Donna Hemingway, 4-time former caregiver, is the creator and host of Caregiver Tea Time. In this episode she shares about Cognitive Behavioral Therapy, or CBT, a strategy she used to help her with a current problem: “Where do I go from here?”
Donna sought the help of a CBT counselor because CBT is goal oriented and she found herself at a loss after her son finished treatment and her caregiver duties were over. She was able to find a local CBT practitioner through the Psychology Today website.
Homework assignments are part of CBT and Val shares about her assignment to find her “core values”. As part of the assignment, Donna printed a copy of her core values to carry everywhere as a reminder of what is most important to her. She found that making this podcast is in total alignment with her core values.
Donna finishes the podcast by sharing a tool she learned to get rid of thinking errors – her unwanted thoughts that do not bring anything good to her or anyone else. She created a poem from a favorite tecipe to help her remember the steps. On her Caregiver Tea Time website Donna provides that recipe for Sweet and Spicy Nuts.
Donna's special message: “Please don’t let your thinking errors come between you and the people who mean the most to you!”
https://www.psychologytoday.com/us
In today's episode, I'm going to talk about CBT or Cognitive Behavioral Therapy. CBT has been used by counselors and therapists for over 75 years.
It addresses current problems and focuses on the thoughts, attitudes, and beliefs that affect our behavior. It's been extensively studied and shown to be as effective as medicine for depression and anxiety and other emotional concerns.
It has the added benefit of creating lasting positive change. It also teaches coping skills. And today I will share one of the coping skills my CBT counselor taught me.
I sought help from a counselor after my son finished his treatment in New York City and we moved back to the Midwest. He was living his new life in Milwaukee with his friends and was pretty much on his own.
I was back home feeling a little bit lost. Without the day -to -day needs of caregiving, I struggled to make decisions. Almost a year before, I had quit my job as a dietitian to be a caregiver,
and now my caregiving duties were over.
I've seen counselors for talk therapy, but I had never seen one for cognitive behavioral therapy. And this time,
I had a specific goal, which was "where do I go from here?"
So, I wanted to give it a try. I found a CBT practitioner by going to the Psychology Today website and narrowing down my search.
I was very fortunate to find Sarah, who had just moved into the area and could see me right away. She had a PhD in psychology and used only CBT in her practice because she found it to be so effective.
For me, I found amazing clarity about how to move forward when I really wasn't quite sure which direction I wanted to go.
Part of CBT includes doing assignments between counseling appointments.
My first homework assignment was to make a list of what I value or anything that feels like it may be a value to me. Sarah defines a value as the lens by which we see the world.
Therapists has found that everyone has five to seven core values. They usually come from our childhood and what we learn from our families. They guide our life and our choices and tend to be stable over time.
But we can lose sight of them and behave in ways that don't fit our values, and that's when problems begin.
The goal of that assessment was to find my core values so I could print them on a card and carry it with me. That way, I could always check back whenever I needed guidance.
I still have my homework sheet and my list from over five years ago. I counted the list and found I wrote down over 45 things that I value. Things like family, walking outdoors, honesty, learning new things, friendship, kindness, and, of course, adventure.
The list goes on, but Sarah helped me pare it down to four, and then she helped me to define what they meant to me.
I find it very interesting that the list of core values I created over five years ago is totally aligned with the work I'm doing today on this caregiver tea time podcast.
I value community, which is gathering people together to learn, celebrate, explore, and enjoy fellowship. I also value offering my knowledge and experience to those seeking help.
I'm sure you could easily make your own list of what you value, but working with the CBT therapist will help you narrow it down to your core values that matter the most.
And Now, for the coping skill Sarah taught me that I can't wait to share with you.
I call it a thinking error tool. This is where I can say, that for sure, CBT has had lasting benefits for me. I still use it when I have a thought that's unwanted and it doesn't bring anything good for me or anyone else.
Usually it's something I can't get out of my mind And almost always, it's a regret, something I did or didn't do in the past and something that I can't go back and change,
but I just keep thinking about it over and over until I finally tell myself, "It's enough already. It's time to move on."
But how to move on?
Here's how the tool works. The first step is to stop the thought right there by imagining a stop sign or a railroad crossing or maybe a dead -end road that's blocked with a barrier.
The next step is to focus on a four -step process, something that's familiar to you and it could be anything you regularly do. For example,
imagine the route you take to get to the grocery store or the process you use to wash and put away the dishes. But it must have four or more steps. Three is not enough.
Well, it was Christmas time when I learned this tool and I was making a recipe for sweet and spicy party nuts. I had prepared this recipe over and over and I knew all the steps by heart.
When I first use this thinking error tool, my stopping point is a railroad crossing with flashing red lights and a ding ding ding of an alarm bell as the wooden arms come down to block the road.
And then I walk through in my mind the steps of preparing my sweet and spicy nuts recipe. In fact, I turned it into a poem. It goes like this,
"measure spices, measure nuts, make a syrup, is that enough? Mix together, butter the pan, bake it once and bake again.
What was that thinking error I had? Whew, it's gone and I am glad!"
So next time you have thoughts you no longer need, rather than letting them stick around and get ingrained, try this thinking error tool.
Imagine your stop sign or railroad crossing, then think through four or more steps that is a process familiar to you. And after that, the thought will be gone.
Well I think it's time for me to close our Tea Time episode number three about CBT. As with every episode, there are links to the resources on my website caregiverteatime .com.
I'll also give you a copy of the recipe for sweet and spicy nuts, whose steps I used for my thinking error tool.
Can you believe we're nearing the end of our first season?
There's one episode left and it will be about journaling. There are several ways to journal and lots of reasons to journal, so join us next time and I'll share about my experiences.
And here's my special message for today, "Don't let those thinking errors come between you and the people who mean the most."
Please join me in encouraging one another to just stop our thinking errors in their tracks and get on with life.
So on the count of three let's raise our cups and say
" I take time to stop my thinking errors!"
One, two, three. "I take time to stop my thinking errors!" Cheers!
♪ Nothing but the good things ♪ ♪ Nothing but the good things ♪ ♪ In this world ♪ ♪ Living in my heart ♪ ♪ The the good things,
nothing but the good things, in this world, living in my heart, living in my heart,
living in my heart. Caregiver T -Time was recorded at the Coop Studio, Irvington,
New York, engineered by Sammy Wags and produced by Bianca Grooves.