Day 3021: Word choices

This week in therapy, I’ve been suggesting that people replace the words “my fault” (or “my bad”) with

• my choice,
• my decision, or
• my responsibility.

My choice, decision, and responsibility as a therapist is to use less shaming and more adult words. Our blaming and judgmental thoughts (also called cognitive distortions) ignore the complexity of situations, keeping us stuck in negative feelings rather than moving towards actions and solutions.

What do you think of the word choices in today’s images?

My husband, Michael, whose word choices (and food choices) I always appreciate, recently relieved my anxiety about resuming a more “normal” life in the near future with these words: “It’s going to be like when you return to work after a long vacation. On the first day back, it’ll soon seem like you were never away.”

Here‘s The Life-Changing Power of Words, a TED talk by Kristin Rivas:

I hope you choose to listen to her words and I look forward to your word choices in the comments section below.

At the end of each post, my word choices are all about gratitude.

Day 2047: A thought is just a thought

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.

 

Day 1656: Holding on

I’m holding on to many things as we pack up to move, including

• my sense of humor,
• things I find valuable,
• my job,
• creatures I love,
• my thoughts,
• my feelings,
• my sanity, and
• my iPhone, so I can be put on hold and also take pictures of my holdings.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Before I started writing today’s blog post, I got a little ferklempt at the end of this excerpt from last night’s Jimmy Kimmel Show (which is holding on here at YouTube):

 

As always, I’m holding on to gratitude for all those who helped me create today’s post and — of course! — for you, who keep me holding on.