In the last entry, I wrote about the difference between cognitive therapy and mindfulness, and now I want to clarify the similarities between the two approaches. In both cognitive therapy and mindfulness we bring awareness to what is happening in our minds. The essence of both cognitive therapy and mindfulness is this: you cannot trust your mind.
The mind will tell you all kinds of stories – many of them scary or negative and one of the main things we can do in order to stay well (i.e., not become anxious or depressed) is not to trust the mind because the mind is basically a storyteller with a preference for negative or frightening stories.
Most people treat their thoughts like they’re true. “If I think I’m bad then I must be bad” “If I feel defective/unworthy/guilty/fat/stupid ….I must be that”
Wrong!
The mind – like the heart – is build to be busy and it thinks and thinks and thinks throughout your life. However that also means that sometimes the mind will think random, ridiculous stuff that has no or little foundation in reality.
So my advice is this: don’t trust the mind.
Treat the mind like it’s a five-year-old that babbles non-stop and some of what it says is sensible, interesting and helpful and some of what it says is total nonsense and very unhelpful if you believe it.
So don’t trust it but also don’t become aggressive or angry with it – it’s only doing what it’s build to do. It’s best to view the mind with the same loving, overbearing and slightly amused feeling that you would view a small child: sweet, funny, entertaining and occasionally annoying but not to be taken seriously most of the time.
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