Humans are thinking and meaning-making beings. You can try arguing the opposite, but that would require thinking and meaning-making.

Sometime around 1637, René Descartes said it this way,

“Cogito, ergo sum.”

The English translation,

“I think, therefore I am.”

Cool stuff.

After several decades of studying psychological theory, I’m finally ready to make my own fancy Cartesian philosophical statement about human thinking. It’s less succinct than Descartes, because, well, I’m not Descartes. Here we go.

First, in Latin (because even though I only typed the words into the Google Latin translator, using Latin makes everyone sound smarter).

“Cogito ergo sum ego possit cogitare et in tempore angustiae triumphi.”

Now, in English.

“I think therefore I am able to think myself into trouble or triumph.”

Inevitably, the more we think, the more we’re able to create personal misery. Alternatively, as we know all too well from political or romantic or employment or online relationships, we humans are also quite capable of rationalizing behaviors and describing ourselves in ways that makes us feel and sound better than we are in reality. We easily and naturally think our way toward trouble and triumph.

One popular contemporary term that speaks to miserable and unhelpful thinking is “overthinking.” Overthinking refers to excessive analysis around actions or decision-making. Overthinking is usually considered a less-than-optimal style that sometimes leads to paralysis by analysis.

Unfortunately, although life is better when we avoid overthinking, “underthinking” (although it hasn’t caught on), is equally bad. Underthinking results in impulsive and thoughtless behaviors and decisions.

As if life wasn’t already hard enough, like Goldilocks, now we have to avoid overthinking and underthinking, and find just the right amount of thinking.

All this brings us to our current happiness activity for the week:

Think of a recent time you felt significant emotional distress. . . and then answer the following questions.

1.      Using emotion words and a rating scale of 0-100, how would you label the emotions and sensations you experienced? [For example, “I felt anger at 80, sadness at 60, and my body was very tense and physically agitated]

2.      Describe the situation that triggered your emotions and sensations. [For example, “I ran into my ‘ex’ at the store”]

3.      Identify and give words to the thoughts you have in response to the situation-trigger and that contribute to your emotions-sensations [“I thought, that asshole is one cold and mean person and I hate that he looks so smug” and/or “Stupidly, I still miss him.”]

4.      Identify and give words to different thoughts you could think that might “feel” better and different behaviors you could do that would be positive coping [I could think, “I sure dodged a bullet there” and/or “I think I’ll go for a run and have a healthy salad for lunch because that always helps me feel good about myself.”]

5.      Re-rate your emotions and re-describe your sensations after you’ve tried out your alternative thoughts and behaviors.

If you want a longer description of how to you might use a similar process called the six-column technique, go to: https://johnsommersflanagan.com/2014/02/18/how-to-use-the-six-column-cbt-technique/

#MHPHappinessChallenge

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Dr. John Sommers-Flanagan, University of Montana