I am going back and listening to some of the earlier podcasts to better lay the foundation for learning/understanding the Model. I am getting tripped up in two places:

why I choose to think the thought I am having; and
finding a different thought to think.

I am an attorney and in my head and in my thoughts ALL the time. I am 100% aware (hyper-aware) of every thought, every feeling in every minute of my life. Exhausting. And 95% of the time the thoughts are painful and negative. So I have no problem identifying the thought (and 500 layers of the thought and arguing the thought backwards and forwards) and I am aware of and can name the feelings associated with the thought, but the “why” is hard for me. I have some basic responses: “if I think of and anticipate the worst that can happen it won’t be so bad when it happens “(I understand that this makes no logical sense and does not work); “I need to prepare and think out my solution/response IF “x” happens”, but I cannot get much deeper than that. The thoughts are usually based in fear and the need to control an outcome for myself. AND the search for why, can often lead to just more thinking. And ruminating.

Then the next difficult piece is coming up with a thought I can believe – it can never be a black and white thought or the opposite of the thought I was thinking because I will argue myself out of that and why that thought is wrong, stupid etc. which just gets me back to square one.

Any help much appreciated.