Cognitive Coping is a coping skill that you can use to change the way you feel by changing the way that you think. It has a few simple steps: Step 1:
Identify a cognition that you would like to change. A cognition can be many different things. A cognition could be a value, an opinion, a belief, or just a recurring thought that you may have about yourself, people you know, people you don't know, or about the world in general. It could be thoughts that limit you in your life. Sometimes, thinking in this way can cause a serious or fair amount of stress, so it makes sense to take steps to control thinking like this. I will give a few examples here:
"I guess I'm just a failure"
"I don't deserve to be happy"
"My boss really hates me"
Once you have identified a cognition that you would like to examine, then you can move on to the next step and evaluate whether this type of thinking is helping or harming you.
Step 2:
Evaluate the thought/belief's Accuracy and Helpfulness.
Accuracy is how valid or true or accurate a thought is. Sometimes, a negative cognition has some accurate aspects to it. This, however, is how we limit ourselves! We make it true--A self-fulfilling prophecy. If I believe that I am a failure, I will find ways, either consciously or unconsciously, to make it true. This leads into the more important part of this step. Helpfulness is defined in this sense along a continuum:
HELPFULNESS
0% Helpful
"I feel worse when I think this way"
vs
100% Helpful
"I feel better when I think this way"
Ask yourself, what percentage accurate is this thought? What percentage would you rate the thoughts Helpfulness? Examine evidence that both supports AND refutes the content of the negative cognition, and then make your conclusions about how helpful/accurate the cognition is.
If a thought is maybe 50% accurate, and 0% helpful, is it really worth it to you to hang on to it? Or does it make more sense to modify the way that you think? Check out my article on Responsibility Pie here for an artistic activity that might help with examining evidence.
Step 3:
Choose an alternative thought/belief that can replace the Unhelpful Thought.
This is the creative part of the process. This is when we change thoughts like these...
"I guess I'm just a failure."
"I don't deserve to be happy."
"My boss really hates me."
Into thoughts like these...
"I didn't succeed in every way that I wanted to that time, but I can be more successful in the future."
"I made some mistakes, but if I change the choices I make, then I can change the way I feel about it."
"My boss didn't like how that project turned out, but I can do things differently next time."
The sky is the limit with positive, empowering cognitions! With a little bit of effort and creativity, you can change the way you think and feel. These new beliefs can be integrated into your worldview, and it can even help to affirm these new cognitions regularly, which leads into our final step.
Step 4:
Practice Maintenance Habits by catching the "Stinking Thinking" in the moment.
Pactice saying these new affirming, empowering statements to yourself regularly. Practice catching yourself with Stinking Thinking, and regularly replace the negative thoughts with positive thoughts. It's not an easy journey, but the best things in life are not easy!
Thank you for reading my article, I hope that you enjoyed reading it as much as I enjoyed writing it.