​​The triangle: thoughts, feelings, behaviors

CBT is built around a simple idea: your thoughts, feelings, and behaviors are all connected, each one feeding the other two.

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Picture a triangle with a point for each. A thought triggers a feeling, that feeling shapes a behavior, and that behavior reinforces the original thought. Round and round it goes.

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Here's the part that makes CBT useful: feelings are the hardest point on that triangle to change directly. You can't just decide to feel less anxious, or more confident, or calmer. But thoughts and behaviors? Those you can work with directly. So that's where we start, not because feelings don't matter, but because they're the hardest lever to pull first.

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The brain as a muscle: going from A to B, on repeat

I also think of the brain like a muscle that's been trained to run the same route over and over. Something happens, point A, and your brain automatically goes to point B: the same interpretation, the same reaction, the same behavior, every time. It's not that you're choosing it consciously; it's a groove that's been worn in from repetition.

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CBT is the work of catching that pattern in motion and building a new route, so that from the same starting point A, you can end up somewhere else: point C. Not by willpower alone, but by practicing the new response enough times that it becomes the brain's default instead of the exception.

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Here's what that looks like in practice: say a client sends an email at work and doesn't hear back for a few hours. That's point A. Their brain automatically runs to point B: "They're upset with me, I must have messed something up," which brings on a wave of anxiety, followed by the behavior of re-reading the email ten times or drafting an apology that wasn't needed. That's the well-worn groove.

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In session, we'd slow that moment down. What's the actual evidence for "they're upset with me"? What's a more accurate, still-believable thought? From there we build point C: "People are busy, this probably has nothing to do with me," paired with a different behavior, like closing the laptop and moving on. Practiced enough times, C starts to become the new default instead of B.

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What this looks like in session

In practice, this means we'll spend time:

• Identifying the specific thoughts that show up before a feeling gets intense

• Naming the behavior pattern that usually follows, the one that feels automatic

• Practicing small, concrete shifts in thinking or behavior, since those are the two points on the triangle we can actually move

• Building the new A-to-C route deliberately, so it starts to compete with the old A-to-B one

 

I pair this with Hakomi Somatic Therapy, since the body often knows a pattern is happening before the thinking mind catches up.

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This approach shows up constantly in my work with perfectionism, imposter syndrome, and anxiety, since those are often the same A-to-B loop wearing different outfits: a trigger, an automatic worst-case thought, and a behavior (overworking, overpreparing, avoiding) that reinforces it. If any of that sounds familiar, perfectionism, imposter syndrome, and anxiety are where I go deeper on each.

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Ready to talk?​

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Licensed in CA (In-person and Telehealth) and CO (Telehealth only)

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