Attentional Control to Self Awareness, to Self Compassion, to Other Compassion

I wrote a note to a mom this morning about her 10 yr old son who ended up in tears during a task today. Great family with wonderful children. Yet, he ended up in tears, overwhelmed by his own thoughts (ANTs - automatic negative thoughts). He quietly kept clapping and trying to hide his emotion, hoping no one would notice the tears, but internally he was beating himself up, feeling HORRIBLE. Here's the post I wrote to this mom. I thought it was worth sharing with others.

ANTs as you become independent in Sync training

ANTs
Automatic Negative Thoughts - These nasty guys can rise up just about any time during IM.  Most people, children and adults alike, will experience either a short day of ANTs, or up to a week or two, but they are transient in nature. In time, you can learn to control them. I believe there is GREAT power in IM in this ANT realm.

Session 14 and not yet in the teens! Panic!

For completion of basic IM, I set a soft goal of getting every child in the teens on at least one task of over 1000 reps for 3 days in a row. Why? Read this mental processing post and this emotional response post.  But, obviously, not all children reach this goal in 15 sessions. This does not mean your child did not gain from IM, nor that your child is deficient is some way, nor that you or I didn't put enough carrots in front of them. IM trainnig is simply a process and every child walks their own path at their own pace to get there.

What does guilt do to mental processing?

This morning, my young IM student was making good gains in being able to identify his ANTs, Automatic Negative Thougths. With enough experience in IM, I can now watch the numerical patterns of an individual doing an IM task and tell with in 2 to 3 seconds when they have a negative thought, such as thinking, "This is too hard." The person does not need to verbalize it at all. It can be fleeting or persistent, but you can SEE it in the numbers. Honestly, simply the thought impacts the score! The person does not always even recognize they had the thought... at first. With enough IM, they too can recognize their thoughts in the numerical pattern.

ANTs - Automatic Negative Thoughts

Dr. Amen talks about ANTs in this video.  This is the seventh video of his speech, you need to go about 1:07 seconds into video to get to the ANTs part. Great video series! Watch it!

ANTs - Automatic Negative Thoughts

During IM training, I use the term ANTs alot. Automatic Negative Thoughts - ANTs. I borrowed the concept from Dr. Daniel Amen's book, Making a Good Brain Great. As many as 75% of the individuals I see, both children and adults, have atleast one day of some ANTs.