There was a period in my life when I felt really low. My thoughts turned negative more than positive, which wasn’t my norm. I had trouble falling asleep and would stare at the ceiling for hours at night, my mind wondering. I felt tired. I was in my mid-30s.

It was the first time in my life that I developed a pattern of emotional lull that I couldn’t work myself out of. 

There were a lot of things going on with me then. I had just finished a business venture that ended with a whimper and had taken a lot out of me – both mentally and financially. I was living abroad and, while I loved my international life, I wasn’t sure where my path was leading to next. 

I was also dealing with really heavy situations with both of my parents at the same time – both suffering from incurable diseases. It was agonizing. I didn’t know how to process it. 

Day by day, it felt more and more like I was pushing a boulder up a mountain with no view of the summit. All I felt were headwinds. I needed some momentum.

I decided to look for a therapist in Amsterdam, where I lived at the time. I called a close friend who told me that in the Netherlands general psychotherapy is offered through your primary doctor’s office. If you ever needed to “talk to someone”, you just called your doctor’s office and they set you up with an appointment. And everything was booked on an anonymous basis, so they didn’t register the appointment under your real name, just in case you felt embarrassed about wanting to see a psychologist. 

But I didn’t feel any embarrassment. I never attached a negative stigma to therapy. I just hadn’t ever felt the need for it, until then. It felt like my emotions were “injured” and I wanted to talk to a doctor to help me heal.

So I called my doctor’s office and booked an appointment. 

I remember my first therapy appointment quite well. The therapist was a young man, around my age – let’s call him Emil. Emil had a calm demeanor, listened intently, and spoke in a measured cadence. 

He started by asking me why I wanted to speak to someone, and what types of problems I was experiencing. He asked me about my lifestyle and my work, and about my living situation and personal habits. He gracefully sized me up in about 20 minutes.

Then I started going deeper into the backstory of my parents’ respective illnesses. I explained that whenever I thought about them, I would lose my concentration and become quiet and withdrawn. 

Then, somewhat abruptly, he said, “Do you ever think about killing yourself, or harming others?”

Me: “No, no. Nothing like that. Why?”

Him: “I didn’t think so, but I’m required to ask – just to make sure. If you answered yes, I would need to stop seeing you and refer you to a psychiatrist…. Anyway, let’s continue. I want to show you something.”

He took out a blank piece of a paper and started writing across the middle of the page:

ACTION → PERCEPTION → INTERPRETATION → EMOTION → BEHAVIOR

Him: “You seem like a bright guy. Let me walk you through this and see if it makes sense.”

He traced his finger across the paper and started explaining what I would later learn were the basics of Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT). He talked through each word:

1. ACTION: Something happens. Could be anything. I hear someone say something, or read something, or a situation comes up. Or, maybe I run into a certain person who always makes me feel the same way when we discuss certain subjects.
2. PERCEPTION: My brain takes in information about the action, categorizes it, and aligns it with a familiar story that I have about information from that category. 
3. INTERPRETATION: Now my inner voice gets to work and starts to read the story to me – a story based on something that’s happened in the past related to the same category. 
4. EMOTION: As I listen to the story, I start to feel emotional. I might feel some reaction in my body, or my thoughts start to race. I experience discomfort. 
5. BEHAVIOR: I react, outwardly. I say something, or get worked up physically. If I’m in the middle of a conversation, I try to redirect or change the subject. I do something to try to feel more comfortable.

Then he went back through each word again, walking me through an example:

1. ACTION: Let’s say you’re working hard on a business deal and you’re almost done – everybody is about to get paid. You’re on a late night phone call with your client and when you find out the deal’s delayed. Your client is really stressed – he sounds pissed.
2. PERCEPTION: Your client’s tone surprises you. He’s normally cordial but this time he’s really upset. You categorize this as risky. 
3. INTERPRETATION: Your inner voice starts to tell you a story about loss: “Your client wants to run away from you. You made him very upset. He thinks less of you now. This whole thing is your fault. You failed him.”
4. EMOTION: You tense up, physically. You clench your jaw. You feel panicky and fearful. 
5. BEHAVIOR: When you try to talk to your client, your tone of voice is strained and you’re talking faster than normal. You try to comfort him and take the blame for the delay, even though it’s not your fault. You go to great lengths to overly assure him that everything will be fine. Don’t worry, you say, I’ll fix it.

“See what happened there?” Emil asked. “Has anything like that happened to you recently? Or something similar?”

He was spot on. “Yes”, I replied. “Yes, that definitely resonates.”

He continued: “First of all, all that happened is the deal was delayed and your client was stressed about that, which is normal. Delays happen. Nobody loves it, but it’s part of life. Happens in business all the time, right? This is a normal life occurrence.”

I nodded and kept listening. 

“But your perception wasn’t that this was a normal life occurrence, your perception was that this was risky. Why?”

He kept talking, explaining it all the way through: My perception when my client got stressed was that I did something wrong and now he wouldn’t want to work with me any more. Loss. I interpreted it as a loss. Why? Why was that the story I was telling myself?

Because I was experiencing the deep trauma of losing both of my parents, I would conflate and catastrophize an otherwise normal situation with my client. I would tell myself this dramatic story, and I make the story into a really big deal in my mind – until it became a Hollywood drama where everyone dies at the end. 

I was telling this story to myself that was completely detached from reality.

I’m living my life in a delusion, I thought. 

I had become overly sensitive to conflict as a way to appease my fear of more loss.

I sat back in my chair and looked at Emil with a focused look in my eyes. “When can we meet again?” I asked. “I want to do more of this.”

“Let’s meet next week.”

We shook hands and I left.

I was on the other side of town from my flat but decided to walk home. My thoughts were racing, but productively for the first time in forever. Positive, clarifying thoughts. I wanted to take a long walk to let my mind wander.

I scanned my mind for recent memories that felt disjointed or “off” – where I acquiesced to something uncharacteristically, or avoided conflict. There were too many to count. Holy shit, I thought, I’m doing this everywhere.

And then realized, I don’t have to do this any more. Emil just showed me the jedi mind track handbook for how to change my thoughts. 

I was excited. I felt a huge emotional weight lift off of me.

That day was the beginning of my CBT journey, and a turning point in understanding my own mental-emotional framework. I was about to begin the adventure of observing myself. I couldn’t wait for the next therapy session.