Automatic thoughts and responses
Automatic thoughts and responses control much of our daily routine. We trust that they are accurate and we normally let them do their thing without question. However, in my case, the auto-responses/thoughts that looked after my social interaction were not right and far from normal.
We all have this automatic thought process for many aspects of our lives, including social interaction - and much of it is necessary. Auto-responses make things easier. They allow us to carry on with life without having to worry about analyzing each minute detail. They ensure that we don’t have to re-invent the wheel over and over again. It’s a very efficient way for us to handle the routine and repetitious events in our lives while giving us time to think and explore new things.
Auto-responses also protect by allowing us to react more quickly in an emergency than we would if we had to think about every detail. We rely on experience and lessons we have learned in the past to form responses that by-pass the heavy thinking stage and just go to the response stage.
They are learned responses but that doesn’t mean that they were all “taught” properly (although in my case, I would say that the only area that was skewed was the social interaction part).
Many times, we simply learn to adapt and we don’t question it. I found myself going through life with all kinds of irrational thoughts about social interaction, and ideas about myself personally, that were horribly inaccurate. However, I didn’t realize it at the time, and I accepted it as the truth – as bad as it made me feel about myself. It seems that the brain is highly adaptable and will flourish with good programming or bad – it seems to make no difference.
The key is to determine whether this programming is accurate. There seems to be no system check in place to make sure that it is.
That’s when I decided to put a manual system in place. A system that would take over before the brain had a chance to send out the auto-responses. A checklist of things that would force me to manually interpret social encounters.
I didn’t want to have to do this forever. I hoped that over time, I would be able so slowly re-program my beliefs and develop a more accurate, and real, set of social auto-thoughts and responses.
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