Cognitive Therapy, known as CT, is a discipline that teaches us to manage our thoughts, rather than allowing them to overwhelm us and to dictate our actions. Components of cognitive therapy, which essentially allow us to be more present, include the following:
- Awareness: Being conscious of the feedback from our senses of touch, taste, sight, smell and hearing, as well as being alert to emotions evoked by our thoughts.
- Mindfulness: Identifying a thought for what it really is, rather than letting it mislead us into accepting it as irrefutable truth. Allows us to marginalise and manage thoughts, instead of blindly allowing them to dictate our feelings or responses.
- Living in the present: Allows you to subdue thoughts about the past and the future and to accept thoughts about the present as the only reality. By neutrally observing a thought, you can evaluate it impersonally and decide if it is important in the here and now. If you find that it is not important, you can dismiss it.
- Remedial learning: By acquiring the skills to change our overwhelming thoughts into more neutral ones, we can diminish anxiety, stress, depression and disillusionment. We can unlearn old habits and acquire new ones. We can learn to think and act in integrity.
To learn more about cognitive therapy, read the guide here.or have a quick look at understanding mindfulness here there is also a fantastic self-care daily routine that we practice in Recovery Direct here that you can add to your daily calendar reminders here.
