What are thoughts?
Thoughts can be described as the things that go through our minds, thoughts might be words or phrases, images or like a movie in our mind. We have thousands of thoughts every day, and thoughts may be fleeting (come into our mind and leave quickly) or might stick around for longer. From a CBT perspective there are three different levels of thoughts that we experience.

The surface level of thoughts are the day-to-day automatic thoughts that we notice going through our minds. These tend to be easily accessible thoughts (easy to identify) and are often situation specific.

The next layer of thoughts are at deeper level, these are known as our assumptions or rules for living. These thoughts can be seen as the way we navigate the world and can often take the form of “If… then…”,“I must…” or “I should…” statements. These assumptions guide our thoughts and behaviours and are influenced by the deepest level of thoughts.

The deepest level of thoughts are called core beliefs. These are fundamental assumptions about ourselves, others, and the world. Our core beliefs usually develop throughout our childhood and adolescence and solidify around the time we turn 18 years old but can also be influenced by significant life events. Core beliefs influence both our assumptions and surface level thoughts as well as our behaviour. Core beliefs can be positive, neutral, or negative and usually start with “I am…”, “others are…”, “the world is…”. Negative core beliefs can undermine our well-being and play a role in developing anxiety and low mood.