I feel I really am pretty mindful in a sense about the "hypotheses" I think to myself, yeah they are "hypotheses", let's work with them, and then they pass - and I may revisit them later and perhaps see and understand more then.

This approach helps me be flexible, not get stuck in an emotional thought. I accept it and consider it as, it must have a message for me, and I want to understand the message more, and I want to understand what the explanation for it will be (that's where the "hypotheses" come in).



What are "any thoughts without labels"? Do you have an example of a thought like that?






Hm well my approach is my rational thoughts are mine. My emotional thoughts are where I also try to use the rational approach and be flexible with the "hypothesis" idea. And yes, it means I accept them "as is".

Do you have an example of a thought that is not your thought and is just there to make noise? Putting yourself in alert sounds like you are talking about anxious thoughts.





OK so you mean the so-called Automatic Negative Thoughts (ANTs) that CBT therapy deals with?

I see there could be a misunderstanding here then When I talked about the hypotheses, that wasn't thoughts about my own person...more like my attitudes to things in life.

I hate ANTs and I kick them out immediately if I ever was to have one but I don't often have them.

I remember I even had an angry rant talking with the therapist where I told them how much I hate this idea of ANTs and how much I just dont even wanna hear about them. Because what the fu** their use is? Rhetorical question lol.

She said okay, then we don't have to talk about ANTs. And we didn't talk about them again. Thank god : ))

That just comes out of instinct for me. I don't feel like being negative. I want to enjoy things instead


And I did read that you do have to fight this self-critical inner voice, not give in to it. Like be willing to say to it "you are bull****, go away". I think I agree with that approach, like I said that's my natural instinct too.

So basically yah I'm not very mindful there lol, I just push away bull**** negatives

I strongly believe in having self-respect and self-worth.

And I sometimes totally feel like that in therapies, they need to teach more of the fight mindset

And I like therapies that talk about building up self-esteem too so there is no such critical inner voice.




OK that's where this is interesting, so for you if you fight it, get angry against it, tell it it's bull**** and push it away it gets worse for you?

I think the one case where fighting and pushing it away can make it worse is when the message from the emotional thought is something that needs to be investigated, find facts, look at the objective situation, or simply understand the emotional insight from it. So for example if you feel you have low value then you want to build up your self-esteem, your sense of self-worth and self-respect.

So I agree that sometimes you can't just push away negative emotions because they have a strong message so if you fight it it will just become stronger. And then you have to work with that message and do something about it. If you are not sure initially what the message is, you can use a "working hypothesis" there too



Self-compassion?

I can sometimes do emotional imagination for imagining that I have a negative emotion - not one that comes with thoughts devaluing my self-worth, but just simply negative feelings, sadness, feeling low, etc - and then I give it a hug.

But yeah, emotional thoughts that devalue self-worth, I'm not playing around with those. Those simply need to go lol and the solution is proactively building up self-esteem