When people ask what I do as a coaching psychologist, I often give a simple answer: I help people build a healthier relationship with their own mind.
Almost everything that brings someone to coaching starts there, in the thoughts they have and how they respond to them.
Yet having a mind doesn’t make us experts in using it. Sleep is a useful comparison. We all sleep, but we don’t all sleep well, often because of the myths and misconceptions we’ve picked up along the way. Our minds are similar. We all have one, and it regularly gets in the way of how we want to show up, decide and act.
That’s why I think of this work as writing an owner’s manual for the mind. Think of the manual that comes with a fridge or a television. Most of us only open it when something has gone wrong. What we need instead is a manual we actually use, day to day, to get the best from a remarkable but complicated piece of kit.
How our thoughts can get in the way
A metaphor I use a lot with clients is that the mind is a thinking machine. It runs 24/7 in the background, producing a steady stream of mental content: self-talk, memories, ideas, solutions, worries, predictions and reminders.
It helps to frame all of this as something we are being offered. Thoughts are produced for us, rather than being us. When we forget that and over-identify with our thoughts, they start to shape our lives in ways we never chose.
How we relate to our thoughts influences almost everything:
- How we respond to the inevitable setbacks and challenges we face
- How we relate to and communicate with the people around us
- How we see ourselves and our place in the world
- How successfully we change our behaviour or adapt to new circumstances
Pause for a moment and consider your day so far. How has your thinking brought you to this point? And how have you felt about the thoughts your mind has given you along the way?
Three common misunderstandings about thoughts
1. “I thought it, so it must be true”
“I think, therefore I am” is easily confused with “I thought it, so it must be true”, or “I thought it, so I’d better do something about it”. In reality, much of what our mind produces is random and ungrounded in our experience.
Having a thought doesn’t make it factually correct. Nor does it add an item to our to-do list. If every thought demanded a response, we would never get anything else done.
2. “The goal is to control my thoughts”
Working on how we relate to our thoughts isn’t about thought control, or reaching a point where unwelcome thoughts never arrive. Trying to control mental content pulls us away from the present moment and can leave us more wound up than before.
A more useful aim is a relationship with our mind in which thoughts don’t drag us away from what matters. When a thought is unwelcome, we can let it move on. Picture the thinking machine’s assembly line: thoughts travel along the conveyor belt and off somewhere else. We don’t have to pick up every one as it passes.
3. “There are good thoughts and bad thoughts”
We constantly judge our thoughts. We welcome a happy memory or the solution to a puzzle, and recoil from a painful memory or a harsh thought about ourselves. But thoughts are neither good nor bad. It is far more useful to ask whether a thought is helpful or unhelpful in this context, for what we are trying to do.
Take the thought “I need to buy milk”. On a video call with a client, it is unhelpful because it pulls my attention away. Walking past a shop, it is extremely helpful. Same thought, different context.
Labelling thoughts as good or bad also carries a hidden risk. It is a short step from “I had bad thoughts” to “I am a bad person”. Yet we don’t consciously choose most of our mental content, and much of it is fantasy, unrelated to our values or intentions. Our thoughts are not a measure of our worth.
Cognitive defusion: looking at thoughts, not through them
Metaphors like the thinking machine are a helpful starting point, but understanding them isn’t enough. Real change comes from practising a skill. The key skill here, drawn from Acceptance and Commitment Coaching, is cognitive defusion.
Cognitive defusion means learning to look at our thoughts rather than through them. Imagine looking through a pair of glasses: the lenses shape how you see everything. Take them off and hold them in front of you. You still have them, but now you can see them for what they are, and the world looks quite different.
You may have noticed defusion already at work in this post. Talking about thoughts as something our mind gives or offers us is itself a defusion technique. It creates a little distance between us, our thoughts and our actions.
With practice, defusion helps you to:
- Hold a healthy scepticism about your thoughts, seeing them as products of the thinking machine rather than facts
- Treat thoughts as passing experiences, not problems you must solve, argue with or act on
- Spot self-limiting beliefs such as “I can’t”, “I’m not the kind of person who…” or “I’m only a…”
- Act on your values, even when your mind is serving up thoughts of past or anticipated failure
This last benefit is perhaps the most important. When something bothers us inside, it’s tempting to drop everything and try to think our way out, or to gather evidence to disprove the unpleasant thought. Defusion offers another route. We can step back, let the thought pass, and still do what matters to us.
Writing your own owner’s manual
Thinking about your thinking is where a healthier relationship with your mind begins. If you were to write an owner’s manual for your own mind, what would you include? A few questions to get you started:
- How can you get the most out of this remarkable thinking machine?
- What do you need to watch out for, performance-wise?
- Which conditions hamper its performance, and which help it run at its best?
- How can you proactively maintain this complex piece of kit?
- What does your mind give you that gets in the way?
Whatever shows up, remember: no matter what the content is, it’s just thought.
We provide coaching and training programmes focused solely on boosting psychological flexibility. Get in touch today to find out how we can support your wellbeing and performance.