Hi everyone.

I hope what brings you here is the urge to be a better, more self aware version of
yourself. I started therapy a few months ago because I felt incapable of dealing with the self
deprecating thoughts in my head and hoped that therapy would help me get rid of them. Last
week was my last session and I asked my therapist what I should be doing if I fall into a series
of bad thinking habits again. ‘I am certain you will fall into it again. Which is why regularly using
what we learnt is so important to catch it in time.’ So I decided to curate a list of everything I
picked up from the sessions- tools that you could incorporate for regular self-check ins, because
there’s no doubt that therapy is expensive! That’ll be the end of my monologue- scroll below and
you’ll find a description of what everything means. As a final note of caution, this is not a
substitute for therapy and in no way the complete guide to serious mental health concerns, it’s
just something you can use for better mental hygiene .

1) Unhelpful Thinking styles

Using this model over a period of time will make you instantly aware of when you have an
unhelpful thought. This is a great self-awareness tool. Each category has an example with it.

2) Cognitive Behavioral Therapy

Here’s how it goes- A situation occurs. It triggers a thought. These thoughts are a result of your
beliefs or past experiences. The thought brings with it an emotion and the emotion you feel
affects the way you behave in that situation. The idea behind CBT is that your thoughts may be
flawed, which is why everything that follows is a road to disaster. Once you can identify (using
the unhelpful thoughts sheet) your good and bad thoughts, you can learn what to do with them.

This sheet will help you do it. This definitely takes some work but hopefully after a couple of
entries, this will automatically happen in your head.
Example​-
Situation​: I am close to failing the subject and am told by the professor I need to work hard.
Feeling​: Feel like a loser; if I can’t survive just a class how will I tackle bigger problems in life?
Unhelpful Thoughts/Images​: Imagines failing the class and the embarrassment of facing friends
and doing it all again. Then thinking about how everyone gets jobs after college and I am the
only one left.
Facts that support the unhelpful thought​: Low grades
Fact against the thought​: The subject is hard for everyone else, it’s supposed to be one of the
toughest courses in grad school
Alternative approach(Might be hard to think of one initially, you could start with what you ‘should’
be thinking rather than what you want to)​: Maybe I am studying in the wrong way and focusing
on the wrong things, and the exam has more questions from notes whereas I put more focus on
homeworks. So maybe I am not dumb, just didn’t see the correct way of studying before.
Outcome(write what will be your emotion or reality if you think that positive thought you wrote in
the previous column)​: Realizing that how I score does not define how smart I am. Will help ease
the mental anxiety.
 3) Self Soothing
This is something everyone should fill ! I honestly love this so much I am willing to distribute
sheets for free XD
Situations trigger thoughts and we spoke about it above. Sometimes there is barely any time
between the occurrence of the situation, your thought, then emotion and your reaction. This
sheet will give you that space between the situation and your thoughts. Great for people who
have anxiety, you can use this to calm yourself down.
Tick what relaxes you and add more if you have them. My hope is that you will make this the
first thing you consult when you have anxiety/bad thoughts and use one every time.
 4) Strengths

This is a one time thing but you can always keep adding. Sit to write your strengths down.
Really ‘write it’. And for each strength write the thoughts that go on in your head as you write.
They could be good or bad thoughts, the intention is to make yourself aware and catch any
assumptions you make. I hope that just like me, at the end of this exercise, you will be surprised
by the number of things you like about yourself.

Example:​ One of the strengths I wrote about is that I am a good driver and that I passed the
exam in my first attempt. But as a rebuttal I told myself that the examiner might have been
lenient. I closed it with telling myself that that was an assumption I made and that I passed the
exam despite being the clumsy person I mostly am and that’s what mattered. This is your go to
document every time you feel low/judged/incompetent.

5) Tear It

Almost laughed at the silliness of this idea when I first heard it. Now I think this is a great instant
relief therapy. Every time you have a negative thought, write it down in the most raw form that
your head processes it in. Write it on a chit of paper then tear it and throw it. Literally tells your
brain that you want to discard the thought.

6) Emotions Wheel

This is useful to help you label what you are feeling because when you start using this
consciously, you’ll realize the number of times you just felt something and didn’t know what it
was. (​aside​- very recently I had a friend tell me I eat a lot for my size. I knew the emotions I felt
were angry and upset. Then I opened the sheet and ‘guilt’ resonated with me the most in that
moment. My next question to my brain was- ‘Huh, guilty for what? For eating when my stomach
asks for it?’ So this is the type of two way conversation we should have inside us)
 7) When feeling judged by others

a) Ask yourself
i) Why does it bother you?
ii) Does it change the way you behave or think about them?
b) Do a quick mental check to try to separate their words and the assumptions you are
making about what they are thinking about you. Did they really say what you are thinking
they meant? And then maybe go back to the sheet in point #2 and think of how you can
replace the thought in your head.
c) Pause in that moment and break the conversation with a sentence like ‘Hey don’t judge
me!’ (you decide how to phrase it). It will hopefully clear assumptions you made.