Thought Journal

I had a great, and interesting, conversation with a friend of mine who is a doctor at the VA hospital in the Bay Area.

She was telling me about the idea of a thought journal and at first I was a little skeptical because I tend to over think things way too much and told her so.  I said my thought journal would be full in about two days.  She then explained it's not about that.

A thought journal has three columns.  The first column is the who, what, when, and where.  NO WHY!  The second column is your emotion or emotions, there can be more than one, behind the situation and then give each emotion a percentage.  Then the third part is your IMMEDIATE thoughts about the situation.  I had never contemplated what I was immediately thinking before.  My over thinking always comes later after I have had time to process it.  But she explained that it's your first thoughts about something that make you react the way you do.

She then went on to explain that she uses this as part of her therapy with patients, but insisted that it is a great idea for everyone to do, because it gives you a whole new perspective on why we react to certain things, such as past experiences.

I started last week and let me tell you it has been an eye opener!  Kind of fun too.