Therapy: what would Beyonce do?

“If at first you don’t succeed, try, try again.” This is a common phrase we were probably raised on, I know I would listen to exactly these words in a song by Aaliyah growing up. A sense of being a failure or unsuccessful are both very common feelings that people from all different walks of life share and experience. In Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT), a common method to help negative thoughts like “I’m no good at this or I’ll never get that job” is to firstly bring about awareness of such thoughts and then help re-evaluate such negative thoughts or upsetting images of ourselves.

I once saw an experienced psychotherapist for her issues of anxiety. In one session, we were in the consulting room, both reviewing over what she had written down of her negative thoughts that week. I began to help her challenge the negative thoughts and explained that she could try asking herself what “would a good friend say?” It was at that exact moment that she said looked up at me and said “well what would Beyonce do?” and we both sat there laughing. It got me thinking…What would she do?

Beyonce is no stranger to achievement, but in accomplishing what she has, she had to face many failures and hardships. So my take home message to you is that the next time any doubt or putdown comes to mind, ask yourself “what would Beyonce do?”