Hi, are you wondering how much of your pain is from what's actually happening and how
much is from how you're thinking about it?
Well, stick around.
I'm going to share a concept that's almost a life hack that will help you figure this
out.
I'm Barbara Heffernan.
I'm a psychotherapist and I've been helping people recover from anxiety and trauma for
over 15 years, and if you're interested in watching videos that combine some psychotherapy,
a little CBT, EMDR, some Buddhist philosophy, other traditions of wisdom, and brings it
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The link is in the show notes below.
Cognitive reframing and one reframe that is actually life-changing if you apply it regularly,
that's what I'm going to cover today.
So first I'm going to talk about what is cognitive reframing and why does it matter.
2) How are our frames formed, the frames through which we see the world, how are those formed
in the first place?
And then third, I am going to share the, it's basically a Buddhist concept that can really
help you sort this out.
I imagine you've heard the statement that it's not what happens to you in life, but
it's how you think about it.
And I don't completely agree with that statement because sometimes horrible things happen to
us and those are not because of the way we're thinking about it.
Those are really horrible things.
Um, but other times we turn things that aren't horrible into horrible things.
So how do you sort that out?
I had a client in my office this week, a young mom who had bounced her rent check and it
was not because she did not have enough money, but she just hadn't allocated correctly or
hadn't timed things right.
And she felt horrible.
And she also was horribly embarrassed and embarrassed about reaching out to the landlord
about this bounced check.
And she really felt horrible.
And I asked her, what's the belief about herself that went with how she feels about that?
And she was like, I'm stupid.
I'm just really, really stupid.
And I said, well, you know, we all bounce checks once in awhile.
Some of us don't even write checks anymore, but uh, but for those of us who grew up writing
checks, we all know that once in a long while you bounce a check.
And I asked her, why can't you just see that as a, I got a little busy bummer, it's going
to cost me 30 bucks.
It's Kinda lousy, but no big deal.
And pick up the phone and call the landlord and say, Hey, sorry, I got a little unorganized
there for a moment and bounced the check.
And she looked at me like she couldn't even imagine that.
Um, and because she has a core belief that she's stupid and then also a core belief that
the world's not really safe, that people aren't going to understand her.
So part of the cognitive restructuring is for her to begin to say, okay, there is another
way to see this.
And No, I don't bounce checks all the time.
I'm not a completely unorganized person and that it's really not a big deal to pick up
the phone and call the landlord and then following through on the behavior that comes from the
revised way of thinking.
Even if you don't totally feel it.
Following through on that behavior will become reinforcing because when she picks up the
phone and calls, the landlord apologizes, the landlord says, okay, no problem.
Please write me another check and she pays her $30 fine and the situation is over.
She'll realize, okay, that was easy, I could take care of that and it wasn't a big deal.
So the concept of cognitive reframing goes to the part of the pain that we cause ourselves
because of how we are seeing the world.
What is cognitive reframing?
Cognitive reframing is to change the frame through which we see the world and it is a
concept in cognitive behavioral therapy, which is one of the best therapy techniques for
anxiety and for depression.
It's extremely well researched.
There's a lot of evidence based treatment models within CBT.
So it has been proven that it helps.
And if you've watched my videos, CBT Exercises, you will have seen, I do a whole diagram of
how CBT is based on the theory that are, how we think impacts how we feel and how we behave,
how we behave, impacts how we think and how we feel and how we feel impacts how we think
and how we behave.
So that's all interconnected.
And the theory of cognitive behavioral theory is that we have to change how we think or
how we behave in order to change how we feel.
That directly trying to change how we feel, It doesn't work.
So cognitive reframing is about changing how we think.
It's focused on the thinking portion of the CBT therapy.
So moving forward with behavior that's based on the revision of your frame is very important.
And if you're working with a CBT therapist or you're doing this on a self-help basis,
you might also hear the term cognitive restructuring.
And all cognitive restructuring means is that that is sort of the active efforts of a therapist
or a CBT guide to help you change how you see the world.
Cognitive reframing happens both in a therapist office as well as through our life experiences.
So cognitive restructuring is a subset of cognitive reframing.
How do the frames through which we see the world get formed?
Well, they get formed by our childhood experiences, by what we're told when we're children, by
what we observe when we're kids, um, by both the experiences we had as well as our personal
response to those experiences.
And the most indelible lenses, the most difficult frames to change are the ones that form in
childhood.
And yet our frames can be changed at any point in our life, given a new concept that somebody
shares with us, a new experience that we have, whether negative or positive on.
So many things can change our frames.
Yet those childhood events are the ones that are the stickiest.
They're the hardest to change.
Let's talk through a couple of examples of how these cognitive frames get formed.
So let's say you grew up in a family with a lot of neglect.
Perhaps you had one parent, the stay at home parent was extremely depressed and the working
parent traveled all the time and you are largely on your own.
You would likely grow up with a frame that your needs don't matter.
That taking care of the depressed parent is a priority, so your needs don't matter.
You also might grow up with the frame that you can't count on anybody and then later
in life, the way that this frame shows up is that if you find a partner who you can't
count on, you feel like, well that's what's familiar.
That's the way the world works.
If I can't count on anybody, I'm not going to look for someone I can count on.
So another example could be that you grew up in a alcoholic home with a violent parent
and then you might grow up with the frame that the world is not safe and that would
be a true assessment of when you're a child and yet then that frame might follow you throughout
your life.
Even if you now live in a safe environment.
So that would be a frame that was somewhat indelibly formed until you really make an
effort to change that frame.
Another example could be somebody who grew up in actually a really healthy, caring family
and went to school and had dyslexia that wasn't diagnosed and perhaps early in their education
in elementary school, they developed the concept of I'm stupid.
And then even later in life, once they got help for the dyslexia or found ways to get
around it or realize they're really, really smart in certain areas, that core belief of
I'm stupid, still follows them their whole life.
So those are some examples of frames that are formed in childhood.
And then cognitive frames can be formed later in life.
Let's say in high school, your partner cheats on you and you might then begin to believe
everybody cheats.
And then if you think everybody cheats, you're not going to use your discretion.
You're not gonna have discretion to sort through which people cheat.
Who can I trust?
Who can't I trust?
If I can't trust anybody, I'm not gonna look for those people who I can trust.
And then we also can have positive experiences that form positive frames.
So maybe in childhood you had one parent which you had a loving relationship with, that parent
you will grow up knowing I'm lovable because that parent loved you and that's a very positive
frame to have.
Okay.
So I'm going to share with you this Buddhist concept that I really believe can be life
changing when applied.
But right before I do that, I want to share a couple of other resources with you.
I do have a PDF called transform your negative core beliefs, which is very useful if you
feel you have recurring core negative beliefs about yourself that probably formed in childhood.
And the link to that PDF is below.
Also, a couple of weeks ago I released a video called CBT, Unhelpful Thinking Styles and
it outlines some of the most common unhelpful thinking styles.
So that also will help you figure out what are the thinking patterns that are getting
in your way.
So the Buddhist concept is the second Arrow of suffering.
And the way this works is that certain pain is unavoidable.
The second Arrow of pain is the avoidable pain.
Let's say I'm walking in my Home Office and I bang my shin against the open file cabinet
drawer.
Ouch.
That really, really hurts and then my mind immediately goes to, oh my god, who left that
open?
I'm so angry at them.
I've told them not to leave it open before or my mind might go to, oh my god, I'm so
stupid.
I knew I left that open.
That, those lines of thinking are the second dart of pain.
The initial dart of pain, you bang your shin, it really, really hurts, but then either blaming
others and getting angry or blaming yourself can really be seen as optional suffering.
You're adding onto the situation.
Uh, let's go back to the mom who was in my office.
She bounced a check.
It's a drag.
You got to pay $30, okay, it's a bummer, but layering on top of that, that somehow I'm
defective and that that's why it happened.
I'm stupid.
And then also fear of being judged and embarrassed and shamed by somebody else over something
that's really very minor.
That's the optional pain.
Another much more difficult situation, um, is a client of mine whose wife died in a car
accident and he was in intense grief and loss and mourning for her.
And that is pain.
That is human pain.
It's human pain that comes from love and loss and that's not optional pain.
That's pain we are going to feel.
And the best thing to do with that kind of pain is to feel it and to let yourself feel
it and to be with somebody, whether it is another loved one or a therapist or a clergy
person or somebody you trust who is a good listener who can really sit with you and let
you really just feel that pain that is not optional pain.
The optional pain that I needed to work with with this client, were a couple of core beliefs
that he had.
One, he had a belief that he should have somehow done something differently.
He should have stopped her from leaving that day.
He should have gone to the store instead.
He should have, he should have, he should have.
Those are beliefs of responsibility for something you're just simply not responsible for.
And those are beliefs driven by this impulse.
That's a very human impulse that we all have that we feel like had we done something different,
we could have changed the events that are happening now and we can get stuck there.
And if we get stuck there, then actually it impedes our processing of our grief and it
leaves us in pain longer.
So that would be optional pain, thinking that you could've done something to stop this.
And then the other layer of optional pain that this client had is a belief that somehow
it shouldn't be affecting him so much or it shouldn't be affecting him for so long or
he shouldn't just be bursting into tears crying when he's driving.
And that is a belief system that he shouldn't be feeling what he's feeling.
And that may have come from growing up in our society as a man where you're not supposed
to feel things deeply, you're certainly not supposed to cry.
And he grew up in a family which really valued being stoic and just pushing on and going
through.
And that frame of seeing the world, the frame of, I shouldn't be feeling this way was optional
pain.
So the second Arrow of suffering in Buddhism is this concept that we're human, we suffer,
we have loss, we grow old, we die, we get sick, we have physical pain, we are hairless,
toothless beings surviving in this world.
And we also have joy and heartfelt connection and optimism and excitement.
We have a whole range of emotions and we can't just cut off the negative emotions.
This concept of the second Arrow of suffering, if consistently applied to your life, can
really help you figure out with those negative feelings, which ones are just not avoidable
and therefore need to be processed and felt and dealt with, and which ones fall into the
category of optional pain.
And those things that fall into the category of optional pain can be worked on with cognitive
behavioral techniques and can be changed.
So let me know in the notes below, I'd really be interested to know what you think of the
second Arrow of suffering.
That concept, whether you feel it will be useful in your life, and if you've liked this
video, please give me a thumbs up.
It helps me know I'm on track and motivates me to keep making more videos.
Till the next time.