One of the steps of the support group I went to, called GROW, was "we learned to by reason rather than by feelings and imagination." This was extremely powerful to me.
When my boss used to call me, my heart sunk into my stomach, thinking "oh no I must be in trouble." This is thinking by feelings. Because I was a little scared of my boss, I always thought I'm in trouble. If I reasoned things out, I could have told myself, my boss never yelled or scolded me before. He actually is on my side, there is no need to be afraid. Even when he would tell me I needed to do a better job, he always was nice about it and emphasized what I was doing right too.
Sometimes our imagination gets the best of us. If we have to give a speech we feel like we will do a bad job. We imagine ourselves getting up in front of the crowd, feeling awkward. We imagine ourselves stuttering and being nervous. By the time we get up to give our speech, we are in a panic.
If we just learn to tell ourselves I am doing my best, I will do a good job. I may not be perfect but I can handle this. If we learn to talk to ourselves like that we won't be in such a panic.
One way to learn to think by reason is to list all the information for your thought and all the information against your thought.
For instance, if you have a friend and they don't say hello to you when you say hello if you think by feelings and imagination you will say your friend is mad at you.
You can list the evidence to support your thought.
Yes, your friend did not say hello to you. Something is off. That is all we really know by reason.
You can list the evidence against your thought.
Your friend never has done this before. You did nothing wrong, it would be weird if your friend snubbed you.
Later you find out your friend was late for work and was distracted.
Hope this short article helps you.
Take care,
John Karnish