Last week you heard Part 1 of David’s TEAM Therapy session with Neil Sattin, who became pretty despondent and discouraged right after the first shut down because of the covid-19 pandemic in March of 2020. David and Neil went through the T = Testing and E = Empathy parts of TEAM, and David helped Neil develop a Daily Mood Log so he could record his negative thoughts and feelings at one specific moment at the end of a day when he was feeling like he hadn’t gotten enough work done. Perhaps you’ve had the same problem at times!
Today you’ll hear the A = Assessment of Resistance and M = Methods parts of the session. As they begin, David asks Neil the Magic Button and Miracle Cure questions, and Neil says that he definitely does want help and would push the Magic Button to make all of his negative thoughts and feelings on his Daily Mood Log disappear.
David cautions against that and suggests Positive Reframing, asking two questions about each negative thought and feeling.
What does this thought or feeling show about you that’s positive and awesome? What are some potential benefits, or advantages, of this thought or feeling? Here’s Neil’s list of Positives:
My sadness:
Shows that I’m ambitious Motivates me to achieve a lot Shows that I have high standards My anxiety:
Shows that I’m responsible Keeps me vigilant Fuels me to take action Reminds me that I’m doing important things My guilt:
Shows that I have a moral compass My feelings of defectiveness and inadequacy:
Show that I want to be a good role model Show that I’m willing to be honest about my flaws Show that I hold myself accountable Show that I’m humble My feelings of being alone show that:
I value connections with others Allow me to feel close to people My feelings of embarrassment and humiliation show that:
I have high standards and goals I want my life to mean something I value acceptance My discouragement shows that:
I have a vision I’m realistic about the many challenges I face and the sheer volume of work I have to do I’m willing to face the truth My frustration shows that:
I’ll persevere. I won’t stop and give up. Feeling annoyed and irritated:
Shows that I won’t tolerate things that get in my way Gives me energy and determination Feeling overwhelmed:
Reminds me that I might be taking on too much Protects me from trying and failing Shows that I’m looking for ways to take care of myself. After listing these positives, Neil used the Magic Dial and indicated that he’d like to dial down his negative feelings to lower levels, rather than getting rid of them entirely, as you can see in the “% Goal” column of his Daily Mood Log.
Then they moved on to M = Methods, focusing first on Neil’s Negative Thought (NT):
“I’m not capable of getting organized. After identifying a number of distortions in the thought, Neil was able to generate a positive thought that fulfilled the necessary and sufficient conditions for emotional change:
The Positive Thought (PT) has to be 100% true. The PT has to drastically lower your belief in the Negative Thought. You can see this on his DML. David and Neil used a variety of techniques, including Externalization of Voices, to challenge the rest of his NTs. Neil re-rated his negative feelings at the end of the session. They all feel to zero except feeling alone, which went from 80 to 5, which was his goal.
Rhonda and David
Transcript
0:00 · [Music] hello and welcome to the feeling good podcast where you can learn powerful techniques to change the way you feel i am your host ronda barrowski and joining me here in the murrieta studio is dr david burns dr david burns is a
David Burns
0:23 · pioneer in the development of cognitive behavioral therapy and the creator of the new team therapy he is the author of feeling good which has sold over 5 million copies in the united states and has been translated into over 30 languages david is currently an emeritus adjunct professor of clinical psychiatry at stanford university school of medicine hello rhonda
0:50 · hi david it’s such a cheerful way to begin every episode with a hearty laugh um welcome everyone this is episode 209 and this is our part two of the personal work that you did with neil satin um and i don’t think we need much to to
1:09 · in the introduction right david in the first session you empathized with him you did testing you filled out the daily mood log with him we also you know had a kind of a 15-minute introduction to who he was and and he shared that the the work that
1:25 · you did together you know it was very long lasting up till today you did that work in march and this is going to be posted in september um and so in this session you’re going to be going over the assessment of resistance with him and then you went into methods with him is that right yes and absolutely um
1:45 · and i think you uh and it’s uh it was a wonderful session and i think neil got a lot of great feedback because he’s he’s sharing himself so openly it was really just a joy of right working working with him and an honor as well i think you have a nice
2:04 · endorsement to read a little quickie i do i have a quick need to read about episode 187 and that was the one where you did live therapy with michael the awesome atlanta team therapy demo and this is from alice jens and she wrote to you and said wow this was incredibly powerful to listen to and i’ve used some of the techniques on my own and they really helped thank you
2:31 · and what was the number do you recall of them that was 187 michael 187 the atlanta podcast yes when you make yourself vulnerable and real it’s amazing how helpful it can be to to other people also our our podcast with michael simpson uh which was on what what did we call it a case for the the case for vulnerability right
2:58 · has become one of our uh most popular podcasts of all time probably in the top three or four or five wow and that was also on the theme of vulnerability and and and whenever we do live work and people make themselves vulnerable like you’ve done in the most courageous and fantastic way on on at least
3:20 · two occasions on live podcasts it always has a uh a very warm and helpful effect for for others when we accept ourselves as flawed and vulnerable and not not this spiffy glossy self we think we’re supposed to be but the real self that we are it just makes it uh so it’s so helpful to others it makes it easier for them to accept themselves so shall we dive in to number
3:52 · two online and oh wait one other quickie uh my oh yeah really something important to say yeah my book feeling great just came out a few days ago on amazon and so if you’re so inclined to take a look or or purchase it i i would be totally thrilled it’s but i think there’s a lot of great stuff in the book for you it has all of the new team therapy techniques so whether you’re a patient a therapist or a general citizen you’ll learn a lot of the new secrets of
4:25 · high-speed recovery and of course it’s intended not only to help therapists learn the new techniques but also it’s written for you the person who’s struggling with depression and anxiety so you can use the techniques learn them do the written exercises while you’re reading the book and hopefully hopefully experience a nice boost in in your mood and a reduction and and negative feelings and with all that
4:54 · being said i think are we ready to dive in we’re ready to dive in okay thank you for joining us today and i hope i hope you love part two of the live work with neil satin now we want to take a look at uh a assessment of of resistance and let me ask you this question uh
5:14 · you you’ve talked about some some things that are very powerful and very personal and very important and and is there there’s something here that that you would want help with and is this a good time for us to to get to work or do you need more time to kind of talk and have me listen and provide support because that’s important and i don’t want to you know jump in prematurely
5:41 · i think that both my excitement for being able to do this with you and my frustration at like how persistent this has been leads me to want to like do the work okay um now let me ask you this question suppose at the end of our session today
6:07 · you say wow that was better than you know french fries or something like that and uh and and kind of miracle happens uh what what miracle would you be hoping for what change if if if this was a really wonderful experience what would change by the end of our session um okay if a miracle were to happen
6:36 · then i would feel i’d feel totally capable i’d have a sense of how to prioritize and where to start
6:57 · and and i would feel like a certain measure of trust in the path and the the unfolding that like that i could see it
7:12 · i could see how it’s all gonna work how it’s all gonna be okay um yeah okay that’s a good goal now let me let me uh ask you to imagine that we have a magic button i can send you a nice red magic button if you want for your show notes uh if i want someone in my tuesday class her husband’s a graphic guy and he made a magic button
7:40 · for me that’s very neat looking but if we have this magic button let’s say if you press that all your negative thoughts and feelings would instantly disappear in a flash you become euphoric and you’d feel joy and confidence and trust and you’d feel totally capable and you know would you press the magic button um yeah i definitely would okay
8:06 · that’s what most people say and i don’t have a magic button but i’ve got some some uh really wonderful techniques uh and uh but but i’m not sure it would be a good idea to to use those techniques and
8:25 · cause all these negative thoughts and feelings to to disappear that there might be some unanticipated losses there and so if you can take a piece of paper and put positives on it and we’re going to make a list of positives
8:44 · and and we’re going to ask two questions about each negative feeling or negative thoughts as well as you like and we’re going to ask two questions about it what are some benefits or advantages of this type of negative feeling like feeling sad feeling anxious feeling guilty whatever and and the second question is what does this kind of feeling show about me and my core values as a
9:13 · human being that’s a beautiful uh and awesome and positive and so this this is the opposite of the way uh most mental health professionals and people look at it we say oh neil has this defect this problem that
9:30 · that has to be fixed this is all the stuff that’s wrong with you and and i’m gonna go in the opposite direction here uh and and and see what this shows about you that that’s really quite quite the opposite of defective let’s just start out with sad down and unhappy you’re you’re feeling 85 percent sad down and unhappy so
9:56 · one what are what is that show about you that’s um that’s a beautiful positive and awesome show about you and your core your core values um
10:12 · you’re sad because you have a lot of exciting projects that that you’re not getting to among other things right i mean sorry i’m just making a note here that yeah for me that shows um
10:32 · on that i well on one level that i’m ambitious okay so let’s just stop for for a second yeah put down uh ambitious okay the sadness shows that i mean is is that real is that true um are you ambitious i am ambitious
10:53 · is that is that a good thing i think so yeah uh-huh is that important it’s super important is that powerful it’s part of what drives me yeah yeah it’s part of what and you’ve achieved a lot could we add that to
11:12 · add what your ambition has caused you to achieve for sure yeah is that important very important okay let’s add uh have have achieved a a lot and and just to bracket it for our listeners because this is so new to people even mental health professionals some have not been able to learn how to do this they’re so used to thinking about these things as bad but notice if you press the magic button you’ll become euphoric
11:41 · euphoric about the fact that there’s all these projects you’re not getting to do you see what i mean right because i would i’d feel excited i would just feel like okay i’m gonna i will like i am going to do these things right that’s and that’s a benefit but at the same time if you weren’t feeling sad it would be like you didn’t value these things right and the intensity of your sadness
12:08 · shows the intensity of your ambition and your desire to to make a contribution definitely you see that yeah yeah so um uh we we could we we could uh could we also say uh that your sadness shows uh results and your self-criticisms show that you have high standards um yeah definitely could we add high standards to the list of positives okay
12:38 · so we have three things so far you’re ambitious you’ve achieved a lot and and you have have have high high high standards um uh let we could add more to sad but let’s look at some more of the categories you’re you’re very uh anxious okay
12:55 · about as anxious as a human being can be 85 to 90 percent what are some benefits of your anxiety and what does your anxiety show about you that’s that’s positive and awesome um i have a strong sense of responsibility okay add that response
13:20 · responsibility is is that true that i have that sense of responsibility yeah yeah very true is that powerful yep is that important very important yeah so there there’s an awesome thing what are some other cool things about your anxiety panic
13:53 · yeah this one’s hard for me well they’re all hard at first this is something you get into it takes a few minutes to unfold and the fact that it’s hard may will make it much more effective for for the listeners so that is the integrity of what what we’re doing because this isn’t cheerleading this is taking negative feelings and saying what’s beautiful about that feeling or what’s beneficial see if you press the magic button you won’t be anxious at all
14:25 · right so the the anxiety well there’s something about it that creates fuel to to take action put that down it’s it’s fuel to to take
14:41 · action and if i can add to that it also um reminds you is a powerful reminder that you need to take action um yeah like you’re in you’re in danger right and so you won’t be be complacent about all the things that that you’d like to be doing right it’s challenge like i don’t find
15:09 · oh i don’t know if this is true but theoretically it’s not the strongest place to be acting from from a place of fear versus like being driven in a you know with more of an inner state of ease but yeah that’s true it’s um
15:29 · it’s a two-edged short all all feelings are two edged swords but just to look at the positive side of them it reminds you that there’s a lot of cool stuff that that you you’d like to be doing that that that you’re that you’re putting off so yeah it keeps your eye on what needs to be done yep yep that’s true um so do you can you add that how would you word that and add that to your list
15:57 · um well it does tie into the fuel the the drive yeah like it tells me that i’m doing things that are important oh yes right it tells you that you’re doing things that are important is that desirable yeah put that down
16:26 · i’m doing important things important things uh uh that’s that sounds very very uh very important to to to notice that um yeah let’s talk about your um you’re feeling guilty remorseful but bad ashamed what what is that show about you that’s positive and awesome um i think that ties into some of the
17:00 · things we’ve already said like about um having high standards um and the sense of responsibility yep uh-huh yeah and how about a moral compass for sure moral compass and
A Moral Compass
17:18 · and i and i think a belief in myself too yeah are those add those to to your list yeah because if you didn’t believe in yourself you’d you would just say oh well i’m not capable of doing anything so what what the heck and and not be upset about it right whereas like when i don’t do things i feel guilty because i’m because i know
17:42 · somewhere deep down that i’m that i am capable and that’s why it’s so weird to be stuck not getting things done yeah yeah you’re beautiful so those are three great benefits of guilt now you you feel uh defective and inadequate what are some really wonderful things about feeling defective and inadequate
Feeling Defective and Inadequate
18:10 · um what is wonderful what does that reveal about my values that i’m feeling defective and inadequate um
18:33 · well again this does tie into other things that we’ve said and especially what we’re just saying about feeling capable i think that there’s also uh like i want to be a role model you know particularly for my kids could you put that down yeah your list is that important that is very important okay put that down um i just thought of
19:04 · six more awesome things about feeling defective and inadequate oh yeah can you tell me something is that cheating no no this is a collaboration and it’s hard to see these things at first when i developed this technique it took me a long time to to discover all the
19:23 · fantastic things about all the negative feelings the two hardest ones for me hopelessness was the second hardest and then when i discovered what was awesome about that that was like a slam dunk and then the last one was frustration i couldn’t think of anything good about frustration and finally i was in some kind of internet cafe having a cup of coffee and
19:45 · there were all these people on their their computers so i just said out loud i’m trying to find out the good thing about negative emotions but i can’t think of anything good about frustration can anyone think of anything and then this fellow shouted out and i suddenly saw what was awesome about frustration are you gonna say what he shouted out no you have to listen to the next show
20:09 · no i’m being silly i want to get back to your list but he shouted out it shows you haven’t given up on your goals um wow isn’t that cool that’s amazing yeah they’re all amazing but i’ll tell you some more things about being defective and inadequate it seems to me that it shows that you’re you’re honest and that you have integrity because you you do have many flaws um is that true that you do have many flaws i i am not perfect
20:40 · so when you say you’re defective and inadequate that are you showing that you’re you’re accepting the fact and you’re honestly looking at the fact yeah i’m willing to be honest about that too is that important yeah let’s add that to the list willing to be honest about about my about my flaws
21:08 · uh for example some some people in the world blame everyone else for their problems um but when you say that you’re defective and it’s defective and inadequate could it be that that you’re being accountable yeah that i’m that i hold myself accountable is is that true that is true is that important
21:32 · yeah it seems seems really important is it powerful yeah again what comes up for me is that it’s somewhat paradoxical because what we’re talking about are behaviors that don’t seem to suggest that i’m holding myself accountable but it is important to me yeah but
21:57 · so put that down and and we’ll we’ll get to those behaviors and everything in a little bit but right now it’s good enough to see that you that you you you do hold yourself accountable and and that that’s that’s very uh very desirable yeah so yeah so um we can speed it up a little if you like i don’t mind the the slow the slow pace because
22:19 · there’s a kind of an awakening that that is beginning is beginning to happen that will be uh helpful to us sometimes you have to slow down a little in order to speed up greatly great uh your your um in addition so we have three benefits of defective and and adequate it shows that you want to be a role model especially for your children it shows that you’re willing to be honest um about your flaws rather than denying
22:49 · them oh i had another thought about that one too it shows you’re willing to hold yourself accountable and and would it also be true that when you you feel defective in an addict but it shows that you have a sense of humility yeah is that important very important to me add that yeah and add that to the list
23:17 · and i don’t know if you’re at all spiritual but is is humility a spiritual quality
Is Is Humility a Spiritual Quality
23:32 · yeah for me when i when i feel those moments of feeling just kind of the the interconnectedness of all things and kind of marveling at how miraculous existence is yeah that that comes with uh
23:53 · with uh it feel i would call it humility yeah yeah that it’s it’s not self-effacing it’s just like yeah right realizing like wow i’m just a part of something that’s so much bigger than me yeah yeah is that important yeah is that powerful very uh-huh and and is that just theoretical bs or are people right now who are listening well they won’t be listening until you publish this but will they be feeling close to you
24:26 · because of your humility your vulnerability i hope so yeah uh so uh would that be a a good thing too it would it would be great if that was the result yeah or one of the results find out but could could we say that this allows me to to to be close to others is that true definitely and that is that important
24:55 · yes very important see like i told you about a huge failure i i i i had you know even yesterday yeah it’s it’s something i actually really have appreciated about all our conversations is that you’re that you own those things all the time yeah yeah yeah and i appreciate those and others as well and and especially you you’re some kind of to my way of thinking some superstar and
25:28 · um and then when i talk to you you’re this this kind humble vulnerable person and it’s it’s really a fantastically positive thing [Music] but anyway let’s let’s push ahead here uh you you feel alone eighty percent what what what’s great about feeling alone
25:51 · like you say i have to do this all myself and you feel alone um well i’ve i value connection is that true yeah add that to your list value connection is that uh important
26:14 · yet i i live by that is that powerful very powerful okay so that’s a good one what’s uh what’s wonderful about being embarrassed and huma humiliated
26:33 · [Music] um yeah this seems to loop back on um
26:52 · just having high standards and and goals and um wanting i mean deep down i think i want my life to have meant something put that down yeah i i want my my my life to have
27:19 · meant meant something uh is is is that true yeah is is that important very important is that powerful yep yeah and one other thing about embarrassed you and humiliated that this seems to mean others will see me as as less than um embarrassment
27:44 · and and and uh so it perhaps it shows that that you’re yearning to again to be close to others and to show them something that good and your and your father as well yeah definitely definitely how would you put that um
28:06 · that um well you know what comes up for me actually is the is valuing acceptance and
Valuing Acceptance
28:23 · i don’t know i feel like maybe i’m not doing this one right but um oh wait a minute the buddha said acceptance is the greatest change a human being can make so valuing acceptance that seems like a pretty pretty good thing that you want people to accept you and to feel close to you i do and i want others to feel that way with me as well yeah so put put that down value acceptance that
28:54 · in fact i don’t know if you’re familiar with the tibetan book of the dead and in the opening sentence they they quote the buddha and the opening sentence as you may recall is acceptance rocks
29:15 · you know the second sentence what also quoting buddha shame sucks [Laughter] anyway pushing ahead here uh discouraged uh what what what’s great about feeling discouraged maybe a little hopeless yeah is that i have a vision put that down i have a have a vision yeah lots lots of visions actually
29:46 · right what else is great feeling discouraged about making your visions a reality that’s what we’re really talking about wow what’s awesome about that how could that be a good thing um it’s another thing that keeps me keeps me going i think um like it goes hand in hand with perseverance okay are you someone who perseveres
30:18 · so far well put that down for perseverance uh there there’s several other really great things about hopelessness and and and depression uh-huh it’s hard to see these things for the first time okay i’m gonna i’m listening well one
30:35 · one thing they keep your expectations low so so you don’t get uh your hopes up and then and get disappointed again like when people are hopelessly depressed then they don’t say oh burns is going to help me and then be let down when burns can’t help them right you protect yourself from from disappointment like tomorrow i might might be another day of procrastination and if i feel discouraged i can and hopeless i can i i can kind of keep myself from going on a
31:07 · roller coaster of being being up and down right so it has that protective function so you can put protective and and another thing um it seems to me it shows that you’re honest and realistic because procrastination has been a problem for you yeah and and so you’re you’re facing the truth in in a way
31:32 · yes is that important to when you have a problem to face face the truth absolutely so you can add that and you know facing the truth and uh and then uh frustrated 95. well we already leaked that one what what are some good things about being uh frustrated yeah i i loved what you said about that um
32:05 · and for me uh yeah it’s it’s part of the perseverance or like um like i’m not gonna just stop if i weren’t frustrated i would just kind of resign myself to how things are yeah won’t stop and give up right i’m gonna live my dream i’m gonna persevere
32:34 · and then we’ve got annoyed and irritated 70 percent what what what are some great things about being annoyed and irritated um that i’m that i yeah it’s it’s kind of like the won’t stop i i i’m not going to tolerate
32:58 · i don’t want to tolerate things that are getting in my way yeah like i see i’m willing to see that things are getting in my way i’m willing even to see that i’m getting in my way yeah is that important yeah but put that down that’s well well stated i think yeah part of facing the truth there i think yeah and also what does the annoyance and irritation give you energy like the anxiety definitely
33:30 · yeah is that important have energy yep okay so you can add that and then our last category and then we’ll get on to to to methods uh once we’ve done a little quick uh certain kind of wrap-up of of this but you’re overwhelmed 95 what what’s great about being overwhelmed well by being overwhelmed
34:04 · i don’t have to experience trying and failing put that down so would you say it’s a kind of a comforting thing in a way
34:21 · yeah i mean it’s it’s that’s a weird one right because it’s like well if i don’t try then i’m definitely not gonna get there or i’ll get there super slowly um but yeah it’s so it’s showing that i’m looking for ways to take to like take care of myself is that important yeah put that down looking uh for four ways uh
34:50 · to to take to take care of myself there’s there’s another neat thing about being overwhelmed um i i can suggest it to you see if see if it resonates would it be a way of reminding yourself that indeed uh you are maybe
35:10 · pushing yourself to do too too much or or that an awful lot that that there is you know a tremendous amount on your plate and that that and that that’s you know realistically the case
35:26 · meaning that one possible reason i’m overwhelmed is that i’m trying to do too much and it would be helpful to see to see that and learn how to limit myself yeah yeah yeah yeah put that put that down the uh at one point
35:45 · there’s this really great guy jeremy that i’m working on this app with he’s he’s just fantastic he’s a wonderful programmer and you know he has had this dream of working with me to devel develop this feeling good app or feeling great app what we’re going to call it but we’re really ambitious in what we’re going to put into this app and my wife is telling me david don’t do this you’re so over you’re already working 200 percent and then it’s like adding a new startup type of thing on top of everything and uh and then my publisher said that
36:18 · we we want you to edit the book within two weeks uh that they had edited and wanted me to you know respond to to the edits and and all these things and then they the psychotherapy networker said we want to reveal your book at the networker conference in march and and we want you to fly to washington dc and give two presentations and that was only like four weeks away
36:45 · and then google called and said we want to give you a google talk on international happiness day which is the deep and i was going to have to give that talk and race to the airport and fly to washington dc and and so i i told jeremy listen i’m really kind of and i had other chores too and i said listen i’m really kind of tied up for the next couple couple of weeks and then he got to saying well you know maybe you’re not gonna have enough time to do the app and maybe we should just decide to give
37:17 · up on it and that was some wise words that he had and i found myself feeling relieved i’ve wanted to do this app for 40 years i’ve been figuring it out in my mind but i suddenly thought oh my gosh that would be so great to fail and then i could hang out with our little kitty and and i just got such a wave of relief
37:42 · and then i i i was just very nice i said well gosh i you know i feel so badly because i love working with you but i totally understand if if that’s you know blah blah blah and then of course once you let go the universe comes to you and then he suddenly said oh well if you could just do two days a week that would be enough so i said okay yeah that i mean i can i’m sure i can do do that and now that all those conferences are cancelled i have a lot of time to work on it but that
38:14 · thing of being being overwhelmed and noticing that that you’re overwhelmed i think it’s very important my wife can see it before before i can see it but anyway so now i have a question for you you you said you want to press the magic button and make all these negative feelings disappear so you’d feel euphoric and and and at the same time we’ve looked at the list of positives of of your feelings uh like
38:45 · sadness anxiety guilt etc and it shows that you’re ambitious and and your ambition uh results from from your high standards and these have motivated you to in reality achieve a tremendous amount in your life and and your anxiety keeps you vigilant
39:04 · gives you a warning that you’re not achieving some things that are important to you and and shows your sense of responsibility and gives you a fuel to take action and uh it it it tells you that that you’re doing important things that you don’t want to let slide and your guilt shows that you have a moral compass that you have high again that you have high standards that you believe in yourself and your defectiveness uh
39:34 · shows that you’re realistic because you are defective you you are inadequate always will be we we have these flaws as as human beings and and you’re you’re you’re facing the truth you’re holding yourself accountable and
39:51 · uh and shows you want to be a role model and and it shows your humility and your humility is it’s a kind of spiritual quality that binds you to to others that we all suffer and and bind you connects you to even to to the universe you you said and uh and and allows you to be close to to people that you know the people that you’re connecting with today is going to be uh to my way of thinking pretty pretty
40:22 · tremendous and powerful and meaningful and and your feeling alone shows how much you value connection it is hurt you you want a father to be there and to tell you you’re doing okay and to and and others as well and it hurts to to be alone because you you yearn for intimacy and and and for contact and then your
40:44 · feeling of embarrassment humiliation shows again your high standards uh that that uh you you want your life to have meant something what a what a beautiful thing that is and that you that you value acceptance from others and then your discouragement
41:01 · shows that you have a vision and and and and and also that you’re you’re you’re you’re facing the truth and the fact that that maybe you can’t do all these things like in a day and and maybe can
41:17 · kind of uh protect you a little from disappointment and getting your hopes up and then finding another day has gone by and you you procrastinated again and um and the frustration shows that you’re that you’re not someone who’s going to give up that you’re going to persevere and your anger shows the same thing that you’re not going to tolerate this and and that the anger can give you energy and then overwhelmed it can be can be comforting to to notice that you are asking an awful awful lot of
41:48 · your yourself and maybe that you deserve a little comfort and so um if the question then is is why in the world would you want to press that magic button because when your negative thoughts and feelings disappear all of these positives are going to go down the drain at the same time right i i want to keep those positive things exactly exactly so then what are we going to do
42:20 · what are we going to do i’m i’m super curious um yeah if the magic button if the magic button would have just gotten rid of all that stuff that that wouldn’t have been too great right so suppose we had a magic dial i can send you one of those for your show notes too this might be a three-part podcast or something uh but um uh let’s say we had a magic dial
42:49 · and we could dial each emotion down to a level that would be a lot more acceptable uh and you could still keep all this list of we must come up with at least 20 or 25 powerful positives how how how what would be an ideal level
43:08 · at the end of today’s session how sad down and unhappy would you want to be that’s been 85 what would be a a good level of that because because there was some sadness as indicated yeah i mean 10 to 15 yeah 15 great so i’m writing that in the goal column on the on the daily mood log your anxiety is 85 to 90.
43:34 · how anxious would you want to be how much anxiety would you need to keep the benefits of the anxiety um yeah ten i like ten ten’s a good number good how guilty uh remorseful bad and ashamed would you wanna be today can that be a zero yeah yeah that’s what the buddha said
43:58 · we don’t need any any of that stuff shame guilt how inadequate and effective do you want to feel that’s been 65 to 70.
44:09 · hmm yeah that can be like a five yeah that’s a good number on that how alone do you want to feel like i mean yeah i can have that be a
44:25 · five like i like the i like feeling like i’m good like you know like i don’t need other people but like i’m good by myself but yeah yeah perfect i love it how how embarrassed and humiliated do you want to feel that’s 50. yeah that that i wouldn’t mind if that were a zero zero great how discouraged do you want to feel that that’s 85
44:52 · that could be five five great how frustrated stock thwarted defeated that’s 95.
45:07 · well if i need it for those feelings i would i would take five but if i don’t need it then it would be a relief to not feel that but so why don’t we put zero to five okay yeah how annoyed and irritated do you want to feel um
45:31 · yeah let’s make that a zero to five as well is that enough you we wouldn’t need ten percent for energizing purposes um zero to five is fine but no i i’ll let’s make it a 10.
45:46 · sure yeah okay right 10. and then how overwhelmed do you want to feel um i’d like to find other ways to care for myself than being overwhelmed so
46:04 · i mean the goal would be zero you want to feel not overwhelmed with this long list of undone tasks right i just want to feel like okay that that’s what is and yeah like yeah i don’t want to feel overwhelmed great we’ll put it put a zero there right and now now we’re done with the assessment of of resistance and we’re ready to go on to to methods and start smashing some of these negative thoughts but uh just uh you know maybe for one
46:35 · minute what was this experience like for you so far um so that process of um going through and coming up with the the values and like what’s right about these negative emotions that that’s very it’s very profound to like to realize those things and
47:04 · and i’m feeling yeah i’m feeling just kind of moved that they’re all there like below the surface of those negative feelings um what was
47:20 · challenging for me in like going through the goals that we just did is that part of me wants to just say zero for all those things or like right i noticed like with overwhelm in particular like yeah i want that like i don’t want to be overwhelmed um so i wasn’t sure like what the right thing to do was whether it’s like well the right thing is to want like a few percentage points of this thing
47:45 · yeah you know i think you make good good choices you can you know things will often have changed once we get to working together but what we’ve done here is to make a kind of deal with your subconscious mind because you see the reason you have these things is is because of these values that you have yeah and you know what i just had this insight about overwhelm i don’t think i would want to feel overwhelmed all the time but i think like having a touch of overwhelm as an
48:16 · indicator of like oh there’s too much in front that’s what i mean yeah yeah so let’s raise that from from zero yeah i’d make that a five a five right yeah and uh your numbers are great your goals are great but it’s a huge error for people to put all zeros yeah because then they’re not listening to themselves right to to what what’s really positive and then paradoxically they they resist right but but
48:44 · but once you see what’s really great about being upset suddenly you don’t have that much of a need to be upset and in addition you don’t have to be ashamed of being upset you can be proud of being depressed and anxious you can be proud of being ashamed and uh but let’s let’s push ahead here
49:09 · now you’ve given me seven um just great negative thoughts that we’ve written down and um you’re welcome yeah which one would you would you want to uh uh see if we can challenge
49:25 · first which one do you want to work on first they’re all really good ones uh let’s do the i’m not capable of being that organized i should be able to do this and figure this out let’s see um those were kind of the same okay that’s number one and two kind of okay yeah i guess i lumped them together i’m not sure i can be that organized
49:49 · and i should be able to do this and figure this out let’s just break it down into two separate thoughts okay they’re both great thoughts i’m not sure i can be that organized or i should be able to figure this out yeah all right so let’s do um your waiting for me um let’s do i’m not capable of being
50:14 · that organized okay yeah yeah yeah great now um i i’m not you know capable that’s a good one of of being that that organized
50:31 · now look at the list of distortions on the back of the daily mood log there’s 10 of them and i think you have a copy of one there yep and let’s see if we can uh pinpoint some some distortions in that thought um well it’s
50:51 · feels like all or nothing thinking great put aon just the abbreviation in the distortion column and that’s a great call and and tell us why that’s all or nothing thinking
51:06 · um because just saying i’m not capable is kind of ruling it out entirely versus being willing to say like well there are some things about this that i’m good at and some things that i’m less good at and which would be it more there’d be more gray versus black and white awesome what what are some more distortions [Music] um
51:38 · yeah the i mean over generalization i’m just looking through the list and each one i’m like so the first one was all or nothing thinking the next one was overgeneralization um oh gee so which is viewing a negative event as a never-ending pattern of defeat and i think that that’s that’s
Overgeneralization
51:58 · part of what’s happening here is absolutely i love that what are some more distortions so the next one mental filter you dwell on the negatives and ignore the positives um yeah that’s that’s definitely there um and tell us why that’s very true what you just said but kind of explain it to us at the fourth grade level yeah so um [Music]
52:31 · so the conclusion that i’m not capable is highlighting the fact that i didn’t get everything done that i wanted to get done but it’s ignoring the things that i did get done or the ways that i did take care of myself or what might have been positive about whatever choices i made perfect perfect well well explained what what are some more um discounting the positive
53:04 · the are they all going to be there david because so far at first when i looked at that there’s only a couple distortions here but now it’s like my mind is opening up and we may find a six or eight or maybe even 10. yeah so discounting the positive you insist that your positive qualities don’t count yeah that’s ignoring all the ways that i am and have shown that i’m capable and that i’m able
53:30 · to learn and grow and change and that’s happening all the time so i’m definitely discounting it yeah um the next thing that’s right what what are some more distortions yeah jumping to conclusions that um so this doesn’t have mind reading but it does have fortune telling like i i didn’t i didn’t today and i won’t be able to tomorrow exactly exactly and we can
54:00 · speed through the other fives to just to save a little time because you’re nailing them all but it’s it’s it’s clearly you know magnification and minimization right yeah blowing it out of proportion and looking at all the things you haven’t done and discounting the incredible accomplishments that you have done it’s it’s emotional reasoning i feel it so it must be true i feel overwhelmed and defeated so i am
54:27 · overwhelmed and defeated and won’t in fact be able to do these things or get get more organized it’s a hidden should statement isn’t it right i should have gotten more done i should have done these things yeah yeah yeah uh-huh right uh and i should be more organized in general i i and i shouldn’t
54:49 · i shouldn’t get overwhelmed i should just be on top of everything all the time and then uh isn’t that true though yeah right exactly and then i would say it’s self-blame the only one it isn’t is labeling but it’s self-blamed because you’re kind of beating up on yourself right and labeling could i mean if i’m saying i’m incapable oh yeah that’s the labeling right so we found all 10 i love that yeah now let’s now that we’ve got all
55:20 · these distortions we have a lot of ways to crush a negative thought but let me just ask you just uh simple and simple terms can you think of a way you could challenge that thought what what could you you tell yourself instead of that you know is that thought true um so okay this one might be hard for me
55:46 · well let me let me make it easy for you let’s let’s imagine that i’m uh a uh kind of like a clone of yours but a dear friend okay and that i look a lot like you i’m i went to the same schools you went to i got the same grades my career is a little similar to yours
56:08 · and um and uh could and so you i’m i’m i’m almost like an identical twin but a different human being okay and uh give me a name well i’ll be you i’ll be david and you can be neil great but i’m not david burns i’m this kind of clone of yours could i talk to you for a minute neil sure um i uh
56:36 · i don’t know if you’re aware of this but you know i’ve been pretty pretty lucky with my career and with my podcasts and i’ve done a lot of things that have been very successful and very very well well received and and lately i’ve been almost had the curse of too much creativity or something like that that i’ve i’ve got all these projects on the on the front burner and the back burner and i find myself getting overwhelmed
57:03 · and kind of anxious uh to think about all the things that that i’d like to be doing but they’re all great things and but i’ve been telling myself that i’m really not capable of of getting organized does that seem is that true
57:26 · yeah that doesn’t seem completely true because if it were completely true then you wouldn’t have been able to do the things that you have gotten done so so just stop by because i like what you’re saying you’re saying that can’t be completely true because if it was completely true i i wouldn’t have accomplished the many things that i have gotten done is that what you just said that’s what i just said and is that true are you just blowing smoke in my face
57:57 · well um because that helps me but i yeah i mean some of the things that you’ve gotten done seemed to me like they would have required some organization on your part like you’ve you’ve interviewed a lot of people you’ve you’ve had to get organized about contacting people and scheduling things and oh yeah and
58:20 · doing the research that you need to do in order to have good conversations with people and oh yeah yeah so let me see if that’s true you’re saying that i’ve been actually pretty organized in many many areas of my life and i’ve accomplished a lot because i’ve been organized my podcasts my interviews and
58:42 · and while it’s true that i have a lot on my plate almost too much to do all at once right now that that it’s not true that i i lack the the skill of of getting organized is that what you just told me yeah yeah that it’s
59:02 · right it may and i i appreciate that you added that that there may just be more on your plate than a single human could do in a day um but that wouldn’t be about
59:18 · your ability to organize oh yeah i love i love what you’re saying now is is that true or you’re just bullshitting me well um because i don’t i want you to be honest with me yeah i mean so there may be a skill in there around learning how to say no or learning how to prioritize or um like there may be something like that in there for you that that you could use some help with um
59:47 · so you’re saying there’s some things i could maybe use some help with but the fact is i have fairly decent organizational skills is that what you said yeah because you’re getting things done and that wouldn’t happen if you weren’t capable of being organized could we write that in the in the and that’s 100 percent true that’s 100 percent true put that in the positive thought column
1:00:16 · i i am overwhelmed by a lot but do have um good or excellent organizational skills is that what you said or well tell me how to write it down yeah what i said was that um
1:00:46 · i mean what i was saying was that you you are you do get things done that require organization which is evidence to support the fact that you have organizational skills okay write that in the right hand column okay i do have uh do get things done and that
1:01:05 · requires organizational skills okay were you able to write it there too yup okay and how true is that between zero and a hundred um that’s a hundred a hundred okay and now how true is i’m not capable of being organized or being that organized
1:01:36 · um oh and add to the right-hand column you know some kind of a disclaimer al although uh things are hard for me at the moment or i do have enough maybe too much to do or yeah so we keep it totally true in the right-hand positive thoughts column yeah so i had written i’m overwhelmed by a lot but i do get things done and that requires organizational skills
1:02:04 · okay that’s that’s good enough so now how much do you believe i’m not capable of being that organized um i’d put that at like a 15.
1:02:15 · 15. and let’s put 15 in the after column and from my point of view that sometimes you want to smash a thought to zero and sometimes you want to leave it a little because there’s a little truth in it so if i i’m thinking 15 would be good enough on that thought yeah yeah i mean
1:02:37 · i think if i if i focus in on the word capable then it’s probably zero it’s probably zero because i i feel pretty capable and yeah that dialogue that we had illustrated that there are places for me to grow that would help me
1:02:58 · do you do that in the right hand column i added that to the puzzle that i can i can still still grow and and do do even better great now that we’ve smashed this first
1:03:17 · thought i’m going to jump up to a new new orbit okay and um and we’ll see if this will be will be a fact of the technique we used was called the double standard technique okay that a lot of us operate on a double standard and and in a way you’ve been bullying yourself maybe you said you felt that your dad did that a little bit yeah and and and
The Double Standard Technique
1:03:43 · and and then when we did the double standard when you talked to me was a clone of yourself you weren’t a bully you were compassionate and helpful right now uh i’m going to be neil and you’re going to be neil okay and i’m going to be the bully i’m going to be the negative neil okay and i’m going to attack you and this will sound cruel but it’s actually very loving because it gives you a chance to to talk back and and uh defeat that
1:04:14 · that inner bully okay and uh i’m going to speak in the second person you and you can speak in the first person eye okay and uh are you ready yeah and i just want to admit that i feel nervous about this cool well that might make it more more more helpful but if you can’t beat me we’ll do role reversals back and forth so it will be kind of uh collaborative um i’ll do my best
1:04:43 · what’s who am i what’s my name your neil yeah right um could i talk to you for a minute neil sure yeah i didn’t want to upset you because i know you’re having this session with david and all of that but i just want you to remember that you’re not capable of of being sufficiently or organized
1:05:03 · well that’s not true i’m i’m perfectly capable of being organized there are some skills that i still need to learn to help me along the way great who won i think i won
1:05:20 · i thought so too did you win big or small well i was curious to see what you were going to say to what i told you out of the water but i want to see you know yeah i mean it felt it felt big like that’s yeah this what i countered with was an absolutely true statement that couldn’t be argued with really exactly and did you win big or huge i’ll say big big do a role reversal
1:05:50 · okay you’ll be the negative i’ll be the positive all right so neil yeah um hi neil hi um i never lonely you’re always around eating up on me what’s gonna um yeah i wanted to let you know that yeah i appreciated that whole dialogue you had with david and i’m here to remind you that you’re not capable of being that organized well actually i have a
1:06:19 · much worse problem than that oh yeah yeah what’s the worst problem listening to your
1:06:36 · i’m a pretty organized guy and i’m kind of overwhelmed right now and that’s because i’ve been listening to you yeah who won you did big or small that’s big big or huge
1:06:57 · that was huge yeah and how how did i do that how did i get too huge uh you made a boundary you voiced anger
1:07:12 · and um the mean inner voice yeah see you think the solution is to get started on stuff to get stuff accomplished but we’re moving in a different direction of uh acceptance and and self-love uh
1:07:32 · rather than you know beating the horse with a whip um yeah yeah um the um see uh uh the uh the idea behind it is what i’ve
1:07:49 · discovered is when i pressure myself to do something really great um it generally doesn’t work out very well and you know when when i give myself a break and and accept myself things flow much more beautifully when
1:08:08 · when i was in medical school i was a total screw-up and uh because i never should have gone to medical school uh i wasn’t even a pre-med student in college but one of my advisors told me i wanted to be a psychologist he said oh you’ve got a i want to be a psychologist he says no you have to go to medical school and i never wanted to be a doctor
1:08:30 · but i did it because i was told to do it and and i went to stanford i dropped out for a year on two different occasions i had a fear of blood i had no desire to to be a doctor i couldn’t identify with the other students i didn’t care about anatomy or biology but then when i
1:08:48 · finally decided to go ahead and do my internship in residency at a county hospital here in the bay area i had a tremendous experience and tried to make up for my bad behavior and i worked like a hornet and and i actually became a good doctor
1:09:05 · and and then i moved to philadelphia to finish my residency and one of my advisors who who didn’t know what a screw-up i was in medical school he knew how hard i was working as a psychiatric resident had worked as a medical intern and he says there’s one thing i want you to keep in mind david when you go to philadelphia and i said what’s that he says well remember take at least one day a week or at the very least a half a day a week to just to stare at walls and then what he
1:09:35 · was saying is you know you work hard you’re accomplishing amazing things but remember to you know give yourself a break at least a half a day a week and i always remembered that i would take sunday afternoon and watch the football games and hang out and watch tv in my bed and the cat would get on my lap and purr and i’d start to feel guilty but then i remember what this guy miles weber dr miles weber told me but anyway let’s let let’s see you know the the idea and i still work
1:10:06 · like a hornet accomplished a lot but it was the idea that that i could be loving to toward toward myself and um let let’s see if we can continue with this now can i talk to you for a minute to nail yep you know who i am your neil style
1:10:26 · yeah and um i i i’m thinking that uh you’re just not capable of being that organized as organized as as you should be yeah who the do you think you are telling me that like i could see [Laughter] who won [Laughter]
1:10:53 · isn’t that cool that is cool yeah okay you beat me on that one but but i have this other thing i wanted to mention to you okay um you should be able to to do this and figure this out i can do this and figure this out who won i feel like i won big or small that was a big win bigger huge
1:11:26 · just somewhere in the middle there okay do it do a roll reversal because we want to get to huge all right uh neil um yes hi hi yeah um you really you should be able to you should be able to do this and figure this figure this stuff out you’re right i have figured it out have you yeah enlighten me
1:11:55 · i’m going to stop listening to your that that’s my solution i’m plenty capable guy okay and what if i keep speaking well i hope you do that way i’ll never be alone i’ll never feel lonely go ahead hit me with some more of your
1:12:16 · um you know i’m not bright either when you say i i should be able to figure this out and do this i don’t even know what you’re talking about what are you referring to yeah i’m telling you that you should be able to
1:12:34 · get everything done that you want to get done and you should be able to organize your time that’s that’s horseshit and you know it i’m trying i’m taking on too much i should probably be able to do less rather than more that’s that’s my issue you’re just constantly putting me down you’re whipping me well if you’re gonna do less that sounds good but i don’t believe that you’ll be able to figure out what are the most important to do
1:13:06 · well you know i’ve i’ve done a lot of important things in my life i’ve figured them all out i’ve done all of those things i i can figure out what’s important and what’s not important i’ve done that all my life and what’s most important is to stop listening to you trying to make me miserable every minute bug off or to quote the buddha go yourself
1:13:47 · who won you won let me ask you something here there’s this self criticism right yeah maybe that’s not something we should give up
Benefits of Criticizing Yourself
1:14:13 · what are some benefits of criticizing yourself like this because that’s what we’re really talking about the benefits are um being able to see clearly potentially um not when it’s amplified by just seeing the negative but yeah the the inner critic can look at a situation and
1:14:42 · he can he can identify like when standards aren’t being met or when yeah right some things that’s right aren’t known that need to be known or um yeah yeah and so maybe that’s not something that we should change today well i think enlisting those positive attributes
1:15:16 · like if i had to choose something i would you know in terms of like feeling the or hearing the shitty thoughts or um or telling those that part of me to like get lost i would choose to have him get lost and you know what’s it’s powerful for me to hear you as me talk to that voice that way and i think
1:15:50 · um okay this is just what’s occurring to me which is that there was a time in my life where
1:16:11 · not only was i not encouraged to set a boundary like that but i was discouraged from setting a boundary like that so if i heard something critical you know let’s be honest from a parent then as a kid i wasn’t allowed to speak like that i don’t have to listen to your there would have been some pretty serious consequences for that um but now
1:16:41 · hearing it directed toward this part of me it’s like there is something really empowering about like yeah i don’t have to listen to this isn’t that cool yeah but it’s it’s risky because i’m i’m suggesting you settle for mediocrity
1:16:59 · right which i don’t want to do exactly so maybe we should keep up the inner bully can’t he be something other than an inner bully yeah well let’s let’s see what what he can do but this this is an uh the thing because you see enlightenment comes from the death of the ego the death of the self and self acceptance and that’s what we’re talking about but buddha couldn’t get the message across
1:17:28 · five 2500 years ago he only had three of his hundred thousand followers who understood what he was trying to say i it it acceptance just see i i for me it’s been such a revelation i used to be perfectionistic and beating up on myself and it brought a lot of achievement i won the top award in the world for research on brain chemistry when i was a psychiatric resident doing my
1:17:54 · post-doctoral fellowship and i was going to heaven and hell and heaven and hell this all or nothing thinking and it was the same clinically i couldn’t stand it when i when a patient was saying you can’t help me it infuriated me and i argued with them to prove that was usually not very effective and then one day i decided just to to accept how flawed i was
1:18:21 · and and when a patient said you’re not helping me i was able to to say you know you’re right and i feel so sad because i care about you and we’ve been missing i’ve been missing the boat you’re probably so angry and hopeless to tell me what that’s like and then suddenly the heavens opened up it’s it’s a paradox um like letting go of the inner critic is kind of scary because because we think wow that that’s the secret of my success and what would kneel be without you know beating up on himself constantly
1:18:51 · um but um that’s what that’s what i’ve learned from my camps too maybe i told you this in the earlier podcast but that this little guy obi we adopted a violent feral adult male cat and he came dead to our back almost dead
1:19:09 · to our back door because he’d been in a fight and he was wounded and he couldn’t hunt anymore and he was terrified and you know we captured him brought him to the vent got surgery and and he kind of like wanted us to to adopt him but you we couldn’t get within 20 feet of him he would try to bite us and snarl and eventually he became like my best friend in the world um we had
1:19:31 · him for eight good years until he disappeared one night and was hunting we have a mountain lion behind our house and i think the mountain lion got him and and i miss him every day but he he taught me that when when when you no longer need to be special life becomes special because he wasn’t special and i wasn’t special but when we hung out together it was like
1:19:56 · the heavens opened up it’s just kind of like right now we’re just hanging out and you’re flawed and i’ve been telling you how flawed i have been in my connection with my son but it doesn’t get any better than this
1:20:13 · you know would your impact become greater or lesser if you stopped beating up on yourself that’s that’s the question so um let’s just do a couple more more of these um and and i’m going to be the negative uh neil again could i talk to you for a minute neil yes and i just want to remind you that you’re failing
1:20:45 · well when i look around at the evidence i can tell that i’m not failing because there’s plenty of good that’s happening all around me and um yeah wow it’s really not useful to hear that at all
1:21:16 · who who won or who’s winning well i feel like i’m winning and i’m also like i’m i’m reevaluating like whether this critic is necessary or not yeah right because
1:21:34 · i don’t see how it really serves me at all to hear i’m failing yeah so can you see how mean that is yeah it’s super mean and your whole life is devoted to compassion and love right is that interesting so we’re not talking about boosting your productivity
1:22:00 · we’re talking about a decision to to be loving toward yourself and and and and to trust right yeah i i choose to love myself
1:22:17 · and i choose to appreciate what i’m accomplishing oh yeah but think of all the things you need to do you’re failing you should be doing more you shouldn’t be procrastinating your voice is just becoming like a tiny whisper to me because actually there’s
1:22:40 · i’m doing just fine and there will be times that i do more in times that i do less [Music] and your tone of voice isn’t helping me at all who won i won big or small
1:23:01 · big bigger huge that feels huge huge but uh great great but but you beat me on that last one but i have something else to tell you i’m not sure i want to hear you anymore yeah well i’m just i just want well you can deny this but i just want you to know that your father was right
1:23:23 · i knew that one was coming [Laughter] [Music] um my i mean there there’s just no basis in fact with with what you just said like so it just shows me how full of you actually are because actually my father doesn’t know me right now so there’s no way he could be right about me um unless it was a lucky guess
1:23:57 · you think he’d want to listen to this recording i’m not sure that’d be kind of interesting i’m not sure dad if you’re listening what do you want to tell him
1:24:28 · if you’re listening i love you and the voice that i associate with you from when i was a kid or even from today that voice isn’t welcome
1:24:57 · and i love you i want you to be in my life what do you need from him what what do you want to hear from him what would you hope to hear i would hope to hear that you that you love me i would hope to hear that you are curious about
1:25:17 · what i’m doing with my life and [Music] i would hope that you’d find it within yourself to um get to know the standards by which i judge my life and to appreciate me from there do you would would you want him to be proud of you i would love for him to be proud of me
1:25:52 · that was beautifully beautifully stated are there any of these negative thoughts that still have any sting
1:26:17 · at this point when i look at any of them i would say that they don’t have sting i’m able to like look at it and be like okay like here’s what’s true about that and and here and if there is something true like i’m looking at the there’s not enough time and no way i can do all this and i’m like well yeah that may be true on some level you know there may be too much but like the thought itself doesn’t have sting yeah yeah yeah right
1:26:48 · was that sad right now when you were talking to your dad i feel i feel sad i feel sad because
1:27:06 · yeah i don’t so the thought that comes up is i don’t know if i’ll ever get that acknowledgement from him i don’t know if i ever will and if i didn’t ever that would suck yeah but maybe even that’s a thought because well we don’t need to go
1:27:27 · that far and we’ll wait and see what happens but maybe that sadness would be a healthy sadness yeah yeah maybe that would be healthy sadness so do you want us go through your list of emotions and see how you’re feeling at this moment let’s do that okay let’s start out with with with sadness and feeling let’s think about the kind of maybe unhealthy sadness you were feeling at the beginning where are you on that
Sadness
1:27:57 · now yeah i don’t i don’t feel that at all okay put to put a zero there how anxious are you feeling right now not at all uh-huh and and how um let’s see uh uh ashamed and guilty are you feeling yeah zero zero how incompetent and and and or no inadequate and effective are you feeling none none how how alone are you feeling
1:28:33 · maybe five five good yeah that’s a good one to hang on to a little bit how humiliated and embarrassed are you feeling i’m not feeling that at all how discouraged yeah zero how frustrated defeated zero how annoyed and irritated
1:29:13 · zero how overwhelmed yeah i’m not feeling overwhelmed at all and then just two quick questions and and uh we can we can kind of wrap up see if there’s any homework for you but the first question is are these changes real number one and number two if so what
1:29:40 · caused the changes because uh you know a lot of people would say this is impossible to go from you know 90 to zero and 85 to zero and you know was this real and and then what what caused it
1:29:59 · well healing dimensions yeah so does this is this real this feels real to me um i know that’s one of those distortions though that i feel it and it must be so emotional reason reasoning um yeah um
1:30:20 · well those all those feelings like now that those now that those thoughts are so clearly ludicrous or erroneous or the voice that’s saying them is like such a tiny whisper um
1:30:47 · that like i like even putting myself back in like the situation of the end of the day i don’t feel them inflaming like i feel like okay that’s just like it’s just the day
1:31:07 · i just kind of feel well used the word acceptance earlier yeah and um yeah there’s something about that acceptance that
1:31:25 · restores my hope yeah isn’t that cool yeah say i’ll i’ll be the positive neil you be the negative say nail you should say neil you shouldn’t procrastinate so much neil you shouldn’t procrastinate so much actually i plan to procrastinate a bit
1:31:42 · more okay neil but how will you get things done if you’re procrastinating all the time well i’m not going to try to get things done all the time that’s just listening to your i get a lot an awful lot done and i i’ve decided to give myself a break and i think i’ll continue to get tremendous things done amazing things but but right now the thing i’m going to get done is to to turn you off yeah i can feel that part of me
1:32:17 · wanting to step back from the harsh criticism yeah and be like okay let me help you collaborate like let let’s work on this together yeah i could i can do it without judging you yeah right yeah right um for homework um
1:32:37 · since these negative thoughts i can guarantee they’ll come back because they’ve been with you and your whole life they’ll come back from time to time but the techniques that work help you the first time will always help you uh and that the technique was was just to recognize that that this is just some meanness going on and and to tell tell it to bug out using yeah fairly strong language and
1:33:03 · and to make that that decision to do that yeah but some practice will be helpful too so you have your daily mood log and we didn’t write down all the positive thoughts and how much do you believe them and how much do you believe the negative thought that would be good good homework to finish your your daily mood log and uh let me just ask you a couple final questions uh here usually uh because we’re not face to face i i have people uh
1:33:34 · rape me on empathy with all the therapists i try and do this on helpfulness and you know things like that how would you rate me on on uh warmth and empathy and understanding in today’s session yeah i’d i’d give you uh what what’s the scale one to ten yeah that’d be a good way to do it i’d i’d give you a 10.
1:33:55 · great yeah and how how helpful was was the session a 10 for sure great um and uh did you have any negative thoughts thoughts or feelings or negative reactions to to the session was there anything about it that you didn’t like that turned you off um the only thing is that
Negative Reactions to to the Session
1:34:22 · yeah there’s like a little part of me when it when i feel like okay i’m going through the formula that that gets a little irritated or something like like um but it wasn’t enough to like keep me from it was kind of like a begrudging annoyance yeah yeah was that during the positive reframing um
1:34:50 · during the empathy or doing the working on your negative thoughts yeah i would have said that it was probably kind of the
1:35:06 · well i realized that i had a lot of negative thought so some of it was some of it was like the like coming up with the good things like like the repetition of that which was probably really important but that was that was challenging and then during the positive reframing yeah the positive reframing and then at the end that felt it felt risky to like to take a stand or to like like so when you were modeling that i was like oh like that’s
1:35:40 · so there’s a little bit of like oh like i’m being really called forward to like to take a risk and for me it’s a risk to tell my inner critic to off yeah um right and you know that i don’t have to listen to your yeah and if you tried to get me
1:35:59 · to do this the first seven years of my career i i would have said go to hell i’m gonna achieve this i’m gonna live up to these standards it it is a scary thing that’s kind of what makes it exciting so that’s that’s great feedback and then also was there anything you particularly liked or that was helpful to you yeah well like i just said your modeling was really helpful and um that that you’ve been so patient
1:36:29 · and generous with your time and and thoughts that’s been really helpful and um it was my pleasure just to you know you’re you’re just a wonderful person to hang out with
1:36:47 · thank you you are too i really enjoy our time together well wow thank you and you’re very welcome and um for everyone who listened through to all of that thank you for listening and um uh
1:37:11 · we’ll we’ll get the daily mood log available we’ll make sure that’s available for everyone so that they can go through that and um assuming that’s okay with you oh yeah yeah they you know in fact i can uh if you finish it and then send it to me i can type it up and send you a nice a nice looking one as a pdf or something i actually was typing right into the pdf so i i’ve got it all awesome yeah beautiful so i’ll have that up as an example for everyone listening and um the goal was for
1:37:44 · for all of you who are going through whatever you’re going through right now and right now could be hopefully at some point in the future when all of the current madness is over and maybe it’s right now in the middle of all of this coronavirus stuff that you find some some solace in this process and and um because it’s it was so helpful for me
1:38:10 · yeah maybe we just make a comment to them because we kind of forgot all about them but but but yeah i mean we could have done the coronavirus thing too i’ve been doing that slightly same techniques but slightly slightly different but what’s important here is the details of your life will be very different from from from meals and we’re all different as human beings but sometimes in our suffering it comes together and and i’m sure a lot
1:38:40 · of people listening to the podcast right now will be able to say wow i i can recognize beating up on myself a lot too and maybe recognize some of those 10 cognitive distortions and and your thoughts and that it’s not so much what happens to you but but the way you you think about it uh that that
1:38:59 · creates your emotions and and you saw that so clearly it’s not the fact that you have all these cool projects that that you know need some time and attention but the fact that you’re being self-critical and and beating up on yourself and then the five final ideas that’s when you change the way you think you can change the way you feel and if you want to learn more about these techniques like again this so i apologize but
1:39:26 · my first book feeling good the new mood therapy has been helpful for many people who are struggling with with depression uh research indicates that 65 of the people who who read it recover from depression or improve dramatically in four weeks and i’m hopeful by the time you hear this my new book feeling great will be out and that has
1:39:48 · all the research and development of the last 40 years that i didn’t have available when i wrote feeling good so i hope that will be helpful to to folks too great well we are definitely definitely looking forward to your new book feeling great and uh excited to hear that that’s imminent and uh and yeah feeling feeling good big recommend on that one i’ve i read through it and it’s uh it’s there’s a reason that it’s stood the test of time so uh thank you
1:40:19 · so much david for being with us today and being with me um so great to spend time with you as always yes thank you neil and have a great day and thank you all for listening this has been another episode of the feeling good podcast for more information visit dr burns website at feelinggood.com where you will find the show notes for this episode under the podcast page you will also find archives of previous episodes and many resources for therapists and non-therapists we welcome your comments and questions
1:40:49 · if you want to support the show please share the podcast with people who might benefit from it you could also go to itunes and leave a 5 star rating the theme music is gypsy jazz in paris 1935 composed and performed by brett i am your host ronda perovski we hope you enjoyed this episode i invite you to join us next time for another episode of the feeling good [Music] podcast [Music]
1:41:31 · you