Thought Diary
Therapy practice- You are afraid of something that is going to happen - like a public speaking event or a meeting with the boss. Note your thoughts and feelings and journal them down. Once you are actually done with the public speaking event or meeting note down how scary or depressing your actually thoughts and feelings were. Was reality as scary as your anxiety or imagination of it?
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Describe a situation that is bothering you. (Example- I have to go to a social gathering tomorrow.)
Describe your thoughts associated with the situation. (Example- I won't be able to talk to anyone.)
Describe the feelings associated with the situation. (Example- Fear)
Rate the intensity of the feeling or emotion you feel most strongly that bothers you? For example if you feel very afraid , just give a no out of 1 to 10 to describe the intensity of the fear.
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Notice what bothers you about these thoughts and feelings. Is there any suffering in these? Are there any negative consequences? Do you want anything to change?
Are these thoughts or feelings based on reality or are there any beliefs behind them that made you think this way (e.g. An old failure memory like an image from childhood of stammering on stage pops up as soon as I think of being in a social gathering and makes me believe "I cannot speak in public.''):
How strong is your negative belief?
Very weakly
Very strongly
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Try these exercises- a) Spend some time doing a relaxing activity like deep breathing or mindfulness meditation. b) If you feel you may have calmed down a bit, just check if your thoughts and feelings about the situation are still the same or different. c) See if there is any evidence behind your thoughts. Check the facts, or find the truth in them. Now rate the intensity of your emotion out of 10.
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Write down your balanced thoughts again- thoughts that are more rational and closer to truth and have lesser emotional intensity than before.
What we just did? We inspected our thoughts and feelings that arose with a particular situation. And questioned the possibly irrational or erroneous beliefs behind them. We also did a calming practice of breathing or meditation. Both these techniques can help reduce the error in our thinking as well as the emotional intensity of the feelings and help us see more clearly and rationally. Slowly the suffering can be reduced. Please don't lose hope. The results do come with time and effort. May you be happy! :)
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