What is it that people with positive mental wellbeing do differently?
Have you ever wondered what kind of skills people with positive mental wellbeing have? What is it that people who are able to avoid anxiety and depression do differently? I’ve got some good news for you. There’s a very important area that has been shown to be tied to mental wellbeing AND it’s something you can actively improve. Let’s explore these skills that mentally healthy individuals utilize and find out what you can do to improve them for yourself.
What is meta-cognitive awareness and why is it important?
I’m about to give you a fancy term: meta-cognitive awareness.
What the heck does it mean?
Simply put, it means being aware that our thoughts- including our negative ones- are something that pass through our mind but are separate from WHO WE ARE. People who have strong meta-cognitive awareness skills have an ability to recognize that their thoughts and feelings are subjective (not based on fact) and impermanent- they will come and go. Psychologists refer to this as “decentering.”
In addition, people who have strong meta-cognitive awareness skills are also less likely to fall into depression or anxiety when stressful life situations occur. That does not mean that they don’t feel sad or anxious, but rather that those feelings are less likely to stick around and become problematic. This is helpful to keep in mind because it helps us to recognize that we can’t control what feelings we have, but we can make a difference in our mental health by how we respond to them.
On the opposite side, when we get “fused” with our thoughts and feelings, we DO experience them as who we are. We see our identity as being depressed. Or we REALLY buy into our thoughts. We don’t see outside of our feelings and see them as lasting forever. As a result, we get into a spiral of feeling bad about ourselves and not seeing a way out.
So, what do you do to improve meta cognitive awareness?
It’s okay if you’ve recognized that you might be getting fused with your thoughts and feelings. Now that you’ve increased your awareness about this, you can actively work on improving your meta-cognition and defusion skills. Keep in mind that it’s likely that you’ve been responding to your thoughts and feelings the same way for quite some time- and you can’t snap your fingers to make this change. However, you CAN change if you actively work on it. You can work on utilizing strategies to help see your thoughts and feelings as coming and going, separate from yourself, and experiences that will naturally change with time.
Here’s some strategies you can start utilizing today to de-fuse from your thoughts and feelings:
-When you have an automatic thought pop up, respond to it by thinking “I just had the THOUGHT that…” for example, if you think “I’m a failure,” then respond to it with “I just had the thought that I’m a failure”
-When you are noticing a difficult feeling, instead of saying to yourself “I’m anxious,” say to yourself “I am having the feeling of anxiety”
-Use self talk to acknowledge and externalize your feelings: “Oh, hi sadness! You’re here again.”
-Use the “thanking your mind” strategy with thoughts or feelings: “Thank you mind, for that thought” or “Thank you anxiety for trying to protect me, but I’m safe”
-Remind yourself that all feelings come and go, no matter how difficult they are in the moment
All of these strategies purposefully distance from thoughts and feelings. They remind us that our thoughts and feelings are something that we experience but they are not US. YOU are not your thoughts. YOU are not your feelings. You are the one observing these experiences and recognizing they won’t last forever.
Keep Growing,
