thoughts

When I worked at the psych-hospital 5 years ago, I used to teach psycho-education classes to the youths. I worked on the adolescent ward. Psycho-education in the psychology fields is not how to become psychotic, but education that focuses on psychological issues. One of the class was about "cognitive distortions." As I have mentioned on here before, cognitive distortions are irrational thought patterns that produce a very negative effect on a person’s life. The hospital had a list of 10 most common ones that we would print out and share with the patients. I would begin the class by quoting "I think therefore I am." Of course, as I would tell them, this quote was not intended to mean this specifically, but was in reference to answer the question of our existence. How do we know we exist? How do we know we are “real” and not just a dream? Because we have cognition. For my purposes and the purposes of the class, I would explain to them that what ever you think you are, you are. If you think you are a piece of rubbish, then you will make yourself and the World rubbish. Changing your thoughts and recognizing that they are irrational and damaging is very important to having a better life. While I was teaching, I would recognize my own flaws in my thinking. There is a quote from a very good book by Richard Bach called “Illusions” that fit me in this situation. “We teach best what we most need to learn.” Still, today, I have some of those flaws. Recognition is step one, doing something about it is step two. I need to change some of my thought patterns, replace the negative with positive. This is not easy, but just think of the all the many years of these bad habits to over-come. This is not a simple switch of the light, tuned off then back on, but a work in progress.