Therapy is the best investment I’ve ever made.
It’s paid dividends every week for the last 5 years.
Here’s the Top 3 most impactful things I’ve learned from cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) 🧵:
1. Action is everything.
The core of CBT is the 🔄 of thoughts, feelings, and behaviors.
They’re interwoven. It’s most difficult to control your emotions and thoughts, so the highest leverage step is to change your behavior.
Take small, achievable actions.
Feeling down and drawn back to bed? Go take a walk.
Feeling sad and withdrawn? Exist with it and have a cry.
Overwhelmed & anxious with too much to do? Write it all down and choose one to tackle.
Small, simple actions make a world of difference.
However…
2. Simple ≠ Easy
Just because you’re making smart, simple steps doesn’t mean the road will be easy. Manage your expectations and be kind to yourself when you stumble, because we all stumble.
Want to lose weight? Eat fewer calories than you burn. Simple! But easy? Nope.
You’ll get tempted to bite off too much at once.
If you’re anything like me, you’ll think *one* simple action is not ambitious enough. Instead, you’ll jump right to your desired ideal.
“I’ll work out 5 days a week!”
Try just working out once. Then once more. And once more…
3. Acceptance = Change
This paradox eluded me for years. I hated the things I want to change about myself. Why else would I want to change them?
But the harder I pushed away, the stronger the issues were. Remember “equal and opposite reaction”?
Resistance is the enemy.
By accepting where you are *now*, you can more easily find the path toward where you want to go.
That’s why being lost is so scary. How can I get where I need to be if I don’t know where I am?!
“You are here.”
Accept first. Then change.
/end
So I’m some kind of enlightened, mindful master yeah?
Hell no! This as much a note to myself as it is to you. They call it a mindfulness *practice* for a reason.
But as G.I. Joe taught us, knowing is half the battle.
You can read the unrolled version of this thread here: typefully.com/GoldsteinMatt_/wbk9PHX