The merry-go-round we need to jump off: thoughts, emotions, feelings and behaviour

What pretty much all successful psychological models have in common is a thorough and proper understanding of our
thought processes. The complexity of the brain and our environment gives rise to all kinds of thoughts, and whilst we can’t
stop it, we can understand the nature of a trigger- to a thought, to a feeling, to a physical sensation (which, by the way,
usually makes us feel the initial thought more intensely). It’s one of the oldest psychological models: we can’t stop it,
really, but we can make it less intense. So, for sake of illustration (and remember these occur in no particular order) :

Adapted from Padesky & Mooney1

Note here that emotions are more primal, whereas feelings are a way of making sense of the emotion. Debbie Hampton
puts it best-

“Feelings are sparked by emotions and coloured by the thoughts, memories, and images that have become
subconsciously linked with that particular emotion for you... While individual emotions are temporary, the feelings they
evoke may persist and grow over a lifetime. Because emotions cause subconscious feelings which in turn initiate emotions
and so on, your life can become a never-ending cycle of painful and confusing emotions which produce negative feelings
which cause more negative emotions without you ever really knowing why.”2

We’ve every right to have all of these emotions, thoughts and feelings, but in noticing them, we can choose any of the
behaviours (see the table below), but this is where it gets tricky: sometimes, it’s about choosing the thing which might feel
counterintuitive in order to get the best possible outcome. The bad news is that if you do the thing your gut instinct tells
you to, it will probably just reinforce the negativity in the cycle for you and the student.

1
Hawkley, Louise C., and John T. Cacioppo. “Perceived Social Isolation: Social Threat
Vigilance and Its Implications for Health.” Oxford Handbooks Online, 2011,
doi:10.1093/oxfordhb/9780195342161.013.0050.

Diagram found at https://www.moodjuice.scot.nhs.uk/Depression.asp

2
Hamilton, Debbie. “What's The Difference Between Feelings And Emotions?” The Best
Brain Possible, 31 Mar. 2018, www.thebestbrainpossible.com/whats-the-difference-
between-feelings-and-emotions/.
 Situation Emotion (an instant Thought Feeling (based on Behaviour
gut-like reaction) (planning/respondin previous
g to the event) experiences)

Student ignores me Anger ‘This is pointless- why Frustration Choice 1: Say ‘OK,
and doesn’t complete waste my time? let’s talk after’
homework
‘What is wrong with Choice 2:Say ‘Why
this child?!’ do I bother?’

‘OK, what can I Choice 3: Say ‘Same

change to make this again, is it? That’s to
better?’ be expected isn’t it?’

‘Can I even change Choice 4: Say ‘Right,

this?’ I’m going to call
home’

The key to understanding this is that the mind and body are somehow divorced and unlinked- “I think therefore I am?”
Nonsense. I am because I’ve got a bloody massive knot in my tummy and a ten tonne weight on my chest when I wake up
every morning! Our bodies can tell us things we are not even consciously aware of. I honestly believe this
misunderstanding is where a lot of mental illness comes from.

As the diagram above shows, whatever situation we find ourselves in, it can lead to an emotion, a bodily sensation, a
behaviour or a thought- in truth you can hop on this merry-go-round at any stop, and off you go. There’s nothing intrinsic
about thoughts and worries: they are one part of a big cycle that is self-reinforcing. Noticing is the key- and when you
begin to notice, you’ll see that your brain takes you off into all kinds of funny places.

When you are anxious, ask yourself the following-

● Was there a trigger that began the worry?
● What are you saying to yourself?
● If this criticism could speak to you, what does it sound like? What tone of voice would be it using?
● Do I truly believe what I’m saying? What is grounded in fact? What is grounded in perception?
● What are the physical sensations that I’m experiencing alongside this?
● What function is the Anxiety or worry serving? Remember the difference between awareness and something
that becomes stifling.

It’s probably worth hanging on that last bullet point for a moment. At my worst, things that initially used to fire and drive
me turned into crippling Anxiety-provoking thoughts. I’m an A Level teacher, and used to revel in my confidence of
teaching the course, but I suddenly began to focus on all those things that the students might not know, and the
possibilities of exam questions that might reveal my weaknesses as a teacher. The textbook began to feel like an
insurmountable challenge- it actually felt heavier in my hand. Sure, a little bit of awareness and reflection is useful, but the
amount it began to affect me was counterproductive. I was chatting to someone in business the other day who said that
their worry and fear of failure drove their success: they had to carry out due diligence on complex contracts and make sure
things went well in the purchase of companies. I’d wager that poring through contracts and checking details is simply not
possible if your brain is threat-addled. I’d also wager that there was more than a bit of drive going on for this person to
have enjoyed the success they had over that period of time. Of course, I could be wrong. But one thing I am not wrong
about is the long term implications of living life on that threat-drive axis. In the same way, hard work in teaching is
inevitable, but we need to reflect on whether hacking through an extra pile of books is any good for us or the students in
proportion to the time we might spend on it- it’s also important to notice how we’re feeling when we sit down to mark:
what’s driving us to mark? Is it curiosity? Or is it fear or being found, judged and inputted as a ‘red’ teacher?

Seeing thoughts for what they are

I don’t find tonnes of specific- and possibly unrelatable - examples all that helpful, but for sake of illustration, one could be
useful here in terms of the process- the example I’ll use is the language around performance management. I appreciate the
glaring issue with seeing things in the way this table does as it totally ignores the variability of schools and their approach
to ‘Performance Management,’ but the point is to see how our environment can spark our reactions:

Event: ‘We’ll start the first round of lesson observations next week- you’ll be seen with 10X2’ (who happen to be my
nightmare class…)

Thought Emotion Behaviour Feeling

1 . ‘Oh no- they’ll be a Fear – Over resourcing / over detailed lesson Panic and Anxiety-
nightmare- that’s my threatened and plan /high stakes conversations with tenseness in chest and
performance management concerned students / avoidance stomach
down the drain’ about the future

2. ‘This is a pile of crap- Anger – I hate No real action taken to make it a Frustration -
more evidence that this this place! positive experience tense/hopelessness/exaspe
school doesn’t know how to ration
assess learning’

3. ‘OK- not ideal, but there Determination – Thinking through the lesson as part of Energy and drive
are plenty of positive how can I draw a a bigger picture- knowing that this will
aspects for someone to see’ positive from demonstrate true learning
this?

It’s worth noting that the distinction between emotions and feelings isn’t always obvious. The word ‘round’ of lesson
observations also has connotations of being treated like a number, as if leadership are herding sheep. Nothing personal.
Nothing in the way of individuality. No, this is not about political correctness: this is about being aware of how language
can play into already anxious minds. By the way, what an absolutely abhorrent term- ‘performance’- surface level, and I
seriously doubt that you can punitively ‘manage’ someone to perform better in the way that the word suggests. In some
cases, such is the path that some in schools have trodden, threat becomes the sole currency that they deal in (sometimes
masked as ‘drive’).

Looking at the table, then, and thinking about the notion of ‘toxic schools,’ we can really see the spread of poor Mental
Health in such settings: just imagine extrapolating this table out into an entire staff or student body. Terrifying. This table
might look overly simple. And of course, everyone’s reactions to this type of thing will be different- but the key is to begin
to separate our thoughts from the emotions, behaviours and feelings that follow. Of course, it doesn’t take a genius to
separate the helpful sequences from the unhelpful sequences above. Part of being self-compassionate is about accepting
that you might feel frustration about the process, but you don’t have to choose the behaviour that follows in that row: you
can still do the thing that leads to a positive outcome as much as is possible. So, you feel it’s futile? I’d say, however hard it
might feel, you could always try and pick something to focus on in the lesson, ask whoever is coming in to look at that with
you and be proactive- then you’ll be able to reflect on your choices with warmth and kindness. Part of being self-
compassionate is making these choices, which may help us to realise we need to leave our environments- this is about self-
awareness and truth.

There may well be all kinds of narratives in the way of you doing this, but where possible, I’d say investing hope and
passion into something will result in better mental well-being. It’s also helpful to think about the kind of internal trains of
thought you might be having around this as well. These sequences can reinforce all kinds of stories we tell to ourselves,
resulting in self-fulfilling prophecies-

● ‘I hate observations’
● ‘I’ve never been good at being watched’
● ‘That’s always a bad lesson’
● ‘I don’t like visitors in my classroom’
● ‘X will know I’m being observed and will be a nightmare on purpose’
● ‘The students will not play ball on the day’
Inevitably, thoughts, feelings, and narratives are interconnected. Being self-compassionate is about understanding this: the
truth is, we come into this world with our magnificent (albeit deeply flawed) brains, and to acclimatise ourselves
emotionally, socially and culturally, we tell ourselves all kinds of things which might make sense in the short term and
enable us to understand our situations, but in the longer term are actually very unhelpful.