REFRAMING THOUGHTS THE ORTHODOX WAY
DOWNLOAD THIS AS A PDF WORKBOOK HERE
(This has been looked over by an Orthodox Abbot Monk)
📘 Description of the Workbook
This workbook is a prayerful, reflective, and therapeutic guide that integrates Eastern Orthodox Christian spirituality with insights from Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) and Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT).
It helps readers:
Heal their sense of identity
Reframe painful memories
Observe and release harmful thoughts
Return to a deeper awareness of God's presence
📂 Workbook Structure & Sections
1. 🕯️ Daily Orthodox Christian Reflection on Memory and the True Self
Morning, midday, and evening spiritual practices
Centered on prayer, nepsis (watchfulness), and memory
Reflects on who we are in Christ, not in our past
📝 Includes: Scripture, patristic quotes, Jesus Prayer meditations, weekly spiritual identity review
2. 🧠 Integration with CBT (Cognitive Behavioral Therapy)
Introduces thought monitoring, belief restructuring, and memory reframing
Each practice is paired with an Orthodox theological or spiritual equivalent
Helps users see how distorted thoughts and false identity can be healed through truth in Christ
📝 Includes: Integration exercises, scriptural reflections, and journal prompts
3. 🌊 Integration with ACT (Acceptance and Commitment Therapy)
Encourages mindful presence, values clarification, and emotional acceptance
Orthodox themes like kenosis (self-emptying), anamnesis (divine remembrance), and nepsis align with ACT principles
Encourages living a value-guided life anchored in Christlike virtues
📝 Includes: Mindfulness with the Jesus Prayer, “self-as-context” meditations, and daily action plans rooted in Orthodox values
✍️ Also Includes
Reflection questions
Guided meditation
Daily prayer journal templates
Quotes from Church Fathers and Scripture
A final closing prayer to unite all parts of the journey
1.🕯 Daily Orthodox Christian Reflection on Memory and the
True Self
“Forgetfulness of God is the root of all sin; remembrance of Him is
salvation.”
—St. Philotheos of Sinai
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🌅 Morning Practice – Remembering God First
Time: Upon waking (5–10 minutes)
1. Sit quietly before any distractions.
2. Make the Sign of the Cross and say:
“Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner.”
3. Let the prayer anchor your awareness in God, before
memory of self or the day arises.
4. Gently observe:
“Before all thoughts and plans, I am a child of God.”
“My worth is in Christ, not in my past, feelings, or roles.”
📖 Scripture Verse:
“This is eternal life, that they may know You, the only true God…”
(John 17:3)
☀ Midday Reflection – Memory as a Place of Temptation or
Grace
Time: Around noon or during a walk
1. Ask: “What am I remembering most today? My wounds, my
failures… or Christ?”
2. Reflect:
◦ Are your memories today feeding despair, pride, or
anxiety?
◦ Or are they fueling repentance, humility, gratitude?
3. Gently reorient memory toward God with the Jesus Prayer:
“Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me.”
🕊 Patristic Insight:
“Do not trust the images in your mind. Trust in Christ, who is
beyond all images.” —St. Maximus the Confessor
🌌 Evening Practice – The Memory of Death and the Judgment
Seat of Christ
Time: Before bed (10–15 minutes)
1. In silence, review your day. Not for shame, but illumined
repentance.
2. Ask:
◦ Where did I forget God today?
◦ Where did I remember Him and act in love, truth, or
humility?
3. Say aloud or in your heart:
“O Lord, cleanse me from all sin—known and unknown.”
4. End with a few minutes of the Jesus Prayer, slowly and with
your breath.
📿 Optional: Use a prayer rope (komboskini) to say the Jesus
Prayer 33 or 100 times.
🙏 Evening Prayer from Compline:
“Grant, O Lord, that I may lay down to sleep in peace and wake in
Your presence, for You are my hope.”
🧘 ♂ Weekly Practice – Recollecting the True Identity in Christ
Time: Once per week (30+ minutes)
1. Light a candle and sit before an icon of Christ.
2. Slowly say: “O Christ my God, help me remember who I am in You.”
3. Journal or reflect:
◦ What memories still shape how I see myself?
◦ Which memories bind me in shame or pride?
◦ How would Christ see me—not through memory, but
through love?
4. Meditate on:
“I am crucified with Christ; it is no longer I who live, but
Christ who lives in me.” (Galatians 2:20)
🧠 Practice Nepsis (watchfulness):
• Throughout the day, watch your thoughts and memories.
• As the Fathers say: “Catch the first thought.” Replace it with
prayer.
✨ Guiding Orthodox Truths to Reflect On
Reflection Orthodox Teaching
“I am not my past.”
The self is not defined by memory, but by baptism and
communion with Christ.
“My wounds are not my identity.”
Christ took on all wounds to redeem and heal them.
“God remembers me always.”
Even if I forget God, He never forgets me.
“True memory is memory of God.”
Forgetting God is spiritual death; remembrance is eternal life.
🔹 2. INTEGRATION WITH CBT
Cognitive Behavioral Therapy helps us become aware of and
restructure distorted thought patterns. Orthodox Christianity offers a
parallel in the spiritual disciplines of nepsis (watchfulness) and
metanoia (repentance/change of mind).
💭 Thought Observation and Disputation
Orthodox Practice: Watch thoughts (logismoi) as they arise and
discern their spiritual source.
CBT Practice: Track automatic thoughts and evaluate them for
distortions (e.g., catastrophizing, overgeneralizing).
Integration Exercise:
• Thought: “I’m a failure because I fell into old habits again.”
• CBT Challenge: “What evidence supports this? What’s another
way to see this?”
• Orthodox Reflection: “Am I forgetting that I am made in the
image of God? That Christ forgives?”
“Bring every thought captive to the obedience of Christ.” —2
Corinthians 10:5
📜 Memory Reprocessing
Orthodox Practice: Memory is sanctified by remembrance of God,
liturgical rhythm, and repentance.
CBT Practice: Reframe painful memories to reduce their
maladaptive emotional impact.
Integration Exercise:
• Triggering memory → Feelings of shame
• CBT technique: Reappraise the situation and consider new
meanings.
• Orthodox technique: Offer the memory to Christ through
prayer and confession; see the story through the Cross and
Resurrection.
“Do not dwell on the past... Behold, I make all things new.” —Isaiah
43:18-19
🧠 Identity Work
Orthodox: Identity is found in Christ, not in the ego or the “false
self.”
CBT: Core beliefs must be made conscious and reshaped if they are
negative.
Integration Journal Prompt:
• “What do I believe about myself at the deepest level?”
• “Where do those beliefs come from—God, trauma, family, or
the world?”
• “What does Christ say about who I am?”
🔸 3. INTEGRATION WITH ACT (Acceptance and
Commitment Therapy)
ACT focuses on acceptance, mindfulness, values, and committed
action. This harmonizes with the Orthodox idea of surrender
(kenosis), remembrance (anamnesis), and living in the present
moment with God.
🌊 Acceptance of Inner Experience
ACT: Do not fight negative thoughts or emotions—accept and
observe them.
Orthodox: Do not cling or react to passions. Watch them and pray.
Surrender them to Christ.
Practice:
• When shame or fear arises, say:
“I see you. I do not need to believe you. Christ is here.”
• Use the Jesus Prayer to hold the inner storm in stillness:
“Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me.”
🔥 Values Clarification
ACT: Identify your core values and act in line with them, even amid
pain.
Orthodox: Live by the virtues (faith, humility, love), the Beatitudes,
and the life of Christ.
Integration Exercise:
• ACT: “What matters most to me?” → Write your top 5 values.
• Orthodox: “Which of these are fruits of the Spirit?” →
Galatians 5:22–23
• Choose one value to live out today through action, even amid
emotional difficulty.
🧘 ♂ Self-as-Context (True Self)
ACT: The “observing self” is awareness, not content of thought.
Orthodox: The nous (spiritual heart) is where Christ dwells and
where the true self is revealed.
Exercise:
• When overwhelmed by mental noise, silently ask:
“Who is watching all this?”
Then return to:“I am in Christ. He is in me. I am not my thoughts.”
🪔 Present-Moment Awareness
ACT: Be present in the here and now, not trapped in the mind.
Orthodox: “Be still and know that I am God.” (Psalm 46:10)
Practice:
• Light a candle. Sit with an icon.
Breathe slowly with the Jesus
Prayer:
Inhale: “Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God…”
Exhale: “…have mercy on me, a sinner.”
Use it as a mindfulness anchor, returning to the Presence of God,
not just awareness in the abstract.
🕯 Sample Daily Integration Practice
Time Practice
Morning
Jesus Prayer with ACT-style anchoring: Accept thoughts, return to Presence.
Midday CBT-style thought journal: Track one distorted thought and challenge it.
Evening
Memory review: Reprocess the day with Orthodox repentance and ACT
defusion.…
Final thoughts
Ask yourself, why are you thinking right now? To understand? Why do you want to understand? To be right? Why? To fuel pride? To gain a sense of peace? In which case, what you wish for is peace, for which understanding is unnecessary. Where understanding is, God is not, that is because the mind is analyzing, you are in the head, not in the moment nor in the heart, or nous. The nous is not an emotion, but a clear apprehension, and of course, God exists only in the present moment, which is the only thing that is “real.”
The past and future are imaginary scenarios, which are neither good nor bad, unless one begins to emotionally react to them as if they were really happening in the present. Often we do this, such as thinking about some unpleasant event in the future or past, and then the mind mistakes it for an actual event in the present, like a man becoming so engrossed in a movie he believes he is living it. The mind starts giving emotions to deal with the imaginary situation as if it were actual and he could take action.
However, since these are just thoughts and imaginations, you cannot do anything, thus you may feel despair. This makes sense since you cannot clap your hands yesterday or tomorrow. You only have power in the present. You can only ever act right now. So it with God, He can be with you only on the present.
Thus all those emotions serve no purpose. Ideally the mind will entertain only thoughts that are possible to do (necessarily this would be act that can be done right now in the present moment), and good to have done.
The Orthodox tradition really hasn’t an explicit agreed upon definition of soul or self, but a few things are obvious. Our present self is fallen, consumed with passions and contrary desires. We believe these thoughts (logosimi) often come from demons or the world. You are not your sins, and these thoughts are not yours. The only thoughts that are truly yours come from your real nature, those that intend toward Christ. These bring peace.
That means the vast majority of our mental life has us living in, and reacting to, a false prison world of delusion. The only desire that is yours is the desire for God and to serve and please Him. Only that desire and those thoughts are real, only they bring true peace. All else is false, disorienting, and full of suffering.
FURTHER READING RECOMMENDATIONS
🔹 1. “The Way of a Pilgrim”
Author: Anonymous Russian pilgrim
A humble, powerful journey of inner prayer through the Jesus Prayer, which gradually dismantles the ego and self-reliance.
Teaches that true transformation comes through surrender, not control.
🔹 2. “Writings from the Philokalia on Prayer of the Heart”
Authors: Various Church Fathers (e.g., St. Hesychios, St. Theophan the Recluse)
These texts emphasize watching the thoughts, detaching from the passions, and allowing grace to act.
Central insight: you are not your thoughts, and transformation comes through purified attention and continual prayer.
🔹 3. “Saint Silouan the Athonite”
Author: Archimandrite Sophrony
A deep, mystical work showing how complete surrender to Christ and love for enemies destroys the false self.
St. Silouan’s refrain: “Keep your mind in hell and despair not”—teaches us to live without self-trust, but anchored in divine mercy.
🔹 4. “The Path to Salvation”
Author: St. Theophan the Recluse
A manual for spiritual growth that calls for detachment from ego, reliance on God, and awareness of your deepest identity as a soul in Christ.
Jonathan McCormack is an Orthodox Christian Attachment Specialist living in New York.
His website is
https://www.attachmenthealinghelp.com/
You can contact him at JonathanMcCormack1978@gmail.com
