Is it the events that bother us, or the thoughts we have?
He said something like this during a session with one of my clients the other day.
“Hodja, I had an argument with my boyfriend today, I understood that he doesn’t value me anymore, he doesn’t love me”
“How did you get this thought?” I asked.
“I texted on Whatsapp the other day, saw the message but replied to me hours later”
I asked if anything else happened, he replied, “No, it didn’t happen.
I asked if you thought he didn’t value you because he replied to your message late.
“Yes, teacher, he said, if he cared, he would write an answer”
An issue that may not be a problem for another couple can create a problem for a different couple or person.
Our cognitions, our thoughts, are shaped by our childhood experiences. For example, the fear of cats and dogs is like this. A child who sees that his mother is afraid of the cat as a child, becomes afraid of the cat in an inexplicable way when he becomes an adult. But it’s not the cat he’s really afraid of. It is the thought and perception that settled in his consciousness in childhood. “Fear of the cat”.
This is what my client in the example also experienced. The thought that if he is not immediately answered, he is not valued.
“We’re going to work with you a little bit of our cognitive areas. The thing that bothers you is that your boyfriend returns to the message you wrote on whatsapp hours later. How did this event make you feel?
– Made me feel worthless
“Well, if you score between 1 and 10, how much would you give to this feeling of worthlessness?”
I will give -9 sir
“What went through your mind at that moment?”
-I thought you would answer right away, when I don’t come back, I thought he doesn’t love me and doesn’t value me
“What proof is there that he doesn’t value you?”
-I’m so insignificant to him that if I was important he would answer right away, wouldn’t make me wait
“What is there in your relationship that disapproves of this thought? Why might he be late to your message other than he doesn’t care about you, let’s do some brainstorming”
– He may be in a meeting, his work may be very busy, he may not be available at the moment
“What would they say to you if you told your other friends about this situation?”
My friends always say I’m wrong. Actually, I know you love me. He does what I say, if I get bored with something, he immediately tries to cheer me up.
“Well, if another friend of yours told you the same situation, what would you recommend to your friend?”
-Don’t be silly, I say that the fact that he returned to your message late does not show that he does not value you. He has a job at that moment I say
“Do you think he still doesn’t value you in this situation?”
-Immm… I guess I don’t think so. Yes, he said he was at the meeting, but I still thought he didn’t appreciate it.
“If I asked you to rate 1 to 10 right now, how many points would you give to the feeling of worthlessness you mentioned at the beginning?
I can give -3.
“Okay, we’re going to practice imagination in the next session. Let’s see from which period of your life your feeling of worthlessness actually comes from.”
What did we say at the beginning of the article? Is it the events that bother us, or the thoughts we have?
If there can be 10 different reactions from 10 different people to an event, then it is our thoughts that create our discomfort. But what makes up our thoughts that bother us?
Books are written on this subject, pictures are drawn, songs are composed. Our thoughts are the experiences we gained in the first years of our lives, the emotions engraved in our subconscious, and our intermediate beliefs in the face of events due to these emotions.
If the child is still unable to speak, if his or her mother or father acts in an inhibiting way, the child subconsciously codes it. He experiences a feeling of being stuck, but cannot express it. When the child breaks the vase that his mother values very much at the age of 2, and his mother reacts extremely negatively, the child cries but continues to play after a while. However, the emotion created as a result of the reaction of his mother who made him cry does not disappear and his subconscious records that emotion. In adulthood, those records resurface when they find their medium. It turns into automatic reactions to events.
After all, when Ayşe gets a late reply from Whatsapp, she thinks “she has a job, she will write when she is available”, while Fatma feels worthless in the same situation and says “she doesn’t love me, she doesn’t value me”…
Yours sincerely
