The Cognitive Triangle

What is it? Why does it sound childish?

"Is it really as simple as changing a few of my thoughts?"

THE COGNTIVE TRIANGLE. If you've never seen this before, these words might awaken something inside of you. Who ever you are, whatever you're doing, you see this phrase and are immediately thinking to yourself 'what does cognitive mean and what does it have to do with shapes?' At least that's what my thoughts were when I first saw this.

The Cognitive Triangle is really simple, in a hard way. I know, how reassuring, right? It's simple to understand, but often times, some find it hard to implement. The Cognitive Triangle helps us change the outcomes of our behaviors. Let me explain. The term cognitive comes from the brain; both literally and figuratively. It's a word that essentially means any conscious thought and/or thought process. Some examples of this are feelings, thoughts, remembering things or even your sense of reason. For the purpose of this explanation, just think of 'cognitive' as three simple terms: Thoughts, Feelings and Behaviors.

Thoughts

can be described as any conscious thought that you've had.

Feelings

can be described as the emotions we experience

Behaviors

Well, we all know what behaviors are, right? These are anything we do in the real world.

This brings me to my next point, the Triangle. You may already be catching on. For those of you that aren't, why a triangle? For the three points previously mentioned: Thoughts, Feelings and Behaviors.

When you put these things together, you get what's known as the Cognitive Triangle. The idea is that everything we do humans, derives from a single thought. No matter what that thought is.

These thoughts that we create will always lead to a feeling. Sometimes these feelings are indifferent, other times they cause us to make decisions we wouldn't have otherwise made.

And from here, you guessed it. These feelings will then lead to a new behavior. Sometimes these behaviors can be negative and sometimes these behaviors can be positive.

Voila! There it is, the Cognitive Triangle. Often times, clients ask "Is it really as simple as changing a few of my thoughts?" The answer is essentially yes. However, it does take time and practice. You have to learn a few new skills along the way such as grounding, coping and reframing but that's the gist. Feel free to message me if you have any questions. I'd love to clear things up if I was confusing. Find my number or email here, or simply drop your question into the message box!

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