How to change how you feel by changing how you think

Step 1. When you think better, you feel better.
The thoughts-feelings-action pie.
There is a link between what you think and how you feel, which influences your action from moment to moment. All three pieces are connected, they influence each other, they are all pieces of the same pie. If you alter one piece, it affects the other two as well.

You can choose any piece to revamp your mood. I find it easiest to start with your thinking style. The first step is to identify what you are thinking. We all have common ineffective mental strategies we use, to tell ourselves what we believe. Here is a list of the most common thinking patterns:
1. A forked strategy: This thinking style gives your mind only two options. It could also be called ‘always or never’ thinking. For example, thoughts like, “ I am always sad and never happy”
“ I am always stupid and never brilliant”
“ I will never be successful and always struggle”
“I will always be alone and never find friends”
2. A general strategy: This thinking style induces a general belief about yourself or the world, based on a single event, thought or feeling.
For example, if you had a bad day at work,
“I’m always a loser”
“I have bad luck”
“I will always feel bad”
“I’m a complete failure”
3. A lop-sided strategy: This thinking style makes you pay more attention on the negative side of the situation than the positive. The most common example for this strategy is looking at the glass half-empty rather than half-full.
4. You under-qualify yourself- your strengths don’t matter.
5. You assume that someone is thinking negatively of you, when you don’t even have the facts to back it up.
6. You anticipate the worst.
“I am going to fail”
“Things are going to go badly”
7. You confuse yourself mentally by identifying with your limitations. You are more than your limitations.

We have all used these strategies at one time or another. Some of them are deeply ingrained in us, some not so much. The secret is to identify which one you are using in your current situation and adapt it to make it an effective thinking style to feel good!

WORKSHEET
1. Write down a situation currently affecting you or something from your recent past, to explore why you are feeling low.
a. What happened?
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b. When did it happen?
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c. When you think about this situation, what is your first thought that comes to mind?
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d. What is your second thought?
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e. What is your third thought?
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f. What is your fourth thought?
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g. What is your fifth thought?
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Tip: Don’t overanalyze. Write down the first thing that comes to mind.
2. Next, name what you are feeling. You could be feeling more than one feeling.
Anger
Fear
Disgust
Contempt
Sadness
Surprise
Guilt
Shame
Other
3. Gauge the intensity of the feeling(s).
High, medium, low.
Feeling ___________________
Feeling ___________________
Feeling ___________________
Feeling ___________________
4. In this situation, what is your action step? Or, in the recent past, what did you do? (examples include laying in bed, cried, isolated, yelled etc) ___________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
5. What do you feel in your body? (examples include tightness in chest, knot in stomach, prickly sensations, heat in the body etc).
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6. What do you believe about yourself with regard to this situation?
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7. What do you believe about others in the situation?
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8. Do you generalize this belief to the whole world?
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9. Now that you know what you believe, consider expanding it. Write down how you have demonstrated what you believe about yourself in your life.
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10. Write down how others have demonstrated to you what you believe about yourself.
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11. Now, here comes the interesting part. Based on what you believe about yourself and others, write down how you have demonstrated that the opposite is true (of what you believe about yourself and others).
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12. Combine all the information you have gained with this exercise at this point. Combine what you or others have demonstrated (both parts).
For example, “I am a complete failure, BUT, I demonstrated that I completed school with an honors degree”. Or, “ I am a complete failure AND I demonstrated it by yelling at my boss”.
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Tip: This is the time to integrate reality with effective mental strategy. Try to look at the situation as a whole.
13. Have my feelings shifted. Gauge your feelings again.

High, Medium, Low

Feeling ___________________
Feeling ___________________
Feeling ___________________
Feeling ___________________

14. Based on the whole perspective, what are your new beliefs?
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15. Apply your new beliefs into action. I am going to take the following new actions steps.
1. ___________________________________________________________
2. ___________________________________________________________
3. ___________________________________________________________

16. Record your new results.
1. My new belief is _____________________________________________
2. My new emotion is ___________________________________________
3. My new action is ____________________________________________
4. My new result is _____________________________________________

Step 2. Stabilize your feelings to induce new action steps.
Build a stable mental framework to bring emotional relief. The way to do this is to orient your thoughts to your outside environment as a way to separate yourself from your feelings. A specific feeling never lasts forever, and the key is to distract yourself for as long as possible from the feeling. This process ultimately shifts the feeling towards the positive.
Practical steps to take-mentally:
1. Count from 100 to 1 backwards.
2. Name your favorite things, like cars, songs, movies or anything that interests you.
3. Imagine or visualize your happiest moment in life.
4. Imagine or visualize your ideal moment in life.
Practical steps to take – physically.
1. Look all around you. Name all the things you can see, taste, hear, touch and smell.
2. Focus on your breath and count three deep breaths.
3. Name all the colors you see around you.
4. Name the time, date and day.
Practical steps to take- emotionally.
Practical steps to take-spiritually.
Tip: Make this a daily practice for 4 weeks.
Distracting yourself when you are feeling bad, give your feelings some space to ‘just be’. When you establish a stable framework in the above ways, your feelings can express themselves and they generally shift to more positive ones.
There is no time limit for this process. Keep doing this process till you feel relief. You can repeat the steps as many times as you need to. When you first start, you might have to do it for a longer time. In my experience, I have found that I needed less and less time as I practiced it more. Today, I do this process for 5 minutes or less and my feelings shift.
Step 3. Emotional Adjustment
You need to achieve a balance between acceptance and change to achieve emotional freedom and ultimately feel good. Both aspects are needed, to be able to move forward and make the much needed changes in your life. It is also good to remember that there are many right ways to see a situation. In addition, all points of view have a right and wrong within them.