What matters more is the practice of stopping before you buy into a thought as fact and actively considering other views.

I must have gone through this process a thousand times. Distract, pull back. Distract, pull back.

Thoughts are not facts. They are guesses, stories, memories, ideas and theories. They are a construct offered to you by your brain as one potential explanation for the sensations you are experiencing right now. We know they are not facts because they are so heavily influenced by your physical state (hormones, blood pressure, heart rate, digestion,

Any time that you are under stress your brain will automatically choose the easiest route, which is the path well-trodden.

If you try to hold the waves back and prevent them reaching the shore, you learn how powerful those waves are. They push you back and you quickly get engulfed and overwhelmed. But you don’t have to tumble and struggle against the waves. Those waves are coming no matter what. When you accept that, you can focus on keeping your head above the water

Low mood wants you to do nothing. Therefore, doing anything positive, however small, is a healthy step in the direction you want to go.

Low mood gives you the urge to do the things that make mood worse.

this pattern of thought makes everything harder is because it makes us vulnerable to more intense emotional reactions.

Our brain already knows from experience what tends to help the quickest. So we feel urges to do whatever will make it all go away as soon as possible.