Are You Ready To Focus On The Present Moment?

Do you sometimes feel as if you are being held back by the past? Or that you worry so much about the future that you can’t just exist in the here and now? 

 

You may have searched for answers in the past about why you feel the way you do. Maybe you have tried traditional talk therapies but feel like it isn’t as effective for you. You don’t want to just talk about what you are experiencing, but find a way to transform your life. 

 

Life gets in the way. It throws things at us that we try to manage but sometimes can be completely overwhelming. From careers, families, and social and household responsibilities, life always seems to feel like a juggling act. As if you are walking on a tightrope in a straight line, but feeling like you could tumble at any second.

 

So much gets in the way that it makes self-growth, healing, and planning for the future feel as if they are impossible achievements.

 

What if they were possible? What if everything you want to achieve for your life was just within reach of you?

 

Everything Is Connected

Humans are complicated and so are our brains. We often get so caught up in other people’s expectations of our lives that we forget the most important aspect - what WE think and feel.

 

Sometimes, it’s hard to see how and why our attitudes, beliefs, and feelings are all connected. Adding in how debilitating the past can be and our own misgivings about who we are, it’s no wonder why so many people end up feeling stuck. Worsening this issue is that society places little value on looking at how thoughts, feelings, and behaviors are all intricately woven.

 

Enter Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT.) When you feel out of balance and stressed, it can have a detrimental effect on your mental health and overall feelings of well-being. Traditional therapy is useful, but it isn’t always as effective for some people. This is where specific approaches to therapy, such as CBT can be incredibly transformational. While CBT is a type of talk therapy, the focus here is not on the past. Though, if that is helpful to talk about your current situation, you are more than encouraged to do so. It is a structured and solution-orientated approach to therapy. During a CBT session, a therapist will listen as you discuss the current problems you are facing and what your goals are for treatment. 

 

In Cognitive Behavioural Therapy, there are a few main goals that a therapist will help you try to achieve. First, is to identify the problems you are facing. Second, is to understand the emotions and thoughts you have about those problems. The third is to transform your response to these emotions and thoughts through your actions.

 

Depending on the problems you are facing, a therapist may ask you to complete worksheets outside of sessions to continue practicing what you are learning. Alternatively, you may role-play scenarios that can showcase the way you naturally want to respond to them. Through both of those tools, you can learn to think about your problems in a different light.

 

CBT Therapy is founded on a few core principles.

• Problems are based on unhelpful thought patterns

• Problems are also based on unhelpful behaviors

• Both of these areas can be transformed and untaught

 

To change thought patterns, Cognitive Behavioural Therapy can help you learn how to:

• Recognize how the unhelpful thought patterns actually create problems 

• Reevaluate these patterns by learning what is grounded in reality

• Problem solve to help deal with difficult situations in a healthier manner

• Feel more confident in your ability to make decisions and your own skillsets

 

It also helps you to learn how to modify your actions by teaching strategies such as:

• Facing the things you fear versus trying to avoid them all together

• Keeping your body and mind calm and relaxed through mindfulness techniques