BougieBirdie

A while back I was recovering from a panic attack so my wife said we should try watching Bluey.

The feelings were too scary, so instead we settled on Friday the 13th

My professor tried to teach us that one too, but a classmate came up with an unforgettable mnemonic. Very cursed

The professor hadn’t heard that one before

Quiddler is also the name of a card-based word game. It plays like Gin with a lot of Qs

My level of antagonism depends on how self-destructive brain wants to be.

Brain wants me to eat a whole cheesecake even though lactose doesn’t always agree with me. Okay, well, Brain wants me to be happy and also acquire those sweet, sweet calories, I respect that.

Brain wants me to vividly imagine sticking a knife in my belly while I’m chopping vegetables for dinner. Sorry Brain, you’re kind of a dick.

I’ve heard of therapists recommending you name your brain - particularly someone you dislike - so that you can separate yourself from the part of you that runs amok.

Fuckin’ Greg’s at it again, won’t let me sleep until I check to see if the door’s locked for the seventh time. Boy, I hate that guy.

Not to be flippant, but if you want to alter the way you think, then therapy is probably the answer.

The good news is that in my experience, the valuable part of therapy is totally free and you could start today.

I’ve had success with Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT). The model for CBT says that our automatic thoughts initiate our feelings, and while our feelings are valid, our thoughts can be bullshit.

Our brain is like an overgrown field, and each thought is like a person passing through it. Each time a thought passes through the field, it wears down a groove which will become a trail or a road. Our thoughts want to take the path of least resistance, so they follow the well-worn paths. However, we can create new paths with better thoughts that lead to more positive feelings, and eventually the negative paths have more resistance than the positive ones.

The key technique is recognizing Cognitive Biases, which are common ways that our brains lie to us, and then restructuring our thoughts through journaling exercises. Common biases include assuming other people think poorly of us, making predictions of the future with limited information, or thinking that because we feel bad we must be bad.

Now on the flip side, therapeutic techniques are not a one-size-fits-all solution. What’s worked for me might not work for everyone. And that’s okay because there’s plenty of tools in the toolbox left over.

I got a lot of mileage out of CBT. It’s logical, there’s a process to follow, and it improved the quality of my life to a point. It didn’t happen overnight, and I still have bad times more often than I’d like, but there was improvement

Whether you have access to a therapist or not, the greatest impact from therapy comes from doing the homework. It’s lame, but there it is. But if you really don’t vibe with a technique, the good news is there’s a zillion other techniques you could try a web search away.

Former influencer couldn’t resist one more chance to post about their life.

It’s a good message overall, but with a healthy dose of irony