Seeding
The Infinity Prompt
- Technique that create helps to do sort of Cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) on writing
- Facts: What are the cats of what happened?
- "Something"took place in your life. when you write about facts, pretend you are describing it as thought it's happening in front of you on a movie screen. Or, pretend you are presenting the case in a court of law. Facts are the objective details of what happened: who, what, where and when.
- Story: What story I am telling myself about what happened?
- We create stories based on our thoughts about the facts of what has happened to us. These stories stem from our interpretation of what happened. A great way to get to the story is to say, "What this meant to me was ..."or "The reason I think this took place is ..."
- Feelings: How do I feel about what happened and about the story I'm telling myself?
- A great way to name a feeling is to talk about where you feel it in your body. When you're scared, your heart starts racing. When you're embarrassed, your face gets flushed. When you're worried, your stomach feels twisted into knots. So take a minute and go over what you've written above--the facts and the story. What do you feel in your body?
- Actions: What did I do to engage or disengage with what I felt?
- The action in the cognitive behavioral model is the thing you do because you feel the thing you felt, or to keep from feeling it. Most of us being the brilliant people we are, have developed elaborate defenses agains feeling unpleasant emotions like anxiety, anger or shame. "To keep from feeling this feeling in my body, the action I take is ..." Or "When I'm really angry I ..."
- Result: What was the outcome of my chosen action?
- This is what happens as result of your actions. For example, if your action (response to shame) is to hide, the result might be that you are isolated and alone. If you feel yourself getting defensive ("But it wasn't my fault ") or resistant ("What else could I have done?"), know that you're on the right track. This is all a natural ano normal part of the journey you are on.