7 Life Lessons That I Learned From Cognitive Behaviour Therapy ( CBT ) | Divya Toshniwal |

Cognitive means something that passes through your mind i.e., thoughts, dreams, etc.

Behaviour means all that you do and all the ways you react to various scenarios in front of you.

Therapy is a technique to help you deal with, physical, mental or emotional issues.

Cognitive Behaviour Therapy by definition is a type of psychotherapy in which the negative thought patterns of the participants are challenged in order to alter the unwanted behaviour patterns to help them handle their mental and emotional issues.

The theory behind cognitive behaviour therapy says that our reaction to any situation is dependant on our thought patterns and our belief system. Cognitive Behaviour Therapy helps us to see our belief system in a new light and change it to alter the unwanted behaviour which is causing trouble.

The theory provides us with a list of cognitive distortions or irrational thought patterns and directs us towards a sample of general beliefs that we can work on change. Here are certain thought patterns that we assume to be right. But these patterns make us think about unnecessary things, increase our stress and take away our happiness.

After going through the Cognitive distortions and using cognitive behaviour therapy I reached to 7 Life Lessons that Cognitive Behaviour Therapy taught me and here I list them for you. 

1. Situations cannot create feelings. Feelings are created by our thoughts about the situation. Feelings are created because of our perception of the situation which depends on our belief system.
2. Take a note of behaviour that makes you feel better or worse. Find the thought or belief behind it and deal with it.
3. Not everything wrong in your life is because of you. Take a break from blaming yourself and taking responsibility for everything that goes wrong.
4. The happiness of your life depends on the quality of your thoughts. So instead of dwelling on the negative, accept the positive.
5. Failure is a situation, not a person. Do not label yourself as a failure, or not intelligent, or worthless based on one or a few situations. Take failure as feedback and move on.
6.  You can't change how people treat you or what they say about you. All you can change is how you take it and how you react to it. Similarly, you cannot control how other people receive you. Anything that they do or say gets filtered through their thoughts and beliefs at that moment, which is not about you. Just keep doing your thing as per your beliefs and to the best of your ability.
7. Expectations are the thoughts that you weave looking forward to the future that may or may not happen (fully or partially). Your reaction to the situation changes because of the thought that you had built up in your mind. Let go of expectations and deal with life as it comes your way. That will lead you to true happiness.

Everything in life teaches us something. It depends on us whether we read in between the lines or not. CBT taught me these 7 valuable life lessons that changed a lot about how I look towards myself and towards the world. 

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Divya