I’m having a very hard time getting my client to see that her thoughts, not other people’s actions, are the cause of her feelings. In this particular case, she holds steadfast to the notion that the other person is “wrong” because that person is not acting according to formal ByLaws.

I’ve offered her the following ideas and concepts:
– She is giving all of her power away and that until she accepts that her thoughts about what’s happening around her are what causing her feelings, she won’t be able to step back into her full power
– What her brain is doing is natural but that until she becomes aware of her thoughts, she will continue to be in a lot pain
– Our Manuals for others and our desire to control what they think, say, or do will only result in pain for us but only 100% of the time because we can’t control the world (and brought this back to the original point of why she was giving all of her power and agency away)

When I shared that there are a plethora of other thoughts she could have had, instead of the one that she did have, she said “That’s ridiculous, no one thinks like that…this model approach is not right…This isn’t going to work for me.”

She is now the third client I’m working with that refuses to accept that our thoughts cause our feelings that there is no real “right” and “wrong” in the sense of what people “should” and “shouldn’t do”. For this client in particular, she is using the formal “laws” of her work environment and “ByLaw” to bolster her perspective that what this other woman is doing is wrong and she is right.

For many folks who are not familiar with Brooke’s podcast, it’s challenging and threatening to open the door, even a little, to entertain these new ways of thinking about themselves and their relation to the world.

Can you please help me with some advice about how to budge the mindset that these clients are holding onto?