We've all heard things like, "Just think positive," or, "If you can dream it, you can do it." But how much power can our thoughts really have? It might feel strange to be asked to change the way you think in order to manage your feelings, but it really works. Thought strategies are powerful tools for helping us to regulate our emotions. There's a saying in psychology, "What fires together, wires together." Meaning that when the same neural connections are repeatedly used, they are strengthened. If we repeatedly jump to catastrophic thoughts when something unpleasant happens, that negative way of thinking becomes automatic. And when we do this starting in early childhood without learning helpful strategies, that way of thinking often becomes our go-to way of dealing with emotions. What's the take home message? What you focus on grows. The good news is that the brain is plastic. It grows new pathways and is adaptable. That means we can always learn new strategies to help us regulate our emotions, that when practiced and refined, become new healthy habits. Practice is important. It strengthens the new connections, making them faster and more readily available to us until they become our new automatic way of thinking. A second reason thought strategies work is that they interrupt the automatic stress response. Labeling our feelings is effective because bringing language to feelings calms the activation in the limbic system. As we say, you have to "name it to tame it." One of the most challenging feelings right now is a sense of loss that seems never-ending. We don't know what the protests will lead to, when a vaccine will come, how paid work will resume, or when our family relationships will be restored. Psychologists call this "ambiguous loss." It is especially disruptive because it lacks clear resolution. Instead, it seems to go on and on and on. Naming ambiguous loss (or sometimes called ambiguous grief) accurately can be the first step toward helping us move forward toward helpfulness. Sometimes people ask us if thought strategies are a kind of brainwashing or even a denial of what's really happening. Not at all! It's just a way of managing strong feelings. You know the details of your situation and what matters to you. You choose to tell yourself what you feel is right or it works for you. For example, for me, sometimes I say: "Marc, take the high road. Marc, you can get through this." Those are the things that work for me. They may not necessarily work for you. It's also possible that your thinking: "You just don't know how badly it really is for me." It's true. No one really knows what it feels like to be in your shoes. Thought strategies do not require you to deny your experience. Even the most dire circumstances can give yourself the opportunity to choose a wiser, more helpful course of action. At the very least, you will grow your ability to tolerate uncertainty or stay a little more comfortable with your discomfort. One beauty of thought strategies is that they can be done almost anywhere or any time. They don't require the planning equipment or resources that some of the action-oriented strategies do. Let's look at a few kinds of thoughts strategies now [in the following videos].
