Feeling Distressed? Try Putting on a Different Lens

What do you do when you are stuck in a negative thought loop that is heading you into a downward spiral? Ilene Schaffer talked us through the ABC plus DE tool plus her own personal shortcut.

To see the whole discussion, click here or view the video embedded below.

The words below are Ilene's, except where otherwise marked.

ABC Plus DE Tool

When I have a client who's stuck with a negative interpretation of events, I’ll say, "Try this ABC plus DE tool to see what it can open up."  Recently, one of my clients texted me, "ABC righted my day."

Whenever  you’re thinking, “I don't like where my thoughts are going. How can I shift my thinking?" you might find the ABC plus DE tool, rooted in cognitive behavioral therapy, useful. 

What Are the Steps of the ABC plus DE Tool?

 A stands for the activating event.  That can be anything that starts you in a negative direction.

B stands for your beliefs, that is your thoughts about the event.

C stands for consequences, that is your feelings and actions stemming from the belief.

So ABC may lead you to getting stuck. Now we get to the part of the framework that gets you unstuck.

D and E stand for dispute with evidence.

 If your belief is a thought that works for you and leads to a consequence such as “I feel great about this,” then you’re done. You don’t need to go further.

Where this approach is useful is when the beliefs are negative thought patterns that can keep you stuck in a place you just don't want to be.

This framework works for a range of situations. You might be in a meeting and something comes up that makes you think, "Hmm, that doesn't feel right."  Or, you might find yourself in a situation that feels like someone just punched you in the gut. It could be that visceral.

 Let’s Walk Through an Example.

This situation came up not too long ago with one of my clients. Let’s assume it happened to you, Senia, so we can talk it through. I think it will be easy to imagine. You sent your manager an email saying, "Hey, I'd love to discuss [topic of your choice] with you." The activating event is that you got no response. You didn't get a response that day. You didn't get a response the next day. Maybe two or three days go by. This is not typical.

Now the beliefs start. Senia, help me out with some beliefs that might come up for you. What might you think?

Senia:  Especially since you said it's not typical, I might think, “My manager hates this idea.” Then I might think “This was a lousy idea.” Then I might think, “Not only does my manager hate it, but actually why did I present it at all?”

Ilene: That's great.  You might even think, given this Coronavirus cloud over us, "Oh gosh, I know we're doing budget cuts. I wonder if I'm going to lose my job.  Maybe my manager is keeping silent because she knows I'm going to lose my job, so she doesn't want to engage with me now."

These are some typical beliefs that you might have. Notice the spiraling out of control.

Now you might be thinking, "No, she's just busy." That would be a great thought pattern. But let’s assume that’s not where your thoughts went for the sake of working through the framework.

Let's assume your thoughts have gone from “My manager hates the idea,” to “It was a lousy idea,” to “She doesn’t want to engage with me because I’m going to lose my job.”

What are the consequences in terms of your feelings and actions after these thoughts emerge?

Senia: Lousy, especially when I remember that she usually replied quickly to me in the past. So bad and doubtful of myself. Doubtful of what I'm doing, not just with that idea that I sent, but also in other things as well.

Ilene: Absolutely. Then a consequence might be deciding, "I am not sending another email. That must have been too proactive. So, I'm going to just retreat."  

We beat ourselves up. We retreat. We start to think, "Why should I even be here? I'm not good enough." Then we take actions that don't necessarily serve us well.

Disputing with Evidence

So now we get to D and E, disproving our negative beliefs with evidence. Disproving with evidence addresses the beliefs.  That is, we’ll be disputing our thoughts.  

In this case, you need to dispute the thoughts, "She hates my ideas,” and “I'm getting fired." What evidence might you look for?

Senia: She might not have gotten the email. Or she might've gotten the email when she was standing in a line somewhere and then forgotten to return to it.  It’s possible that she read it when she had something else to do.

Ilene: Absolutely.  That's a different way to look at it. "Something else could have happened." Perhaps she's homeschooling 10 kids. She's also trying to keep afloat. Perhaps there are going to be budget cuts, and she's in very intense meetings. You're not on the line, but that's where her focus is right now. She’ll circle back later if she finds the email, which it might be lost in a sea of emails. There are many other ways to look at what happened.

Perhaps she's homeschooling 10 kids. She's also trying to keep afloat.

What do these other thoughts do to your consequence? How you feel about yourself, if you're able to look at it through that lens?

Senia: It's not about me. It could be about her 10 homeschooled kids.

Ilene: Absolutely. Then the consequence is that your self-esteem and confidence are intact. You still feel valued. She just missed an email that you sent.

Senia: Before, when I thought “She didn't like it. She's going to fire me,” the consequence was that I withdrew.  But if I think she didn't get it or she was really busy. I might send her a query, “Did this drop through the cracks?" Opposite action.

Ilene: Absolutely. You might do a double tap, similar to the suggestion in Margaret Greenberg’s article about building business. "Hey, I know you're swamped and I know you've got a lot of other things going on. Checking in to see if we can get a meeting to talk about [the topic of your choice].”  

Zoom is mostly the only way right now that people are connecting. Our minds can play games with us because we're not passing people in the halls. We can't just pop into somebody's office. Therefore, we need to be more proactive about reaching out if something seems to be falling through the cracks.

So that is how you disprove a faulty belief. Check in with your manager to get some evidence.

A Shortcut

If someone were to say, "Well Ilene, do you always go through all the ABC and DE steps?" I have to be honest that I have a shortcut that I almost always use. When I start to go down a path that doesn’t feel good, I always ask myself, "How else can I view this situation? What other lens might I use?"   Perhaps you could have a pair of sunglasses always on your desk to remind you of the shortcut, that you can look through a different lenses.  

Keep a pair of sunglasses on your desk to remember to try on different lenses.

Putting on different lenses, you might think, "Well, gosh, she could be this,” or “I could be that. This could be happening. All these things."  After the shortcut and trying out different lenses, you feel very different than you did when you made the original assumptions.  

That's what we do as coaches. If somebody comes with an issue, we'll say, "How else might you look at this situation? What other lenses can you use?"

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