Awareness of Thoughts

Purpose and goals:

To help clients slow down and visualize the sequence of their internal thoughts, emotional reactions, and bodily sensations. By mapping their experience in four stages—Automatic Thought, Body Response, Reframe, and Regrounding/Compassionate Thought—this directive supports clients in responding to their thoughts with more awareness, flexibility, and self-kindness. The process transforms reactive patterns into intentional, compassionate responses.

  • Increase awareness of how thoughts arise, shift, and impact emotions and the body.

  • Teach clients to externalize cognitive processes, reducing fusion with self-critical thoughts.

  • Strengthen the capacity for self-compassion, emotional regulation, and cognitive reframing.

  • Foster curiosity about internal experiences instead of judgment or shame.

  • Support clients in developing personalized grounding statements and compassionate internal dialogue.

  • Provide a visual, creative tool that clients can revisit in moments of overwhelm or distress.

Theoretical Rationale:

CBT: emphasizes the interconnection between thoughts, feelings, and bodily responses.

  • By naming an automatic thought and identifying its emotional and somatic impact, clients gain distance and flexibility.

  • Visualizing the sequence supports cognitive defusion—a key process in shifting thought patterns.

Mindfulness & Somatic Awareness: teaches that thoughts and sensations are passing events. (Hayes, S., & Smith, S. (2005). Get Out of Your Mind and Into Your Life)

  • Encourages responding to internal experiences with warmth, validation, and gentleness.

  • Observe their internal dialogue with greater kindness.

  • Thoughts register physically—through tension, heaviness, sinking, heat, or tightness. Drawing these sensations heightens interoceptive awareness, which research shows can reduce reactivity and promote self-regulation.

Art-Making:

Use any size paper. Choose between pencil, pen, markers, pastels, or color pencil.

  • Invite the client to sit comfortably with materials in front of them. Introduce the sequence of thinking.

Prompt: Our minds produce thousands of thoughts a day—some neutral, some helpful, and some deeply self-critical. Thoughts are not facts. They are stories our minds create. Today we’ll slow down and witness the life cycle of a thought with awareness and kindness.”

Create the Quadrants:

  • Draw a vertical line to divide the page in half, then a horizontal line to create four boxes. Create labels, going clockwise starting in top left.

Quadrant 1: Automatic Thought

  • Choose a recurring self-critical thought (“I can’t keep up,” “I’m failing,” “I should be doing more”).

Repeat this cycle for 3-5 minutes, depending on the client capacity.

Quadrant 2: Body Response / Feeling

  • Reflect on where and how this thought lands in your body using lines, color, shapes, words, or sensations.

Quadrant 3: Reframe

  • Observe the thought with distance and curiosity. Create a more balanced, gentle version of the thought.

Quadrant 4: Reground / Compassionate Thought

  • Access the wiser, steadier part of yourself.

Reflection:

Cue the client to pause and observe their artwork. Ask them to take a look at what emerged.

  • What do you notice after externalizing your inner experience?

  • How does it feel to hold both the original thought and the compassionate thought together?

  • What helps you return to yourself when thoughts feel overwhelming?

Closing:

Invite clients to write a grounding reminder on the bottom or back of the page (“I can choose kindness,” “I can breathe,” “I can pause before reacting.”)

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