How to Manage Your Mind Through Stoicism and CBT [Free Worksheet]
Most of our suffering comes from thoughts that we let run wild in our brains.
We spend a lot of time each day rehashing different conversations and situations in our mind, and we think that we’re just reviewing facts. But we’re not. We’re reflecting on our own points of view, assuming what others think, worrying about the future, and ruminating about the past.
The ancient Stoics understood that our thoughts are nothing more than stories we tell ourselves.
And modern mental health professionals agree with them that we should challenge the thoughts that pop into our heads and not automatically accept them as reality.
You might be thinking, “That’s impossible. I have a million thoughts running through my mind. It’s not in my control. I’m anxious. I’m overwhelmed.”
On the LIVE Without Borders podcast, I’ll coach you on how to use a thought record to manage your mind so you can live a more resilient, calm, joyful, and compassionate life.
I can’t overstate how essential this work is to your wellbeing. If you’re feeling stressed, overwhelmed, or frustrated that the changes you’re trying to make aren’t sticking, listen to this twice.
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What unproductive thought is taking up your brainspace right now?
Maybe you’re thinking: I want to move to Portugal, but I don’t know how. I want to start a podcast, but people will judge me. My ex never loved me. My friend is mad at me. I hate speaking in meetings.
Epictetus said: It’s not things that upset us, but our opinion about them (Enchiridion, 5).
Meaning, it’s not the situation or what’s been said that bothers us, but what we’re making it mean. The stories we’re telling ourselves. Our thoughts.
How to manage your thoughts
As you’ve heard before on this podcast, modern Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) is rooted in Stoicism. CBT is most popular for treating anxiety and depression, but its tools are useful for anyone who experiences negative emotions, which is everyone as this is part of the human experience.
The basic concept of CBT is that it’s not things happening in the external world around us that upset us, but our internal perceptions about those things, and we can manage that.
Sounds familiar, right? Albert Ellis, founder of Rational Emotive Behavior Therapy, the first form of CBT, was borrowing directly from Epictetus, nearly 2,000 years later. (Donald Robertson, who’s written several books on Stoicism’s influence on CBT thinks this idea goes back to Socrates).
So, we cannot control most things happening in the outside world; we can only control what’s happening inside ourselves: our thoughts and feelings.
If you were upset about something, Epictetus would tell you that it’s just a thought. It’s not reality. And to engage with the thought in that way by saying just that: “You’re just a thought. You’re not reality.” He thought getting clear on this was the most important thing you could do.
One of the most effective ways we can manage our mind is by creating what is known as a ‘thought record.’ A thought record is a CBT exercise that helps us take an objective look at what’s going on in our mind by removing the drama and assumptions. The ancient Stoics practiced a similar kind of mindfulness (phantasia katalêptikê).
Marcus Aurelius wrote, “Nothing is so conducive to spiritual growth as this capacity for logical and accurate analysis of everything that happens to us.” (Meditations, 3.11, Gregory Hays translation)
How to create a thought record
Clear your mind of what’s running through your brain.
Journal out your thoughts without censoring yourself. (daily journaling is an important Stoic practice and Marcus Aurelius’s Meditations is, in fact, his journal).
Pick one to do a thought record on, something that’s been weighing on you that you’d like help with.
Inciting incident
Now that you have your thought, write down a specific situation that has provoked this thought in you. Describe what happened in objective terms, without adding in your biases.
Example
Kay has not responded to my text and it’s been 24 hours.
Thought / impression
What’s the main thought this situation has brought up? Choose one and make it a statement, not a question.
Example
Kay is mad at me.
Emotion / feeling / mood / passion
How does this thought make you feel?
Example
I’m mad!
Behavior
How does this thought and feeling influence your actions? This could cause you to do something or to NOT do something.
Important note: This isn’t how you WISH you’d act, you’re writing down how you behave when you’re mad because you think your friend is mad at you.
Example
I’m ruminating about why Kay isn’t texting me and making up stories.
I’m not texting her because I’m mad. I’m withdrawing.
Evidence for
Now it’s time to challenge your thought. What evidence do you have to support it?
Example
Evidence Kay is mad at me — none. I actually have no idea why she hasn’t texted me.
Evidence against
What evidence do you have against your thought?
Example
Evidence against the thought Kay is mad at me — she usually takes a long time to respond to text messages and it doesn’t mean anything.
Find the objective
Now is a good time to check in and see how your thoughts and behaviors aren’t serving you. You’re thinking your friend is mad, when you don’t have any idea, and this thought is causing you to create internal drama about you and your friend. The outcome is you are mad.
What exactly do you want out of this situation? What is the objective here? If you want to be close to your friend, you can see how your current thoughts, feelings, and actions are doing the exact opposite -- they’re putting a wedge between you and your friend, at least in your mind. She has no idea what’s going on.
So let’s come up with an alternative thought. We’ll use the same situation
Alternative thought 1
Inciting incident
Kay has not responded to my text and it’s been 24 hours.
Thought / impression
Kay never responds to my texts on time. (seems more neutral — but it doesn’t give me the feeling I want)
Emotion / feeling / mood / passion
Still irritated.
Behavior
I stew in resentment that Kay is not a more responsive friend.
This might just be a fleeting thought but the emotion tied to it can stick and keep me in a mood. The outcome is increased anger.
Kay might be a fantastic friend. Super generous in so many ways and this one little thing is needling me. But if I haven’t told her that it bothers me when it takes her days to respond to a text, well, how is she to know? In her mind, average response time could be several days. Who is to say that I am right and she is wrong?
OK, the alternative thought that Kay never responds to my texts on time wasn’t the right one because it kept me in a thought and feeling that I didn’t want.
It’s important to point out that Stoicism isn’t just about regulating negative emotions and fostering positive ones. It’s about making you see that the thoughts causing these feelings are just impressions and not facts. We can choose to accept or reject these thoughts, when we accept them, the Stoics say we are ‘assenting’ to them.
OK, let’s try another alternative thought record…
Alternative thought 2
Inciting incident
Kay has not responded to my text and it’s been 24 hours.
Thought / impression
Kay has a lot going on in her life right now.
Emotion / feeling / mood / passion
Compassion.
Behavior
I feel motivated to reach out to her and see if everything is OK. This curiosity and concern comes from a genuine place.
The outcome is I want to help Kay.
Summary
Thoughts cause our feelings, good and bad. When we let thoughts control us, they can harm us, but when we control them, we can transform ourselves. And this benefits everyone around us.
Stoics believe that human beings are by nature rational creatures. If you’re thinking, “What? Everyone around me seems irrational, including myself,” consider this...
We are born in essence, as our highest selves, but we lose this as we acclimate to the world. We put up defenses to protect ourselves, and slide into unconscious patterns of thinking and feeling that color our worldview and affect how we behave.
The Stoics were right that we have the capability for reason and common sense. But we get stuck in the trappings of our personalities and stop seeing this. We feel like we can’t change.
But underneath everything, the essence of who you are still exists. And anything is possible.
Once you wake up to your autopilot nature, it’s like a mask comes off, and you can start exploring how to think, feel, and act in a way that is more true to you.
The first step in this positive change is to get curious about how you think, feel, and act. You can do this through thought record practice.
Now, most people listening to this will think thought records are a good idea, but they won’t do the exercise. We love to learn new things and then we move on without acting on what we learn. We say we don’t have time. Too busy. “I will do that eventually.”
But then we’ll lose hours of sleep picking apart something our boss said. We won’t go for the promotion. We’ll ghost someone instead of having an uncomfortable conversation.
Managing our mind is the most important thing we can do. When we don’t, our relationships suffer, at home and at work. We stay stuck in the same place.
I’m so fascinated by all of this and am taking several courses on the neuroscience of change. I want to continue developing as a person, and I want to help you do this, too.
The Stoics said we should live with areté, that is, live with excellence. To live as our highest selves, not just for us as individuals but for the people around us and the world at large.
During our lifetimes, we might not return to that pure essence we were born with, but aiming to get closer to that is the most important work we can do.