Thoughts, Feelings, and Behaviors
What is the "Think-Feel-Do Cycle"?
This cycle shows how our thoughts, feelings, and behaviors work together in a cycle.
The think-feel-do cycle shows that in every situation (something that happens to us) we have thoughts about what is happening.
Thoughts influence our feelings, and our feelings affect how we behave.
Are unhelpful thoughts our fault?
No! Everyone has unhelpful thoughts, and it is normal to have them. Unhelpful thoughts often happen without us realizing it!
What are some behaviors a person might feel like doing at school when they are frustrated, mad and/or upset?
Sometimes we want to raise our voice, do nothing, make an unkind comment, argue, throw something, etc. We need to always stop and think: will this action action make the situation better, worse, or no different?
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In one of our lessons, we discussed different strategies to deal with conflict. How could you handle this situation: Someone keeps making mean comments about your hairstyle or outfit
1. Pause 2. Use Listening Skills 3. Use Empathy 4. Use My Words 5. Think About My Options 6. Get Help
Use this example to walk through the "Think-Feel-Do" cycle: Your teacher has just asked you a question and you don’t know the answer.
Great work!! All feelings and thoughts are okay and give us good information about what matters to us!
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We can use skills to help us with our strong emotions. We have learned a few skills already through our mindful check-ins and check-outs. What is 1 coping skill you can use at school?
Taking a break, getting a drink of water, talking to an adult, naming our emotions, practicing mindfulness, and using our breathing, etc.
What is self-care?
Things we can do to take care of our minds and our bodies. If we use self-care, we are more likely to have more helpful thoughts, more balanced feelings, and feel healthier
When we talk about our feelings with people who are supportive, they can help us to change our unhelpful thoughts and choose more helpful behaviors. We can think of our support system as a team. Like a team, different people may play different roles. We may go to one person for support with school, and to someone else for support related to our relationships with friends. What are 3 supports most of us have?
• Parents/guardians
• Siblings
• Teachers
• Doctors
• Community organizers (e.g., scout leaders, neighborhood block president, religious leaders, etc.)
• Counselors
• Friends
• Pets
• Neighbor
• Myself
The Think-Feel-Do cycle is complex including situations, thoughts, feelings, and behaviors. What are thoughts?
Thoughts are the words we say to ourselves in our minds. We have thoughts all the time, about everything we see, hear, and experience. Because these thoughts happen so quickly, sometimes we don’t even notice them.
What are the 3 steps you can do to manage unhelpful thoughts?
1. Catch (notice) the thought.
2. Check out the thought. After we’ve noticed our unhelpful thought, we can ask some questions about it to learn the truth:
• What is another way to look at it?
• What would you tell a close friend?
• What evidence supports this thought? What evidence doesn’t support it?
• If the thought ends up being true, what skills can I use to cope with my emotions?
3. Change the thought. What is a more helpful way to think about the situation?
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Self-care includes activities we can do to take care of ourselves to stay healthy. What are the 3 types of self-care (we created self-care plans)?
Mind: Taking care of your thoughts and managing strong feelings
Body: Taking care of your physical body
Heart: Doing things that make you feel good and connected to others
As a class, we talked a lot about tools that help us feel better and cope with challenging situations. We also talked about how we can use some of these skills to be better friends and classmates. One way we can be better friends and classmates is by demonstrating empathy. What is empathy?
Empathy means understanding someone else’s experience. We might have different thoughts and feelings than others in a situation, but empathy means that we stop and try to understand how others are thinking and feeling.
To practice empathy, we have to try to understand ideas and experiences that are different from our own. To do this we may need to take the time to get to know someone so that we can understand their unique perspective.
How can mindfulness help us with our thoughts, feelings, and behaviors?
Mindfulness helps us notice unhelpful thoughts and challenge them with a more helpful thought. As we’ve learned, if we can change our thoughts, we can impact our feelings and our behavior. If we choose to focus on a helpful thought, then our feelings and behaviors are likely to be more positive and helpful.
Take this unhelpful thought ("I have no friends") and catch, check, and check this thought.
• What is another way to look at it?
• What is the evidence that this thought is true?
• What would you tell a close friend?
Everyone has unhelpful thoughts sometimes! Unhelpful thoughts can lead to strong feelings and unhelpful behaviors. Practice makes progress over time. Be patient with yourself.
When people are upset, feeling angry, frustrated, or sad, it’s very common to want to choose a behavior that lets that feeling out, or makes that feeling go away. Sometimes, though, when we try to make the feeling go away, we act in ways that can make things worse.
What might happen if we keep on acting in unexpected ways?
Loss of friends over time, feelings of sadness/disappointment, less trust with teachers, visit to the main office with Mrs. Slanger, and call home, etc.
What kinds of things make it hard to take care of you?
Not sure what to do or how to do it, not enough time, not having resources, don’t feel like it, etc.
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KEEP UP THE GOOD WORK!
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What is one unhelpful thought you have had this past week?
GREAT JOB! It is hard sometimes to think back to unhelpful thoughts. The better we are with catching unhelpful thoughts, the better we get with checking and changing them.
When we experience strong emotions (anger, frustration, fear) at a level between 7-10 on our thermometers, it can be hard to calm down enough to challenge unhelpful thoughts. Name a time you were at a 7-10 (big feelings with high intensity).
Nice job! Everyone is learning skills to help them choose positive behaviors when their feelings rate high on our thermometers.
Share 1 activity you have done to take care of yourself.
Self-care is VERY important. We need to fill our own buckets before we can fill someone else.
During one lesson, we learned about diversity, which means differences. Although we all have a lot in common, none of us is the same as another. As a class, we discussed how we are similar and different. What are 3 ways you (as a class) are all similar?
- everyone is in fourth grade (almost 5th graders)
- everyone eats/drinks
- everyone wears shoes
- everyone has their own thoughts, feelings, behaviors, and opinions
- everyone loves Mr. Jackson and Mrs. Nissen
- everyone has a chair, desk, mailbox, locker, chromebook