Areas › Low mood and hard feelings › Question the thought
A belief about yourself comes with a feeling somewhere in the body, an emotion, and a set of things you then do or avoid. Argue only with the words and the rest of it carries on exactly as before.
This is the gap behind I know it is not true but I do not feel it. Next time you catch the belief, note where it sits physically, what emotion turned up with it, and what you did straight after, then work on one of those instead of the sentence. Changing what you do when the belief appears is often what finally makes the words believable.
Qur’an and Sunnah
who remember God standing, sitting, and lying down, who reflect on the creation of the heavens and earth (Quran 3:191). Reflection is described there in postures of the body, not as something that happens only in the head.
ٱلَّذِينَ يَذۡكُرُونَ ٱللَّهَ قِيَٰمࣰ ا وَقُعُودࣰ ا وَعَلَىٰ جُنُوبِهِمۡ وَيَتَفَكَّرُونَ فِي خَلۡقِ ٱلسَّمَٰوَٰتِ وَٱلۡأَرۡضِ رَبَّنَا مَا خَلَقۡتَ هَٰذَا بَٰطِلࣰ ا سُبۡحَٰنَكَ فَقِنَا عَذَابَ ٱلنَّارِ
who remember God standing, sitting, and lying down, who reflect on the creation of the heavens and earth: ‘Our Lord! You have not created all this without purpose- You are far above that!- so protect us from the torment of the Fire
Qur’an 3:191read it in the library
Translation: M.A.S. Abdel Haleem, The Qur'an, Oxford University Press, 2004.
What the research says
A meta-analysis of brain imaging studies found that reinterpreting an upsetting situation engaged frontal and parietal control regions and reduced activity in the amygdala, the brain's threat detector. So the thinking and the alarm really are connected rather than running in separate compartments. It is laboratory imaging work, which shows the link more clearly than it shows you how to use it.
Buhle JT, Silvers JA, Wager TD, Lopez R, Onyemekwu C, Kober H, Weber J, Ochsner KN. (2014). Cognitive reappraisal of emotion: a meta-analysis of human neuroimaging studies.. Cerebral cortex (New York, N.Y. : 1991) doi
Strength of evidence: one line of research. A single study, or a theoretical account.
Why it works
The thought, the tightness in your chest and the thing you do next are one loop, so any of them is a way in.
This one is still a draft. It is waiting on a scholar and a clinician to read it before it is published.
Near this one
Take the thought that is upsetting you and ask: what is another way to read this?
Notice when you have jumped to the worst story, and hold it as a guess, not a fact.
Some thoughts you could defend all day, and debating whether they are true only gives them more of your time. Try a different question: is this thought kind to me, and does it take me anywhere I want to go?