4/9/2023 0 Comments Thought train def![]() ![]() We can allow the ball (our thoughts) to float around us, not intruding, just letting them be. It just keeps popping up in front of our face (intrusive distressing thoughts). Trying to stop our thoughts is like trying to hold a beach ball underwater. You can be in the driver’s seat and remain focused on the road ahead while the passengers (thoughts) criticize your driving or shout directions all around you. When researching using visualization to practice cognitive defusion, I ran across a cognitive defusion strategy around visualizing your thoughts as chattering passengers on a bus. Have you ever had a dream where somebody was chasing you and you woke in a cold sweat with your heart pounding? Same deal. There have been studies done that show the body effect of visualization is the same as if it were happening in real life. ![]() No need to run out and purchase a volleyball, you can accomplish the same effects of cognitive defusion through visualization. In doing this effectively, you will experience incredible FREEDOM from your MIND rather than allowing your mind to run your life.Ĭoach Kate always says “you can use your mind, or your mind can use you, it’s your choice”. Rather than allowing the thought or feeling to BECOME YOU, separate yourself from it to create some distance AND AWARENESS around the fact that your thoughts and feelings are NOT YOU. Rather than “I’m feeling, use “I’m having the feeling of”. Rather than “I’m thinking”, use “I’m having the thought of”. THIS IS an example of COGNITIVE DEFUSION! It’s assigning your thoughts to an inanimate object such that they are NO LONGER PART OF YOU, they are OUTSIDE OF YOU and you can sort through them logically and without emotional upheaval.Īn easy way to practice cognitive defusion is through a SIMPLE SHIFT in the language that you use. WHERE did the conversations with the volleyball come from? In the movie, Tom Hanks befriends a volleyball (Wilson), draws a face on it and talks to it regularly.ĭid that volleyball come up with the conversations Tom had? Have you seen the movie Cast Away with Tom Hanks? There is a TECHNIQUE called COGNITIVE DEFUSION that if PRACTICED will allow you to create MORE SPACE between stimulus and response.Ĭognitive defusion involves creating space between ourselves and our thoughts and feelings so they have less of a hold over us.Ĭognitive defusion involves distancing, disconnecting or seeing thoughts and feelings for what they are (streams of words, passing sensations), not what they say they are (dangers or facts). How do we bring AWARENESS to the “water” we are swimming in? How do we PRACTICE using that SPACE between stimulus and response? SO how do we BREAK FREE FROM THE THOUGHT PRISON? When we have a negative emotional reaction, the time between the thought and the reaction is very small, AND THIS IS WHY we believe those thoughts ARE ACTUALLY WHO WE ARE! Thought and reaction can feel almost simultaneous AND yet they are not, there is a small space between the two. Victor Frankl was in a concentration camp, do you think he knew suffering? The man knew unbelievable suffering, MUCH WORSE than not getting a listing! He was inflicted with physical pain and deprived of the most simple human needs AND YET THIS MAN WAS FREE!īecause he CHOSE his THOUGHTS, he CHOSE his reaction, he was REAL about the stark reality of the situation and yet he CHOSE how he was going to FEEL ABOUT IT! HE directed his thoughts and his feelings not the other way around. My favorite quote by Victor Frankl in the book Man’s Search for Meaning reads “ Between stimulus and response there is a space and in that space lies our GROWTH and our FREEDOM” ![]() I am a human engaged in an unresourceful thinking habit! We believe we are our thoughts and our thoughts are who we really are. ![]() We have this CONSTANT running dialogue with ourselves inside our heads. MOST PEOPLE (and when I say ‘most’, I mean 95% of us) LIVE IN OUR MINDS! OUR THOUGHTS are LIKE THE WATER is to a FISH, we believe our thoughts are who we are. Water is the natural environment for the fish and so the fish doesn’t even notice that it’s swimming under water. Have you ever gotten emotional about a “situation” only to discover that you weren’t even close to being RIGHT about that story you’d created about the “situation”?Ĭonsider that the PAIN FELT is more about WHAT THE MIND MADE IT MEAN than anything else.Ĭoach Kate Patulski used an analogy on a call I had with her recently.Īn old wise fish passed two young fish swimming along, the old wise fish said “the water’s nice today ehh boys?”Īfter a few minutes the young fish looked at the other young fish and said “what’s water?”Ī fish swims underwater AND because that’s SO NORMAL for the fish, it doesn’t even notice the water. Our minds create the suffering by what we THINK! Think about that for a moment, isn’t it true that our REACTION to our thoughts causes the PAIN that we experience in our lives? ![]()
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