These tricky little “thought filters” can ruin a perfectly good day, so we thought you’d like to start paying attention to yours. Most adults operate under at least a few of these thought patterns every day. Depression and anxiety, parenting and job performance are all environments where cognitive therapy can help keep you out of the negative outlook that cognitive disorients cause.
Three Questions To Determine Where Your Negative Thoughts Live
The way we think about ourselves, our future, and the world around us is what makes up our cognitive outlook. It’s also a telltale sign whether we are mentally healthy, or exhibiting tendencies towards depression or anxiety:
- Are your thoughts about yourself negative, or filled with doubt?
- Are your thoughts about the future are uncertain, or lacking confidence?
- Do your thoughts about the world around you skeptical, maybe even make you discouraged?
Even one of these three categories with pervasive negative thoughts can lead you to feeling bad.
What’s Your Cognitive Distortion of Choice?
A cognitive distortion is the way we frame something, to ourselves or others, in a way that is not reality. It’s like a negative filter and irrational thought pattern all rolled into one. They can shape how you see the world and affect everything from your decisions to your mood.
Here are some examples, and ways to counter them
Blaming: “If I didn’t have to do so many dishes around here, I’d be way happier.” This takes away your own agency in the situation, and attempts to make others responsible for how you feel.
Try: Seeing your own choice in the situation, recruiting support if needed, focusing on what you can do yourself.
Shoulds and Perfectionism: Rules that you set for yourself and others without regard to circumstance or individual. They govern a way of being in the world that many goal-oriented —-> righteous people live. These people are less happy, because perfectionism is usually turned on oneself.
Try: Seeing others as people who make their own choices. See yourself as someone who is worth the same compassion you would give a loved one when making a mistake.
All Or Nothing Thinking: Also knowns as “black and white thinking”, a telltale sign of depression. “I spilled coffee all over myself, so today must not be my day.” Or those that think poorly or positively about someone based on a single action. The internet loves all-or-nothing thinking and we have to work hard to find the shades of gray.
Try: Seeing your day, yourself, a class, a job, and others as the sum of many parts. We have many chances to start over, to soften our perceptions, to avoid essentializing something or someone.
Catastrophizing: Worst case scenario, this must be where I’m headed! Highly unproductive thought pattern common in those with anxiety.
Try: Remind yourself you cannot predict the future, but you can build skills to help you handle uncertainty (which is what your Worst Case Scenario mind is doing unhelpfully).
Forecasting: Somehow you know just what’s going to happen. Spoiler: it’s usually not what you want.
Try: Like Catastrophizing, work on tolerating uncertainty and building optimism. Constant stress over the future isn’t productive. And contrary to many distorted thinking, having hope doesn’t make a bad outcome harder to tolerate.
Feelings as Facts. Also called “emotional reasoning,” this is my personal favorite. We don’t notice the difference between a feeling state and reality. “I feel this way, therefore it must be true.”
Try: Instead of “feeling” like someone is mad at you, note that you actually feel insecure, and worried about your last interaction. Then Check. It. Out.Feelings as Facts takes practice so this ominous one doesn’t accompany you throughout the day (social anxiety has a lot of Feelings as Facts thinkers.)
Filtering. When you’re somehow responsible for all the bad things that happen to you but anything good is just “pure luck.” Or when you only hear criticism or focus only on the lowest grade or the one negative feedback.
Try: Countering our adaptive negativity bias by forcing your attention on the positive things. We learned to be on the lookout for danger and are geared towards paying attention to the negative. But we can choose to focus on the rest.
Mind Reading. This one is especially noticeable in relationships. We assign intent or feelings to another person and base our decisions or mood based on this interpretation. “They must be mad at me” because of something that you have interpreted.
Try: Checking out your assumptions. Be direct and own up to your tendency to make things up. “When you don’t text me back it makes me worried…”
Once you become familiar with your own brand of cognitive distortions (and there are many others), you can appreciate the effect they have on your otherwise perfectly capable self. Cognitive Behavioral Therapy, which we specialize in at Loyal Blue, LOVES your cognitive distortions. Let us help you minimize their effects on your life. You can book a free consultation here.
