Rohit
CBT has two parts, behavioural. All the coping skills you are using now and cognitive. Behavioural skills have to come first and be mastered before you attempt cognitive. Behavioural is coping, cognitive is cure. Cognitive is harder to do. Cognitive keeps you functioning in what your mind says is an appropriate way. I did not say the right way. Memory only knows appropriate. It does not know if it is right or wrong. Core beliefs are the decision makers.
So now if you are ready to stop the cycling I will show you how and I will give you a new coping skill.
Cognitive is strictly about thought, coping should by now be automatic.
Every thought passes through a survival control where your mind decides if it is dangerous and should be acted on. Then it passes on to memory for how to. Either dumped because it isn't important or passed on to be dealt with. Most thoughts are dumped unless important. The traffic in your peripheral vision, your co workers. Noise. Normal things that present no danger. Here is where the problem starts. If a thought gets this far it them asks memory what to do with it. Memory says you did this last time so this is appropriate. This is the action for this. The thought or action is performed and it goes back to memory as an update to appropriate even though it may and usually is the same thought or action it used. This is your one and only chance to change what your mind thinks is appropriate. These appropriates if done often become core beliefs so you don't consciously have to think what to do. They almost never go away. You can only move them to associated memory and replace them with one your mind thinks is appropriate and you think is right. You believing and thinking it is right is the glue that keeps it in use. See it too can be shuffled off to associated memory and the old core belief used. These times are set backs or cycling. What you want to do is not just cope as you do with behavioural skills but change how you think so you do not access the unwanted core belief, so you don't cycle.
Because your mind thinks cycling is appropriate. It is important that you accept the old core belief when it happens and put it back rather than hide from it because that will teach your mind that it is not appropriate to use it. It can be as simple as saying "you're here again go away, you don't belong" remember every thought passes through memory and is used to update. The more often you do this the stronger becomes the update to memory.
So when you start to sweat, think this happened before but is not right and isn't important, it is just there. That is the thought you want to use next time and next time till you no longer do that or you do but it doesn't bother you. This is cognitive and works best with a behavioural skill at the same time, Hence full CBT not just either half.
New coping skill in next post
Davit
