Yesterday, in a therapy group where many thoughts were expressed …
… I said, “A thought is just a thought.” One of the group members thought that thought was important, so I wrote it up on the board:
The group members thought that was helpful, because the thoughts people expressed in the group included fortune telling, catastrophizing, mind reading, personalization, all-or-nothing thinking, over-generalizing, jumping to conclusions, labelling, shoulds, and other cognitive distortions. For example, my expressed thoughts included, “The plane might crash on Saturday!”
As I’m writing this blog post, my thoughts include this one: “My shoulder, after my fall in January, will never be right.”
We all have lots of thoughts. Thoughts are NOT the same as actions or accurate forecasts of the future. I’ve thought, many times, to challenge a thought with this question, “Is that a helpful thought?”
A thought is just a thought and a photo is just a photo.
A thought is just a thought, a barrier is just a barrier, a verb is just a verb, a memory is just a memory, and a theme song is just a theme song.
Feel free to express your just thoughts in a comment, below.
Gratitude is just gratitude, so thanks to all whose thoughts helped me create today’s post and — of course! — to thoughtful YOU.
