Hi Brooke! I’m watching the “How to Feel Better” videos – great stuff, love seeing the interaction with the students. On the Module 1 Bonus #3 video, you’re coaching a woman who said she doesn’t connect with the place her fiance lives in (Palo Alto), and you both talk about how that’s a disempowering thought. It makes me wonder though, what if she simply said “I don’t like Palo Alto”? I get that’s a thought as well, and I see there was lots of other stuff there for her.

But I’m having a hard time understanding or connecting with how things like actual true preferences play into thoughts. For example, if I said “I don’t like brown – it’s just a strong personal preference, it’s not a color I like or prefer”; or ” I don’t like the desert”. I get that thinking that may be causing me pain if for whatever reason – like if brown is my partner’s favorite color or if he wants us to move to Arizona. But to me this occurs as just a truth – it is TRUE that I do not like the color brown, just as it is true that I do not like the desert – even though I get that these are also thoughts that I’m thinking (i.e. it’s not a circumstance).

I can even get that these are thoughts that I may be choosing to think; however these preferences also just seem as truth to me. Now – if the circumstance is that my always brown-wearing partner wants us to move to the desert, and my thoughts are “I don’t like brown and I don’t like the desert” – is it necessary that these are the thoughts to work on?

I guess to generalize, my question is about how thoughts that occur as true facts (like strong personal preferences) play into the model? Do these then become circumstances – like “I don’t like the desert” is a fact, and you work with the thoughts that come around that?

I hope that makes sense, really trying to understand.
Thanks!!