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• Practicing gratitude and tethering emotions to efforts rather than outcomes |
• Using exercises such as "roses and thorns" or "highlight and disappointment" to cultivate a balanced mindset |
• The importance of gratitude and retraining the brain to focus on positive thoughts |
• How focusing on negative thoughts can automate neural pathways, making them more prevalent |
• An experiment by Shawn Achor involving students playing Tetris and noticing shapes everywhere they went after the game |
• The concept of "neurons that fire together, wire together" and how repeated thoughts shape our experiences |
• Using the "best friend test" to recognize when thoughts are being applied unrealistically or judgmentally |
• Recognizing individual differences and experiences as shaping one's perceptions and behaviors |
• Identifying and tracking cognitive distortions (catastrophic thinking, shoulds, all-or-nothing, mental filters) and replacing them with alternative, more constructive thoughts. |
**Adam Stacoviak:** We all have thoughts, but how often do we really examine the thoughts we're having, what we're thinking? Everyone thinks every single day, and what we think affects what we feel, how we act, how we behave... But how often are our thoughts distorted, not correct, and just not thinking about what we'r... |
**Mireille B. Reece, Psy.D:** Yeah... Have you ever considered about the thinker behind the thoughts? |
**Adam Stacoviak:** Like the Oz, the great Oz behind the curtain. |
**Mireille B. Reece, Psy.D:** Right, yeah. Very much so. And it's interesting, because if I'm not aware of 1) the thoughts that I actually have, how then would I even begin to evaluate whether or not they're accurate or distorted in any form or fashion. I mean, I would just go about my day as if there's nothing wrong w... |
It was interesting, I was reading some research study and it was talking about exposure as it relates to learning; we would think that simply exposing yourself to something would result in knowing, and so they did this study to look at fire extinguishers in people's office or workspaces. One was this university profess... |
**Adam Stacoviak:** Yeah. And you know, there's so much in our life, especially in the visual environment that we walk around every day, even your office -- I probably couldn't spin around in my office here and tell you everything that's in the office exactly where it's at. Your sort of just let things blur into the ba... |
**Mireille B. Reece, Psy.D:** Exactly. So attention plays a key role in being able to notice or having this awareness, and so I wanna take some time to even look inside at our thoughts, to go "Are you paying attention to the thoughts that you think?" Because what if how you go about in your day, if you were to imagine ... |
**Adam Stacoviak:** That's right, yeah. I think the reason why that research that you read is possible is because we have a limited attention span. The human brain has a really hard time on doing two or even three high-intensive things. Try driving and talking on the phone... Pretty hard. Try driving and taking notes..... |
**Mireille B. Reece, Psy.D:** \[04:14\] Yeah, and so if I were to ask you, Adam, "Do you know if there's a problem with how you think?", do you know what you would answer? |
**Adam Stacoviak:** I would wanna say "No, I'm perfect. I'm amazing." But I think if I examine them a little bit closer... I would need a frame of reference, you know? |
**Mireille B. Reece, Psy.D:** Yeah. |
**Adam Stacoviak:** I would need to know what is a bad thought, or maladaptive thoughts, as you like to say; not bad or good, but... What are thoughts that are good for me and thoughts that are generally bad for me. |
**Mireille B. Reece, Psy.D:** Awesome. Ironically, there was a psychologist years ago who came up with some of this distorted thinking, or sort of template for how we look at distorted thoughts. His name was Aaron Beck, and he came up with ten cognitive distortions. I don't want to go through all of these today, but I ... |
One of the distortions, so to speak, is catastrophic thinking. The word itself gives you an indicator of what that entails, but it really is just imagining the worst-case scenario. So it's like Chicken Little, if you know the story. "The sky is falling, the sky is falling!" All the time I am worried about the sort of w... |
**Adam Stacoviak:** Right. The focus there is on the worst-case scenario, right? So that's sort of leaning on the negative sides of an experience or an environment, rather than the positive sides. Too often people only see or magnify the negative sides of something, and not at all pay attention to or even acknowledge t... |
**Mireille B. Reece, Psy.D:** Yeah, so I can talk about this in the sense of all of the data that I take in, day to day, that I've done over the years and years in which I've practiced therapy. I mean, I hear of all the idiosyncratic situations which occur... |
**Adam Stacoviak:** I bet... \[laughter\] |
**Mireille B. Reece, Psy.D:** ...and so some of the things that my brain will pop up are based on what I've actually heard over the years. So I will imagine sort of the worst-case scenario because - guess what? I've heard it. I know that that's a possibility. |
**Adam Stacoviak:** Right. |
**Mireille B. Reece, Psy.D:** We'll get to this later in the show, we'll talk about ways to navigate this, but it really involves then talking back to myself, not just allowing that data piece to run if it doesn't work. So context is key, of going "Okay, would that actually apply?" I mean, I could sit here and say "Wel... |
**Adam Stacoviak:** That's a possibility, sure. |
**Mireille B. Reece, Psy.D:** Sure. But if I then focus on that possibility, wouldn't it change how I go about my day? |
**Adam Stacoviak:** I would say so... It should. |
**Mireille B. Reece, Psy.D:** It should, right? And so I would probably think "I'm gonna avoid that and I'm gonna move somewhere else." But then I'm just picking between earthquakes, hurricanes, tornados... |
**Adam Stacoviak:** Yeah. We have hurricanes here, in Houston, often... Floods even too, because of it. Geez, it's terrible. |
**Mireille B. Reece, Psy.D:** \[08:01\] Right. Some researchers have looked at this too, when it comes to like losing a loved one... Because obviously, we've talked about loss in relationships, and that that would feel wretched, devastating. Nobody creates a relationship, invests in it for the purpose of having that go... |
**Adam Stacoviak:** And be destroyed, yeah. |
**Mireille B. Reece, Psy.D:** Yeah, and so when people have lost loved ones, what they've found is that it actually helps them fare better when they practice gratitude, instead of this catastrophe. As a parent, I can run all of the plausible plays that my brain can sort of conjure up, but that doesn't help me parent an... |
**Adam Stacoviak:** Versus what is, yeah. |
**Mireille B. Reece, Psy.D:** Yeah. So it really takes me out of real time... Which is sad, because then I lose out on all sorts of things that I could enjoy. |
**Adam Stacoviak:** Yeah. Something you said there, and I'm wondering what your thoughts are on this, is the idea of talking to yourself, sort of having a relationship with yourself. You know, this examining and taking stock of your thoughts and the way you think to me seems almost like "Is somebody crazy (for lack of ... |
**Mireille B. Reece, Psy.D:** No, we all have different aspects to ourselves, and so can that be distorted and maladaptive? Sure, it would look like, at the most extreme form, like a dissociative identity disorder. Like, there's John, and Billy Joe, and Suzie... Like, I have all these multiple personalities, and it's r... |
Imagine that I have these different aspects, and so -- I'll go with the health analogy of like I have one side of me that wants to be ridiculously healthy and make wise choices, and then this other side of me that says "Eat all the cake. Eat the cake. Eat the chocolate!" And so I then have this other side of me that is... |
**Adam Stacoviak:** Right. |
**Mireille B. Reece, Psy.D:** Or "You know what - why don't we be grateful for what we do have and that it hasn't done that yet, and look at what you've got to enjoy while you've been living here." |
**Adam Stacoviak:** Right. You're saying the word "we" too, as if it's a unison inside. |
**Mireille B. Reece, Psy.D:** Yeah. I think of it like a symphony, and that there's different sections. So there's woodwind, and percussion, and we want all of the sounds to come together, because that's what makes it beautiful, is this sort of harmonious sound. And so if I try to amputate an aspect of myself and be li... |
**Adam Stacoviak:** \[12:10\] So because you're having these negative thoughts about Mount Rainier exploding and killing all of Seattle or whatever might happen, you're feeling negative, so you're thoughts are sort of affecting how you feel, and that's sort of this kind of circle of life with your thoughts; you just ke... |
**Mireille B. Reece, Psy.D:** Right, so then it definitely becomes like "Which came first, the chicken or the egg?" Well, it's perpetuating, and that is why we have to start with the awareness... Because if I'm not aware, like "Hey, Mireille, you realize you're imagining a catastrophe right now?" "Oh...!" Yeah, so then... |
I could actually look - and we've talked about this in terms of coping - to identify the senses. Like, "Let's just go live" and that looks like-- |
**Adam Stacoviak:** Grounding. |
**Mireille B. Reece, Psy.D:** Yeah, sensory data that I am taking in in the here and now. And then, how might I practice gratitude? How could I be grateful for what I do have? ...not the what ifs that could happen. |
**Adam Stacoviak:** Would it safe to say then because your fear is in what could happen, that sort of future-focusing, rather than real-time, right now focusing, that you're sort of thinking in the wrong timespace? That you're - like you said - not allowing yourself to consider what's happening right here, right now, a... |
**Mireille B. Reece, Psy.D:** Correct. Yeah. I think I've alluded to this or stated this in the past, about wellness being very much rooted in cognitive flexibility, and that when it goes awry is when we have too much rigidity or too much chaos. So some of this anxiety would be like "I'm living in the future, and it's ... |
**Adam Stacoviak:** "Do something about it! You are not listening!" |
**Mireille B. Reece, Psy.D:** Yeah, yeah. So on the opposite end, if I'm looking at it, another distortion would be this all-or-nothing binary thinking, which is more of that rigidity, that goes "I'm gonna live in the past." I'm sure you have never said this to your wife, that you're amazing, but to say "You never, you... |
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