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- Never Fully Heard #04 - Inner Critic, CBT Therapy & Overthinking
Never Fully Heard #04 - Inner Critic, CBT Therapy & Overthinking
Inner Critic, CBT Therapy & Overthinking
Nick Horton
August 28, 2022
The mental health newsletter.
Never Fully Heard is a safe space for men to listen to and engage in open, vulnerable & uncomfortable conversations to help improve their mental health being.
In today's edition:
Meme of the week - Ryan Reynolds
Self-reflection question - The inner critic
CBT therapy & my experience with anxiety & depression
A psychology thread on overthinking
It's Sunday, let's go!
Before reading I want you to do four box breaths.
Exhale to a count of four, holding your lungs empty for a four-count, inhaling at the same pace, and holding air in your lungs for a count of four before exhaling.
Repeat 4 times.
🖼 Meme of the week:
❓Self-reflection question ❓
?What is my internal critic telling me?
"It’s a voice we’re all familiar with, and one that we all find challenging. Yes, the inner critic is the part of our internal dialogue that can make or break our day.
At its best, our inner critic helps us live in a way that’s true to our values, questioning decisions that we might regret later and keeping us on the straight and narrow. At it’s worst, however, an inner critic rampage can bring down our mood, self-esteem, and sense of self-worth." Source
This week I want you to journal your inner critic.
Find a quiet moment & a quiet space in order to create some stillness.
Journalling can take many forms including voice notes, pieces of paper, or even just the notes section on your phone.
Record word for word the stream of thoughts going through your brain.
No judgement, no attachment just document.
As time goes on it will allow you to understand certain patterns as you can ask yourself questions such as:
Does your inner critic sound like anyone you know?
Does it have any recurring complaints?
Is there any kind of truth in the critic’s complaints?
What do you think your critic is trying to protect you from?
What was going on in my life when this thought first appeared?
📝 Article of the week :
My experience with CBT and what led me to it:
CBT is the form of therapy that I undertook when dealing with depression & anxiety. It helped me really understand where my negative thoughts that I couldn't control came from and then help to reframe & rewrite the stories in my head.
Through 20+ hours of therapy, I was able to get to the point where my brain would automatically reframe the narrative in my head and it has allowed me to get my mental health under control.
I would highly recommend CBT to anyone struggling right now with their mental health or even if you just want to improve the way you process your thoughts, feelings and emotions on a daily basis.
I've been asked a number of times what depression & anxiety feels like by friends who haven't experienced them. There is no blanket answer, there is a massive spectrum of experiences and everyone's experience is unique.
At its worst, it felt like my brain had been strapped to a chair with two massive speakers facing it and the volume turned up to full.
What was coming out of the speakers?
Every regret & bad decision I had ever made
Conspiracy theories my brain was making up about why people didn't like me, why people were judging me and different reasons why I should be insecure about my appearance
Constant thoughts about how I could be working harder, that I should be happier and that I shouldn't be so mentally weak
Every reason why whatever I was doing in life e.g. job, relationship, fitness goals were going to crash & burn
It's worth saying that at the time I was experiencing all this in my head, my friends thought I was the happiest they'd ever seen me and living a dream life. You will truly never know what's going on in the brain of your loved ones.
You may not be able to help them, but creating a safe space for them to discuss what's going on in their head may help them come to terms with the fact they need professional help.
The single best investment for my life by a million miles is therapy.
It changed my life for the better and allowed me to gain back control of my brain. There is so much you can do day to day to help keep a healthy mind but sometimes it takes professional help and there is absolutely no shame in that.Going to therapy is a superpower, not a weakness.
Snippet from the article ⬇️
"The basic concept of CBT is that the things you continually tell yourself become the things that you believe.
If you have ever wondered how in the round world someone can believe the earth is flat, it is because of three reasons.
Reason 1: Because science says it is, obviously.
Reason 2: That was a joke; please don’t leave.
And Reason 3: Because they have continually told themselves the world is flat and it has become an ingrained belief in their mind.
People do this all the time. Not the flat earth thing. They tell themselves lies about themselves or others, and these mindsets become ingrained beliefs. These beliefs impact people by increasing their anxiety, depression, or other mental illnesses.
Now what CBT does is it tries to pinpoint these negative mindsets and ingrained beliefs by exploring your thoughts and feelings. So you have to be open to expressing your feelings, which is a big part of therapy. Who knew?"
🐦 Twitter thread of the week
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