good enough was a big problem for them Yeah I didn't get the promotion. Couldn't that be a specific moment Well, that's a thought, I would think And I would want to know what's the specific moment in time that we're talking about when not getting your promotion really bothered you? Is it right now as we're sitting here? And then we could use that. We could say right now in this session telling David that, you know, about my promotion, I didn't get. Right R. But just the statement I didn't get the promotion isn't is I don't think that's quite specific enough. Am I amm I right about that? Um, Well,, you know, I think it if someone put I didn't get the promotion, I would say and had on their daily mood loog, I'd say that's a good example for us and tell me about it and What promotion were you hoping for and how did you find out and what happened that and that type of thing But it has to be something specific and real Now I'm going to be your patient and and you'll want you to ask me what I want help with Yeah, well, I'm so glad thatre you're ready to work on something And I'm wondering what's the problem that you would want some help with today Oh I don't know. My life is all effed up Hm. Okaykay And nothing's going well, you know, notothing's going well everyverywhere I turn, you know, the, you know You know, people treat me like like like crap and you know, things never work out for me and You know, I I'm kind of a failure. Right First of all, I mean, I would I'm just gonna say empathy, empathy, empathy. I' give you lots of empathy for all of that, right? and make sure we were at the point where you are wanting some help with how upsetting it is to you when you have failures and when people Treat you poor away And then maybe I would check in with you about You know, there were a few things that you told me about right now, right? Like you say you make lots of mistakes Um and and it kind of fs up your life. You said that other people treat you really badly and you feel you might feel hurt. by that or maybe even angry And then also, I heard you criticizing yourself and saying, I'm a failure. And so that sounds like maybe you feel really bad about yourself sometimes. Am I on the right track? Is maybe one of those three things would be a problem you'd want some help with today No And I thought you did really, really great there on empathy and you're trying to get me to select one specific thing. and I often say to people The most I can help you with is one likeike five second moment in your life. when you were upset And you want and you want some help. I can't help you with your whole life or your whole future But just but one moment But the cool thing is in any one specific and real moment when you're upset All your problems will be embedded there even problems from the past Yeah. And so when we focus on understanding what was going on with you, like what were your negative thoughts, what were you telling yourself will develop a complete understanding very easily of what happens to you when you're upset And and and that when you learn how to to change how to feel at that specific moment. The techniques that help you at that moment will probably help you at any time in your life when you' upset. So this is a very fundamental ideea. Now, is this the same as what all therapists do? that they focus it on one tiny specific moment I don't think so Most likely not Well, what do they do Maybe there's some schmoozing behind closed doors, as we say, and talking about things in general and maybe kind of analyzing and interpreting and W I don't know U'll maybe if I use some of your language a little bit Kind of a lot of BS Yeah And and a lot of times therapists have ideas you have to Clean out this baggage, unpack this baggage from your past Yeah. you know, and so we're supposed to talk endlessly about your past traumas and and things of that nature And so what we're emphasizing is that the team CBT approach is radically different from that. It's very tiny and I call that a fractal fractal psychotherapy, a fractal is a pattern in nature that repeats itself over and over again Like if you look at a leaf, you'll see that that pattern of the leaf is repeated. if you give highly microscopic and look at a tiny part of the leaf, it's the pattern is the same It just repeats itself over and over again. You can make a whole tree that way, a whole forest that way And all of our suffering is based kind of on this fractal, this one tiny little thing we do that screws us up And and that's why we want one moment so we can identify that you know, key quore belief or the key distortions that you fall into when you're upset Well, I love everything you just said, David, and that's what's helped me do better work with clients for sure. And I want to make sure that I point out for somebody listening you know, when you when you had me demonstrate and you you were the client and you mentioned a lot of big sweeping problems The reason why I was going I was trying to do a specificity step and kind of try that that first level of specificity of like what's the specific problem you want help with? and then I can ask you what's one moment in time when that problem was really bothering Wh was there? Um Where were you? What day was it at what time and what was going on? Yeah, ye, awwesome And by the way, we intend this episode for therapists who are interested in CBT or hopefully and preferably team CBT. U and and and general citizens alike. that that that it and this is not trivial because I get emails every day that I mentioned to you earlier with some frustration, people will send me long, multi page emails with details about their life going way back You know, this happened and that happened and my parents did this and And this happened happened to me And it's the exact opposite. It's as if a long rambling dialogue contain healing somewhere. and in my experience, it rarely or never does and and so what I would just need is one one little moment that you were upset and then we can find out What was going on at that one one moment Now now how about this, Kevin, still sticking with step one, the upsetting event and errors that people make in describing the upsetting event What would we suppose in the upsetting event I I I I write down that my boss is doesn't appreciate me and he's constantly criticiz in me And and my my colleagues u or u You know, don't don't respect me. they talk about me behind my back, they're jealous of me because I'm I'm smarter than any of them, but You know, I'm from from India, so they're and I have darker skin, so they're prejudiced against me. and they don't want to admit that I'm, you know, the smartest member of our of our team So how how is that for a daily a daily moodlg Well That's a serious problem. and I heard a lot of powerful negative thoughts that you listed you know, if you were the client, right, there was a moment when you were upset and that's probably things that you might have been telling yourself that would lead to some really strong negative humans, but we wouldn't want to write O negative thoughts as the upsetting event. What I would guide you towards gently is Can we find one moment when being unhappy about how you're being treated at work was really bothering you Yeah. Is that right Well, that's right, but I was getting at a slightly different thing Or maybe a relationship problem and for that That was what I was getting getting at. Yeah, sometometimes they're as you pointed out so wisely they're they're mixed together. But sometimes we're looking at a relationship problem And that needs the relationship journal and a whole different approach from the daily moodlog. Yeah. And so I think that if, you know, if this was like a session and you were telling me about those problems and I had invited you, do you want to work on something with me? or would you like to talk more and you chose to work then I would probably need to Check in with you. You know, I heard you talking about some problems in relationships with your coworkers and you might want to have a better, more satisfying relationship with them That's something that's we could offer you, or you might want to feel better about what's been happening at work. And maybe it's causing you a lot of negative feelings or anger or hurt or feeling Um rejected What do you think? Is one of those things something you would want help with or maybe there's a problem you haven't told me about yet, right? have We have to be specific about what do they want help with Yeah, I love that. and I was actually describing a young man from India that I worked with in Philadelphia And he had been he was very angry and paranoid at the at the first session and Oh no He he eventually confided to me He was some kind of programmer And and this was the early days of programming. So there weren't that many programmers, you know available And u He he had been fired Six times in two years from six different employers and all the same thing. that he would get angry and paranoid and feel like there was kind of a a conspiracy against him Oh and seeee if I can figure out what happened with him because he turned out to be one of the most rewarding patients I've ever treated unexpectedly Oh I remember that story. Do you mind if I tell you what I remember about what happened I right? Yeah because I love that story. You've shared that in the past and I think one of the things you had him work on was communicating better with his boss and actually saying to his boss, you know, 'd I'd like to request that I can meet with you weekly. to have you tell me what it is that I have room for improvement on because I'm so focused on I want to really do a better job than I've been doing. And I'm wondering if you'd be willing to do that to meet with me weekly and give me some criticism so that I can learn from your expertise and improve. That was one thing that was helpful to him, I remember Yeah know, that was one moved down to Florida and got finally got a new job And he he did that and it was, you know, incredibly successful for for him Oh But there were some intermediate how how did I get from his paranoia? to working hard doing psychotherapy homework. I'll see if that comes back. But at any rate, the point being that we need a specific moment when you were upset And then if it's a habit or addiction, we might want to be using the habit and addiction log, looking at tempting thoughts rather than you know, I'm no good tyes of types of thoughts. So there's different approaches When we're using the daily moodlog, we're really focusing on the thoughts that have to do with depression and low self esteem and anxiety and things of that nature No The second step on the daily moodlog, as you know, Kevin is the emotions table and there's nine different categories of emotions that you can circle all the ones that you have and then estimate how strong each category is from zero to one hundred have have Have you seen any errors that people make in the emotions step of the daily mood log. I haven't seen errors that people make so much is just sometimes somebody struggles to rate their feeling as a number And they say, oh, I don't I don't want to give you a number. Like it's I don't I don't I don't see how my Cings have numbers. That's rare, but that's happened a couple of times in And then usually what that shows me is that probably I haven't empathized enough and earned very trust So we focus on that and then we come back and then They might trust me more and then they say, well think about it, you know was it a really strong emotion? Would you put it in like the over sixty area or is it kind of milder, more like fifteen or twenty And then they kind of open up and they can pick a number. Yeah. So that would maybe be more of my error rather than the client's error on the m, right? Sure they u I've had maybe five or six patients in my whole clinical practice Who said they couldn't fill out the daily mood log because it would be too upsetting for them U and I found a response that was was very effective, but I'll let you U you know, give an opinion about about that one Yeah, you know, and I don't know if this is similar, but sometimes I've had people even say I don't want to do it as my homework because I don't want to upset myself by looking at my feelings and my thoughts Right. That's right. That's exactly what they all said. Um Well, I guess I'm inclined. So my first reaction And you can tell me if I'm probably I could be making a mistake here, but if somebody said that to me, I don't want to work on this moodlg because it's too upsetting And I don't like looking at my feelings and my thoughts and m that's going to stir up negative feelings for me and that's not what I'm here for Right? Is that that is that what the client is saying? Yeah. Well then I might have to say U A I think you're absolutely right to not want to do this moodlog right now. It's too upsetting for you and You know, Unfortunately, I don't know another way of helping you with this problem, so I'm wondering if there's something else that you might want my help with Well that's similar to what I did, but I knew it would crop up again with the next problem. And so what I said instead is you know and well, I'd love to work with you. The problem that you have X, Y and Z is one that I love working with and it'd be so much fun to to show you how to be able to score in the dating world rather than getting shot down a lot And that's gives me great joy and, you know, that it's easy for me to teach people particular skill set Uh, sadly techniques that I use don't work Patience. who refuse to do the homework for whatever reason. And I give you two hundred percent support in not wanting to fill out the daily moodlog the emotions table buy them by the same token then I'm so sad because I won't be able to work with you. And and and I'm sure there's tons of clinicians out there who like yourself, don't believe in the value of measuring emotions And any of them would just be overjoyed to work with you No, I'm not trying to get rid of you. I hope you'll stick with me. But I just I have to tell you what what the score is And all five of them said, No, you're the one I want to work with But it was so hard to learn how to do that at first because I was afraid to make my patience accountable Yeah. And you know what's so interesting about that, David, is that's the kindest thing that you could have done for them, what you just described You could have done What you just described that you did, the thing that you said, which was, you know, it was like a I'm hearing a gentle ultimatum there, right? Yeah Oh yeah you know, I won't be able to work with you But we can find somebody who doesn't require to Y't on this Holding them accountable in that way really was the kindest thing that you possibly could have done. If you had tried to sort of work around that or Yeah you know, u tried to help try to throw help at them even though they were saying, this isn't for me Um that would have been actually a harmful thing to do and would have been almost cruel Yeah, But so many of us are tempted to do that, who haven't had the experiences that you've had and develop these tools And it may feel kind of uncomfortable for a therapist to say, you know, I'm not trying to get rid of you, but you know, maybe I'm not the right one for you because this is the only way I know how to help you is by haing you write your feelings You know It's also so respectful Right And it's loving and also I know that I've heard you enough David that I know that you don't like telling people what to do. That's something that really offends you Yeah is this idea of that we need to get people to do things, you know, it's like my way or the highway or that sort of thing. You don't like telling people what to do and U And when you're when you're Dangling a carrot, right saying, I've got these powerful methods to help you And then giving a gentle ultimatum, but I can't without this tool. And I heard you say that this isn't going to work for you. And then sitting with open hands and accepting that, you know, maybe I'm not the right person for you and that's totally okay U That's so much more respectful and it puts kind of the ball in their court. they get to decide. whether or not they're going to work with you. And so it doesn't surprise me that everybody jumped at that and said, Absolutely, you're the one for me. R Right. because you didn't tell them what to do Yeah. beautifully stated. and thank you Kevin for those wise words Now there is a big problem that some that therapists and patients have with the nine categories of negative emotions on the daily mood log and and it's a very severe and egregious No error. it's in the Bible, it refers to the unforgivable sin And And this is what I call the therapist's unforgivable sin. Do you know what it is Would it maybe be ignoring a particular feeling Well, then that's a tenth of the way to the correct answer Okay then I'm all ears. I want to hear this. This sounds great. Well, if you find out How many therapists in the community sit down with a new patient or an ongoing patient and say, let's say how you're feeling. how down depressed and unhappy are you circle the ones And then write, tellell me how strong is that between zero and one hundred and then go through these nine categories of feelings You almost nobody is doing this this combined with the research that I've done at the Stanford inpatient Unit, the hospital. And also in outpatient settings that has shown that without these kinds of measures therapist's knowledge of how the patient is feeling has almost zero accuracy under ten percent on all of these emotions under five percent on most of them So therapists have a double sin One is you don't know how your patients feeling ever att the start of the session halfway through the session, at the end of the session or between sessions. You think you do, but you don't Um, and and and and the and I guess that that that's the the second error. is telling yourself that you don't need these kind of assessment Ester months But I can't tell you the number of times say on the Sunday hikes one of the things that I I have done I'm not hiking for some health issues. in the last a couple of months. I hope to get back to it A lot of times when I'm working with with with someone and they're talking about a problem with their spouse or practice or their feeling of inadequacy and then I'll go through these nine categories because I can remember them. Deppression is first and anxiety is second. and guilt and shame or third, and inadequacy and inferior fourth, and loneliness is fifth. It makes it real easy for me to remember all these different kinds of emotions and I just just ask them And and it seems kind of do dorky patients just totally love this. And then at the end you say how You know, so I take it, you're feeling this and this and this you just read back what they what they have told you And then you say, how am I doing on empathy in terms of understanding your feelings? And they say, oh, that's an A plus. And and it's so, so easy to develop that, you know, mind blowing understanding of how your patients feel And this is this is a way a way to do it I love that. and I want to If it's okay, I'm going to take a step back and talk about this mood log that we're asking people to look at who are listening to the episode and notice that you know there's the space where they were writing the upsetting event the top we talked about how to write down a helpful, upsetting event It's one moment in time when the problem was bothering them. And then they need to make sure that they don't skip this feelings chart that would be a big mistake to not rate like circle the words of how they're feeling and how strongly they're feeling them. Make sure they do those two things. So I was feeling sad down and unhappy at sixty percent anxious, worried, nervous panick,y frightened Yeah seventy, whatever that is, right? And And maybe sometimes an error a person might be is thinking, well, that's not important. I don't need to put all that down or they might they might circle the feelings but not rate how high they are. and they need all that information. And it's really easy to do. It just takes a A few minutes and most people can do it rather quickly Yeah. We're kind of walking through the mood loog and thinking about, you know, kind of the pitfalls to look out for when you're filling out your own mood log as well as when you're working on one with a patient Yeah, and Would it be okay if we thought about the best ways for coming up with the negative thoughts, which would be the next step on the mood loog. Is that o? Sure. Yeah, sure. And what are the errors They like most of the time, you mentioned the prototypic one. I'm not good enough, which will be very typical for almost everyone who's feeling depressed or down or inadequate Oh there can be all kinds of negative thoughts and there are errors that people make. in writing down negative thoughts. Let's go through this list of of of of of errors and see if if you can uh identify any that you might have been making Oh yeah, the let me start out with the first one is when you're writing down a negative thought, be brief We're talking about three or four or five words, a short sentence And I have people who write me every day. Did I mention this earlier Yeah Yeah. and they give long, long lists of negative thoughts and problems in their life. And it's just totally overwhelming and you can see why they're so deressed because it's like being in a snowstorm a a a depression tornado. tornado snowstorm and everything looks looks looks negative and they just have long rambling very self preoccupied, I might mention. u negative thoughts. But the first thing is is is to be brief Uh, and u I can give an example of that and how that would be helpful to me. Um, you know, I used to give twenty or more two day or more workshops around the United States and Canada for mental health professionals U very u U after after a workshop, A the second day, you know, people would be raiding the workshop and I would force myself to read all All the rid ends And and I remember this one workshop that I got into a bit of an altercation with with with somebody in the in the audience and they were feeling strongly about their point of view and And I was as well. And then that person had a very kind of barbed I don't know. comment in the feedback. But the feedback overwhelmingly was what was positive But then I he the thought I'm I m I'm really, you know, I've really blew this workshop I really screwed up And and I felt like a total failure. and I don't know if you've ever felt that way I think you have Yeah many times And you feel it physically in your stomach and you know, it's just the the worst the worst feeling in the world And then I told myself Well let's be a little bit the specific here. that's some strong language David when you're're you're saying you're You're a failure Did you make a specific error in this in the in this workshop Answer, Yes, yes, I did What was it Wellves when the fellow mentioned, blam, blah blah, I don't remember, but he pushed some kind of hot button for me And and I got a kind of agitated and infuriated and indignant and and responded defensively. And that was a demoralizing moment for me and for the audience And then so I said, yes when he was critical of what I was saying. I made the mistake of defending myself instead of disarming him and finding truth in what he had said and showing some admiration and respect for his for his point of view And then when I saw that, that technique is as you know called be specific I felt tremendous feelings of relief. And I said, yeah That's true. I did make that mistake. I did screw up there, but that's something I can easily correct. and then I said I'll make a plan on future workshops. I'll keep it piece of paper on the speaker stand and I'll just write nice and ICE on it. And that'll remind me argue with with anyone in the audience, but always make them right, find truth in what they're They're saying And and that has worked so so beautifully. Well, so That's like a short specific negative thought. is very workable but long rambling descriptions of all the things that are wrong in your life are not going to be helpful. Now you might not want to give up long rambling descriptions. You might might like that victim mindset. It's painful but addictive So that's a decision But if you want to have a chance of blowing your negative thoughts out of the water a single sentence. is going to be a lot more workable. than a paragraph or a half a page of long rambling verbiage Yeah and I want to make sure that I heard that right, which is that You wrote down you thought of one specific thought, which was I am a failure. Yeah. and I blew this workshop Yeah And I failed Yeah, rightight. And I am a failure. Yeah, right and you took a step and because you kept the negative thoughts short and sweet like that and really specific, you were able to Then use a method effectively, and the method was be specific. Well, what do I mean by? I blew this workshop Yeah something specific that I a specific mistake that I made Yeah Right. And that gave And when you realized that there was a specific Mistake you made, you got a huge relief from Yeah from the terrible feelings, right? Yeah. And I love what you're saying. and another aspect of it is the capacity to accept that you can make errors to give up your perfectionism And I can you you've got a be hitting home runs at every Every minute of every day Oh and there's so many beautiful different directions we could go in right now about that acceptance and that death of the ego that you're describing U, you know, and being specific about specific flaws so that we don't wrap up our self worth and our needing to be perfect in those sorts of things Yeah. I'm wondering if it's okay to to take a step back and consider these errors that people often make in their thoughts and get in a couple more, is that okay Oh oh oh yeah, like, um They, um another rule on writing down negative workable negative fonts is don't put descriptions of emotions or situations Like don't say, oh, you know, Emma rejected me and I I feel horrible Well, that's a situation. Emma rejected me And I feel horrible. that's an emotion. So that goes in the emotions table and this Emma rejected me goes in the upsetting event. But you want to have a distorted thought in the negative thoughts column. And so what might he be telling himself? There's something wrong with me. Yeah, I'm not good enough. Brian. I'm never going to find anyone who wants me? Yeah Yeah, I'm always going to be rejected by women. Yeah.. L those are all different Exactly. And those thoughts are just loaded with cognitive distortions And then another rule on negative thoughts is don't put questions or rhetorical questions like, um Why am I so screwed up Well, that question can't be answered for a lot of questions. First, scientists don't know why we humans are so screwed up But also it's just there's nothing we can do. with that on a daily daily moodlog. What should we do with these rhetorical questions We need to turn them into statements because there's an implied statement when I ask myself, why am I so screwed up? I'm basically telling myself I'm all screwed up Yeah. I just have to turn it into a sentence and then we've got a negative thought we can work with Oh yeah. And what's another distortion in that? I'm all screwed up Well, it might be discounting the positives or that's a good one. what else? All or nothing thinking? Yeah, of course, what else What's the big one Oh, what's the one I'm missing? emmotional reasoning? Of Of course. I feel screwed up so I must be. And what's the really Big, huge one. Over genereralization Well, yes, because I'm screwed up in this and that way, I'm totally screwed up and will be that way forever, that's enormous And what's the hugeoid one Am I failing an exam right now? I don't know Um well, I'm hearing mental filter. Yeah, well, that's for sure U I'm hearing self blame. No, absolutely there even is kind of some implied mind reading in that Depending upon what situation it was. trrue. But there must be something big I'm missing here. when we visit Yeah, it's kind of a hidden one, a hidden Oh assurance statement I shouldn't have any flaws. Yeah, right. Yeah. Exactly. Exactly All right Okay and these rhetorical questions They're almost always a hidden should statement, aren't they? That's why I love the way you brought that to life. Yeah. when I'm saying things like you know, uh U Why can't I ever get things right Yeah. I'm probably telling myself, I shouldn't make so many mistakes You know Yeah And and the goal with with negative thoughts the we want positive thoughts the Well,ve those are the errors on the negative thoughts. So what are the two rules for a positive thought in the right hand. call to people Oh write me and say, I have a fear of elevators U but I told myself that elevators are perfectly safe and I believe that one hundred percent and I'm still afraid to get involved into an elevator U what what error is this person making U or I've been telling myself, I'm not good enough and I believe that one hundred percent But then I told myself, well, at least I can heat a bowl of soup. And that's one hundred percent true, but I still believe that I'm not good enough. So what does this person need to to learn and understand about positive thoughts What's the necessary and sufficient condition for emotional change for a positive thought. Well, you know, of course, when somebody's got that negative thought written on their mood log, then they have to come up with that positive thought to prove that their negative thought isn't true in order to feel better So the necessary condition would be positive thought has to be something that they believe one hundred percent Rri Be because we're not trying to trick people into feeling or lie to them. And you know, as you've pointed out beautifully, it's the truth that sets us free. Right But even something that's one hundred percent true doesn't quite do it because you could write down anything that's one hundred percent true as the positive thought Yeah it might not necessarily be helpful. So a sufficient condition is It needs to significantly crush our belief and our negative thought down to zero or at least close to it Yeah And so for that person that's telling them is afraid of elevators They're probably telling themselves, you know, something bad is going to happen to me in this elevator. Right You It's going to crash and I'm going to die or I'm going to get trapped in it and they won't be able to get me out or something like that, right And so their positive thought can't be You know, well, what was the example you gave that wasn't going to be too terribly helpful? People write to you and say, I've been telling myselfself I tell myself that elevators are perfectly safe Mhm Well, they probably don't believe that a hundred percent. That's what I'm guessing. You'd have to ask them, how much do you believe that that elevators are perfectly safe between zero and a hundred. As long as I'm not on them, I believe it one hundred percent Yeah. So that would be the I guess we're looking right now at a mistake somebody might be making on their positive thoughts that they break down on the mood vog. Yeah That's right. And to cause a change in your mood The puluse of thought has to first of all be one hundred percent true You know, this s is the truth shall set you free. We're not involved in rationalizations or We half truth, sir. you know, kind of cheerleading or anything like that I And and, uh But it can be one hundred percent true and still not help you in the examples that I gave And to help you, it also has to crush the negative thought drastically Lower your belief in it And I'm doing a new workshop. It's a little too late for you to register because it's going to be this Friday but with Jill Levitt, and I'm very excited about it. because we're going to show some really powerful ways of generating Pulsive thoughts to crush negative thought using the recovery circle that we haven't talked about for quite a few years actually, and it's still a tremendously powerful tool essentially. you use, you know, We've got well over a hundred techniques now to crush negative fonts and you use technique after technique and tell your belief in it. goes all the way down to zero And some therapists, you know, a lot of therapists they hear this theory and they just think it's kind of a general thing. They don't think it's literally true But this is very much like the Laws of physics and and and and I believe it's impossible. to change the way you feel without changing your belief and negative thoughts. And people say, o, well, when I meditate, I feel better When you meditate, you're changing your thoughts. Sure. So that's no No evidence. Yeah, But when I go out and exercise I feel better. So that proves it's body chemistry and not thoughts Well, have you measured your negative thoughts when you're exercising and what you're telling yourself So this is a really true theory and And I had an insight about it because our workshop this Friday is going to be on the the deeper dimension. and you can go and listen to the workshop because we're we've record we'll be recording it and and making it available like on the internet or podcast or something of that nature. It's a full day workshop so it won't be on a podcast, but we might publish it the on the internet on the internet. We're talking about crushing self defeating beliefs and the method you can use like for the achievement addiction, you're basing your self esteem on your achievements or your intelligence or your productivity or the love addiction approval addiction, perfectionism, perceived perfectionism and and all of these And then it The question came up in my mind How how do we you know, in the workshop, we can show people how to give up these irrational self defeating beliefs And and u thinking, you have to be that your worthwhileness as a human being depends on your achievements And you can see that that's Bullshit It's it's you have to come to the workshop or or listen to it afterwards to see how to do that, but that's fairly easy to show But then I've raised the question, but to be enlightened Enlightenment talks about And I don't know what your thoughts are about this Kevin, the death of the self And the Buddha talked about this twenty five hundred years ago ago, the G death. And all religions, well, I don't know if all religions, but many religions have talked about this death and and rebirth U and that it's it's a kind of a spiritual a metaphor But how how do we get people to the great death and team CBT arere there some method you can use and what Yeah, go ahead Well, I mean, the one that jumps out to me the most is acceptance paradox. Yeah On the right track Yeah know Well, that's certainly a great one for sure All of these methods have a downside and the downside to the acceptance paradox is ninety five percent of people will fight it intensely Yeah. and they have a lot of reasons. I don't want to accept myself as less than because that's settling and I have high standards and you know, on and on and on. so you can't just tell somebody to to accept their their flaws. And, you know, what what methods could we use And but the certainly, I love what you're saying. The acceptance is, you know, you know, a key to spirituality for sure But The what occurred to me is is one way to think of enlightenment is when crushed your negative thoughts. like the fellow will be working with have the thought If if David criticizes me as a small group leader, u that or or if anyone I respect criticizes me. that would show show that I'm a worthless human being, something like that and his belief and that was about ninety percent And it's one thing to get the belief in those thoughts down down to to, you know, thirtyday or or twenty T Yeah I think for enlightenment, you want to get them down to zero where you suddenly see the thoughts that had been the source of your misery for so many years u or months or whatever are not only distorted and illogical and you know, unfair They' blatantly false. they're garbage They're they're total frauds and seeing that is to my way of thinking, a form of enlightenment I don't know if you know what I'm talking about but from a personal way have seen it with yourself or your patients But it's it's like, you know, a complete liberation from Tirune I agree with that one hundred percent. and I'm glad that you brought that up. I think you were asking, what are methods that help us do that? like Yeah crush a belief like I'm worthless if I'm criticized And then in the workshop, we'll be illustrating like forty methods just for that one thought And there's more than that even. And you know, and I'm glad that you're including the recovery circle because of course, we don't know in advance which one of those is going to be right for that particular person. Yeah But I'm guessing probably on that recovery circle is going to be somethinghing like the double standard technique or externalization of voices. Oh all of those. ye But also at least five to eight forms of explain the distortions. That's almost your starter kit Now we're probably going to have to wp things up here in a little bit, but I want to Pull us back for a second summarize some of the really important things that you've said here today about making use of the Daily Mood loog as successful as possible because we talked about making sure we get that specific moment in time. the feelings and how strong they were and then negative thoughts that we can work with because When somebody's writing negative thoughts on the mood log, if they include events as a thought, that's not going to be helpful because we can't prove whether or not that event urred it did Yeah They can't write down questions because we can't prove whether or not a question is true. it's basically unanswerable usually And we can't write down feelings as thoughts, you know I feel bad because I'm angry or something like that, right? I So we make sure that we're writing down actually negative thoughts that we can work with. That that's the big metess that are triggering the feelings that are causing the feelings. and also I think it would be important to mention that Maybe the most effective way to simplify that and do that really well is to make sure we're going one category of feelings at a time from the mood log because you mentioned before that there's those nine different categories. So it might be important to look at the first one, o, I was feeling sad down and unhappy in this moment. What was I telling myself that caused those feelings Yeah And then I'm feeling anxious, worried and nervous What did I tell myself that cause those feelings that can help simplify it and make sure we're capturing everything rather than just kind of off the cuff coming up with generic guilty and ashamed. What was causing those feelings? And I had the thought, I've got to give up this serial killing before I get caught Definitely not distorted Theyave H Um And then u I think we also explored a little bit about some common errors that people might make when they come up with positive thoughts, which is they might be saying things that are just sort of cheerleading, trying to cheer themselves up. rightight? Well, that's not you're a good person. I'm a good person. I'm a good person anyway. and and lots of people struggle with things like this. So it's okay. like that wouldn't be a helpful positive thought. It's not just the power of positive thinking. it's coming up with something that proves that the negative thought isn't true Yeah that we believe one hundred percent. So if we don't meet that necessary and sufficient condition for emotional change then then we're not quite using the mood log correctly and we're not going to get the kind of change that we're looking for Yeah or if we do use it correctly, we'll be more likely to get the kind of change we're looking for. Yeah. And so hopefully going over those common errors and how to avoid them and what to do to use the mood loog as effectively as possible is going to be helpful to the person who's listening right now who's trying to U that tool to help themselves and also to the therapist who's trying to improve their work with their patients Now all you listeners, one last thing that's exciting that I want to tell you about We want to get your feedback. like I have no idea if people found this episode boring and dry as dust in the desert or you know, helpful because I'm a therapist or helpful because I'm a general citizen, And we're going to start having a website that you can go to to rate each podcast And it'll be real quick and simple for you. You'll write down what you like the least about the podcast what you like the best about it and then how you rated it on a zero to four zero being How satisfied were you not at all? for completely satisfied And then this will give you a chance to give us some feedback and you can also let us know if you're a a shrank or a general general citizen. so we can be having podcasts that cater to to both audiences. so We love all of you. And thank you for listening today and look forward to talalking to you again next week. Thank you, David Yeah, thank you, Kevin That's it for this week's episode of The Feeling Good podcast For more information, head over to Dr. Burns's website at feelinggood. com where you'll find show notes on the podcast page Plus past episodes and lots of helpful resources for therapists and non therapists alike We'd love to hear from you Send us your comments or questions anytime And if you enjoyed the show, please share it with someone who might benefit You can also support us by leaving a five star rating on iTunes I'm your host, Kevin Cornelius thepist and clinical director of Feling Good Institute Silicom Valley Thanks so much for listening, and we hope you'll join us next time for another episode of the Feeling Good podcast