DailyOM: What is cognitive-behavioral therapy (CBT)?
Eric: For thousands of years, natural philosophers and spiritual leaders have accurately pinpointed our thoughts as a primary source of our suffering. Cognitive-behavioral therapy is a contemporary version of that long tradition. CBT therapists ask you to notice what you are thinking, reject thoughts that aren't serving you, and replace them with thoughts that do serve you.
There are two questions that come up when we ask what will help us meet life's challenges, heal emotional distress, and deal with states of being associated with depression, anxiety, and addiction. The first is, "What's causing it?" The second is, "What helps?" Many kinds of answers have been offered to both questions. One consistent answer to the first question is "how we think," and one consistent answer to the second question is to "take charge of what you think."
Clients who actively engage in this work invariably see positive results. If you think "I'm worthless," or "I have no chance," or "I need more Scotch," and replace those thoughts with "I'm worth a great deal," and "I absolutely have a chance," and "It's time for an AA meeting," you have done yourself a world of good. There are lots of things that can help, but getting a grip on your thoughts may be what helps most.
DailyOM: What does the course title, You Are What You Think, mean?
Eric: Each of us tells ourselves a story about life all the time. Generally speaking, that story is rather negative and sometimes downright despairing. Millions of people have decided — just out of conscious awareness and where they can't quite hear it — that life is a cheat, that they have failed themselves, and that they and their efforts don't matter much. Since this is what they think, then this also becomes what they feel and how they act. Thinking life is scary naturally leads to anxiety. Thinking that you don't matter can naturally lead to depression and continual thoughts of feeling completely overwhelmed, which can lead to addiction. The thought is tied to your moods and behaviors.
Most people don't realize that thinking objectively true thoughts may not serve them. "My sister was rude again," or "I doubt that the world cares about my poetry," or "I have so many errands to run," may be perfectly true thoughts, but if you are trying to sit down and write poetry for an hour, you should dispute and reject them. Thinking about your many errands makes it very hard to get permission from yourself to spend that hour writing poetry. That innocent-sounding "true" thought has successfully prevented you from living one of your life purposes. It is in this profound sense that we are indeed what we think.
DailyOM: In Lesson 2, you write, "If you're smart, sensitive, and creative, I'm guessing that you're also regularly troubled." What do you mean by this?
Eric: I have identified many of the special sources of pain and difficulty that smart, sensitive, creative people regularly face. The pain from what I've dubbed "the smart gap," the great distance between what you perceive to be your talents and abilities and the intellectual or creative work you feel called to do, ends up putting them in a small corner of a large universe.
The headlines are that life is challenging and that the creative life is doubly challenging. Creatives have extra problems because they are reluctant to accept received meaning and want to know for themselves, which can make them doubt the meaningfulness of life. They also face extra financial problems because none of the arts pay well — unless you're a celebrity on top of their game. And creatives often have extra personality issues because in order to maintain their integrity and their individuality, they can become obsessive, cranky, anxious, and oppositional. In addition, they can develop extra mood issues because they are often plagued by a background case of the blues caused by meaning coming and abruptly going.
DailyOM: In your course, you suggest that people substitute silly words to stop caustic thought patterns. How and why does this work to alter thought patterns?
Eric: One of my degrees is in philosophy, and my focus was contemporary linguistic philosophy. If a leader keeps saying, "War is peace" (think of Animal Farm and Orwell's other writings), doesn't "war" begin to sound very benign? If a leader keeps saying "All is good," when a lot isn't good, aren't a lot of folks going to be seduced into thinking that all is good even if they can't see that goodness for themselves?
If you use language in one way, it can support you, but if you use it in another way, it can sabotage you. If you repeatedly say, "I have no chance," that repeated demoralization really does matter. But if you change that to "I have no celery," or "I have no animal crackers," all that does is send you off shopping. Changing our inner language, in serious ways or in silly ways, really does help and really does matter.
DailyOM: In your course, you write that we are kidnapping neurons and wearing ourselves out when we engage in negative self-talk. What do you mean by this?
Eric: Our brain is made up of a large number of neurons, on the order of several billions. That sounds like an enormous number, but we have to remember that it takes millions of neurons, often hundreds of millions of neurons, to have a thought. Thinking means giving neurons over to particular thoughts. If you are using your neurons on thoughts like "I hate life," or "I need to weed my yard," then you have hundreds of millions fewer neurons available to solve your problems, create your symphony, or think pleasurable and soothing thoughts. This is actually simple, straightforward physiology.
The main way we honor the creative process is by getting quiet — that is, silencing all those thoughts that are using neurons — so that all of our neurons are available to bubble up creative ideas. I guess you could call thinking a zero-sum game. If you are worrying about your overgrown weeds, you also can't be composing your Symphony No. 9.
DailyOM: Can you share a success story of somebody who has gone through this course?
Eric: Certainly. There are many. One client dearly wanted to write a novel. She had the story clearly in mind but was preventing herself from starting because she kept thinking thoughts like: "I don't know how to write a novel," "I'm not imaginative," and "I have to focus on making a living." She quickly came to understand that such thoughts, even if some of them were true, weren't serving her. So, she decided to use as a thought substitute the single word "process" to stand for her acceptance of the fact that she had to start as a beginner.
The process, whether easy or hard, had to be endured for the sake of finally writing her novel. She then endeavored to align her behaviors with her new thoughts. She instituted a morning writing practice, and by holding words like "practice," "routine," and "regularity" as sacred words, she was able to write virtually every day. Within six months, she had the draft of her novel completed and subsequently found a literary agent to represent it. The agent secured her a lovely advance. That novel was published, and so was a second one.
DailyOM: Eric, thank you for sharing that story and this transformative course. Many people have taken this course and have experienced a shift from their negative thought patterns into healthier, self-affirming ones. If you struggle with self-defeating thoughts and are interested in learning more, join us on this journey. Until next time, be well.
