Your Mind Is Full of Sh*t: The Workbook, A Psychiatrist's Companion Guide for Noticing Your Own Patterns
Reading about your patterns is one thing. Catching them in real time is another. The workbook turns the framework from Your Mind Is Full of Sh*t into structured exercises and reflection prompts you can use in a real week, on a real schedule.
The Workbook
Quick Answer
Your Mind Is Full of Sh*t: The Workbook is the companion guide to Dr. Shariq Refai's main book. It's a structured set of psychiatrist-designed reflection exercises, observation prompts, and tracking tools to help you catch your own anxiety and overthinking patterns as they happen. The workbook is educational. It's not therapy. You can use it alone or alongside the main book.
Why a Workbook
Reading about a pattern isn't the same as recognizing it in your own life on a Tuesday at 11 a.m. when the chest tightness shows up before the thought does. The main book gives you the framework. The workbook is what helps the framework land in your real week.
I wrote the workbook because patients kept asking me the same question. "I read the book. I get it. Now what do I actually do." This is the answer.
It's not a journal with prompts you've seen before. It's the kind of structured observation work I'd run with a patient in a session, written down in a form you can use yourself. Where in your body does your weather live? Which of the four lies has the loudest grip on you right now? What's in your invisible backpack that doesn't belong there? Each exercise is small. The cumulative effect is what changes the relationship.
How It Relates to the Main Book
The main book explains the why. The workbook focuses on the what now. The main book walks you through the four lies and the wiring underneath them. The workbook helps you map those lies onto your own life.
You don't have to read the main book first. The workbook is built to stand on its own. The exercises include the context you need to use them. If you want the deeper conceptual work, the main book is there. If you want to skip ahead to the practice, the workbook is the place to start.
What's Inside
The workbook runs in five sections, each built around a specific kind of self-observation work.
Section 1, Catch the Thought
Exercises for noticing the moment a thought arrives, separating the thought from the thinking, and putting a half second of space between you and the loop. This is the foundation. Most of the rest of the work depends on it.
Section 2, Read the Body
Tools for noticing where your nervous system holds its weather. Locating the buzz, the tightness, the heat, the pressure. Naming what your body is doing in plain language. The body settles when it has language for what it's feeling.
Section 3, Map Your Lies
Reflection prompts that help you find which of the four lies, control, productivity, positivity, or happiness, has the loudest grip on you right now. The lies show up differently for everyone. The work is recognizing your specific version.
Section 4, Track the Loop
Worksheets for breaking down the thought-body-meaning-behavior loop. When did the worry start. What was the body already doing. What story did the brain build. What did you do next. Naming the steps separately is what gives you choice points you didn't have before.
Section 5, Practice the Reset
A 7-day reflection plan that walks you through the core practices in compressed form. Not a treatment plan. Not a clinical protocol. A guided introduction to the daily-life version of the work.
Who This Workbook Is For
The workbook is for the reader who wants to do the work, not just read about it. The person who has read the main book and is looking for the practice. The person who hasn't read the main book and wants to start with hands-on observation. The person who's working with a therapist and wants something they can do between sessions. The person who's curious about how their own patterns actually run and wants a structured way to find out.
It may also serve as a general reflection tool that clinicians can mention to interested readers, with the appropriate disclaimers; it is not itself a clinical instrument.
How to Use the Workbook
Three honest ways to work with it.
Solo, paced. One section a week. Skim the main book chapter that matches the section if you have it. Use the prompts in your own time. Write what's true, not what sounds good.
Solo, intensive. One section a day for five days, then the 7-day reset plan. Best for readers who want a focused stretch of pattern observation work.
With a clinician. Bring the workbook to your therapist or psychiatrist if you have one. Use the exercises as a way to surface material to talk about in session. The workbook is educational, not clinical, but it can be a useful conversation starter with the right professional in the room.
The Series
The workbook is the second book in a three-book set. The main book, Your Mind Is Full of Sh*t, is the framework. The follow-up, The Havoc in Your Head, is the in-the-moment response when the patterns actually hit. Each book stands on its own. Together they form a working library for the modern brain.
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Important Educational Disclaimer
The content on this website is provided for general educational and informational purposes only and is not medical advice or a substitute for individualized psychiatric or medical care.
Viewing this website, reading its content, or submitting information through the website does not establish a physician-patient relationship.
The exercises and prompts in this workbook are strictly educational. They are not clinical exercises, a therapeutic protocol, or any form of individualized medical guidance. They're designed for self-reflection and pattern awareness only.
- The workbook does not promise specific outcomes, symptom reduction, or clinical results.
- The workbook is not a substitute for professional mental health care.
- Readers should consult their own licensed clinicians regarding diagnosis or treatment.
- The workbook is intended for general adult audiences and is not intended for use by minors without appropriate adult guidance.
- If you are in crisis, call or text 988 in the United States, call 911, or go to the nearest emergency room.