Understanding Cognitive Defusion
Don’t believe yourself, believe in yourself
Our thoughts have a profound impact on the habits we form, the behaviors we embody, and the way we see ourselves. It's 100% true that, the way we talk to ourselves via thoughts has a direct impact on our mental health & thus derives itself onto our physical health.
It's important to know, understand & label our thoughts to attain good mental health.
The tagline of this post is not coined by me rather was shared with me by an NLP practitioner whose session I attended.
When the session began, the instructor opened up the session with this line “How many of you believe yourself” please raise your hands.
Almost all of us raised our hands. But to our surprise, she said well done, but what you are doing is very wrong. Quite intrigued by her response, I waited for her to complete & here’s what she shared :
Do not believe yourself rather believe in yourself.
Take a moment to realize the difference. It made me feel wow then & even now while I write this article.
If we believed everything that our mind says especially the negative thoughts/ feelings then there is very less what we can do. There is no bigger support than your will & if that turns against you there is no way.
So today’s topic is very related to what I just mentioned. How many of us go through so many thoughts that are not really helping us? These could be big bully thoughts, small fears, hesitations, and so on. I am sure all of us go through it & it’s very common.
But what is not so common is learning how to deal with it. While I started to look up this topic to learn more, I came across this concept called “Cognitive Defusion”
Cognitive Defusion originally called cognitive distancing by the founder of cognitive therapy, Dr. Aaron Beck is a process where — under certain circumstances — we choose a different relationship with the stream of thought that flows through our heads.
As I read more & more about it, I realized how important life skill it is which is not included in any of our academic subjects. This impacts the quality of relationships we share with ourselves through our thoughts.
Cognitive Defusion in simple words is to distance ourselves from negative thoughts and look at them rationally. It's looking at them rather than looking through them.
Few methods to implement Cognitive Defusion on negative thoughts
Evaluation
When you take up an evaluator role for your negative thoughts, immediately rationality kicks in. Your perspective towards these negative thoughts will shift & you start to reason it via facts only to eventually defer them. You would realize most of these negative thoughts stem from a space of “What ifs” and not an actual reality.
Switch to Present, Turn off Past & Future
Have a codename to address these negative thoughts. You can call them any negative character & that should trigger you to move towards present reality & not the possibility. I loved the movie Luca where this method is shown in a very creative manner. Throughout the movie, the protagonist addresses his self-doubt thoughts by saying “Silence the Bruno” which shifts his focus to the present moment.
What a simple yet effective way!
Slow down & Breathe
This is the go-to mantra for intentional living in general & I was very happy to know about its mention while reading about methods to implement Cognitive Defusion.
Slowing down & focusing on your deep breaths is the easiest & most effective way to focus. This pushes you to be in the moment & also has a lot of health benefits.
Blabber the thought Loud in a Goofy Tune
This one is a funny way to handle it. It’s said that when you say it aloud in a funnier voice it pushes you to disassociate the feeling from that negative thought. The reason behind, when you say it in a very funny/ goody tune, your mind drops the seriousness of the thought & co-relates it to a fun element/ light moment. Thus warding off its effects on the mind.
Thank you for reading so far. In this post, I have collated what I studied & understood in simple terms to share my knowledge.
Share your appreciation for the post by liking it & comment with your thoughts.
References
