Posts tagged thoughts

We all have an automatic stream of thought – an unconscious commentary of what is going on, and how we are performing compared to other people. This commentary’s often harsh and negative. For example, we criticise ourselves for not being good enough, or saying something stupid, or doing something dumb. This increases our stress levels, and lowers self esteem. Thus, we need to try and notice and interrupt these ANTS – so we break the harmful patterns that are ruining our lives. Below are some steps that can help you with this:

1. First, try to get into the habit of noticing all the different thoughts that are passing through your mind. Some of these will be neutral or positive but many will be negative and damaging. These are the thoughts that you’re going to address.

2. Next, objectively look at how you are assessing yourself, and the situation. Try and identify your internal commentary or monologue. Notice the personal attacks, negative judgments and harsh criticisms.

3. Some specific questions you could ask yourself here include: What does this stressful situation mean to me? What does it say about me as a person? What does it say about my self-esteem? What is the message it is sending about my future? What negative images or tapes are playing in my head? What am I assuming, in terms of consequences?

4. Instead of ruminating on these negative thoughts, decide to interrupt the flow by saying “STOP” out loud, or by visualising a red stop sign. Use that as a trigger to put a stop to the self criticisms.

5. At this point, you need to make a conscious effort to find something distracting to do to keep your mind off your negative thoughts. This should be something you find interesting, or something that engages your full attention. Work on finding something that’s effective for you. The crucial thing is: you need to deliberately get your mind off the patterned negative thinking track.  

6. Try and come up with as many distractions as you can, so you’ve different options for resisting these ANTS. Some possibilities include: listening to music, humming along to music (or music in your head), exercising (going for a jog, cycle ride or swim), reading, surfing the internet, phoning a positive and upbeat friend, watching a funny video, playing with a pet, and so on.

According to Cognitive Behavioural Therapy, we often feel anxious, upset and annoyed because of certain errors in our thinking. These are faulty ways of looking at life which are automatic - and also very common. However, if we identify and change our way of thinking then our feelings are reactions will be much healthier. These errors in thinking include the following:

1. All –or – Nothing Thinking: Where the person evaluates themselves, others, situations and the world in extreme categories. It doesn’t allow for grey areas in thinking.  “I’m a terrible parent.”

2. Overgeneralizing: Thinking that because a bad experience happened once, then that’s the way it’s always going to be. For example, “I know I’ll fail my driving test. I’ve already failed it three times”.

3. Discounting the Positives: Ignoring the positive aspects of a situation and saying that they don’t count. For example, generally getting  good marks in school – but not praising yourself for that. One paper gets some negative feedback and you tell yourself you’re a useless student. The positive results are ignored.

4. Jumping to Conclusions -This has two aspects to it: mind reading and fortune telling.

(i) Mind reading is thinking you know what others are thinking without any evidence. For example, a person with social anxiety assumes her colleagues think she’s useless at her job.

(ii) Fortune telling is predicting that the future will turn out badly. For example, going for a routine mammogram and concluding that you have cancer.

5. Magnifying / Minimising: Evaluating the importance of a negative event, or the lack of evidence of a positive event, in a distorted manner. (Blowing things out of proportion.) For example, concluding that your sister doesn’t like you anymore because she forgot to send a  birthday card.

6. Emotional Reasoning: Believing that something must be true because it feels true. For example, when your boyfriend is an hour late in arriving for a film, you conclude that he isn’t interested in you. You discount the fact that, maybe, the bus was late, or he was delayed at work.

7. Labelling: Using a label (bad mother, idiot) to describe a behaviour - and then taking on board everything associated with that label. Seeing things is global terms. For example, a friend says or does something thoughtless. You label then them as “a terrible friend” and now you interpret anything they say in a hostile and negative way.

8. Personalization and blame: Where a person totally blames themselves for something that’s gone wrong when it is not their fault. For example, a soccer team member thinks she’s “put the coach in a bad mood” because she missed a goal. She discounts the fact that the coach may have been annoyed before the game started. The opposite is to totally blame another for something. For example, a wife may blame her husband for the break up of their marriage and not admit that she had any part in it.

9. Catastrophizing: (Similar to fortune telling) Dwelling on the worst possible outcome. For example, an employee had to do a presentation. He became obsessed with thoughts of performing badly, letting the company down, losing his job, then losing his home and family.

10. Making “should” or “must” statements:  Where the person has a fixed idea of how they, others or life should be. These become “rigid demands”. When they person is disappointed (as will inevitably happen) they become very upset and overestimate how bad this will be for them. For example, a student berates themselves for only getting 89% in an exam – when they wanted all their results to be in the 90s.

11. Selective abstraction: Dwelling on one negative detail instead of seeing the bigger picture. For example, a girl gets a haircut and 8 of her friends say they love it. One person says they preferred her old style. The girl thinks about that for hours and hours and wonders if she should have changed her hairstyle.

1. Notice when you are slipping into negative, absolutist ways of thinking where you think the worst of yourself, your life and your future.

2. Recognise that these are habitual ways of thinking. It’s what you always think when you start to feel bad.

3. Be aware of triggers. Often certain people and situations trigger painful, negative self-destructive thoughts. Try and distance yourself from these, or completely avoid them, if you possibly can.

4. Deliberately look for the counter arguments. For example, when have things been a bit better, when have you done something right, when has someone been kind and understanding?

5. Visualise positive things that make you happy, such as curling up with a book in bed, listening to your favourite music, and so on. Often changing our thinking to things that make us happy changes our negative feelings and thoughts.

6. Get into the habit of building yourself up, so you notice and affirm your successes, strengths, good intentions and positive traits.

Often the thoughts we carry round in our head – and our basic beliefs about the way things should be – are actually a source of unnecessary stress. So, check out the beliefs that we have listed below and see if there’s something that applies to you:

1. Demand for Approval: This is the belief that others must always treat us well.  We must have love or approval all the time, from every single person who matters to us, or else we feel we’re worthless and unloveable.

2. High Self Expectations: This is the belief that we must always succeed, and even excel, in everything we do – or it means that we’re a failure and we don’t have any value.

3. Dependency: This is the belief that we can’t cope on our own. We need to lean on others to help us all the time – and we can’t be independent and just make our own decisions.

4. Helplessness: This is the belief that the events in our past have determined our future and the goals that we can set. That is, we think we’re helpless victims – and that’s why we have these problems.

5. Emotional Control: This where we give control to other people, and say that they’re the ones who make us feel the way we do. If only they were different then we wouldn’t feel this way.

6. Personal Idealism: This is the belief that other people and the world must always be predictable, and fair and just.

7. Problem Avoidance: This is the belief that problems make life hard and should be avoided wherever possible. We don’t believe they central for developing new skills, resilience, perseverance and character.

8. We Must Be Free From Anxiety At All Times (Discomfort Anxiety): This is the belief that we can’t cope with feeling anxious, nervous, worried or uncomfortable. Instead, life should be stress free so I don’t have to have these feelings.

9. Perfectionism: This is the belief that there’s a perfect answer, or that there’s only one solution, to the problems I am facing. Hence, I’m frightened to act in case I make a mistake.

10. Over Caring: This is the belief that I must become upset and show that I care when others are upset – or it means that I am heartless and I lack compassion.

The way we think greatly impacts our behaviour. Thus, always thinking of what’s negative or wrong is bad for our physical and mental health. It can cripple our spirit, lead to depression, and hamper our ability to live a happy life.

So what do we mean by stinking thinking?

The term is widely applied to any negative thinking – but usually it takes one if the following forms:

·         Feeling resentful of other people

·         Blaming others

·         Feeling bitter about the past

·         Being consumed with yourself and your needs

·         Feeling either superior to, or inferior to, others

·         Feeling negative towards people you don’t know

·         Focus on others’ faults

·         Seeing things as being black or white – with very few grey areas

·         Being pessimistic; expecting things to go wrong

·         Getting a kick out of seeing others suffer or fail

·         Making a mountain out of a molehill

·         Never giving others the benefit of the doubt; always believing they have negative motives and intentions.

This is a self-destructive and dangerous way of thinking as:

·         Blaming other people often keeps us stuck as victims. It takes aware our power so we believe we cannot change.

·         It is hard to succeed and to make the most of your life if you focus on what’s wrong and can’t see the positives. This will stop you from seeing other possibilities, and from generating new and creative ideas.

·         It is likely to sour our relationships with others as we tend to feel bad around a constant whiner.

·         When we’re focused on ourselves it means we can’t be there for others so they won’t tend to see us as a genuine friend.

So what can we do to avoid this stinking thinking, and improve our life and relationships?

In summary, one of the key challenges with stinking thinking is we don’t recognise when we are slipping into it. So, we need to make the effort to try and track our thinking so we notice the patterns and the triggering events. One way that we can do this is through keeping a journal where we actually record the different thoughts inside our head. You’ll likely be surprised by your negativity as we don’t tend to notice how critical we are.

Also, being grateful for the small things can change our emphasis so we start to notice all the good things in our lives.

Add to that, the decision to be more positive – together these will turn around the way you think and feel.

Studies on people suffering from depression have uncovered a number of similar beliefs. These are deeply held, oppressive, self-defeating and lead to low self-esteem and distress. They include:

“I should be successful at everything I try.”

“If I am not successful, then I am a failure.”

“If I fail, then: I am worthless, I am unlovable, or, Life is not worth living.”

“Failure is intolerable/unacceptable.” “I should get the approval of everyone.”

“If I am not approved of, then I am unlovable, ugly, worthless, hopeless, alone, etc.”

“I should be certain before I try something.”

“If I am not certain, then the outcome will be negative.”

“I should never be: anxious, depressed, selfish, confused, uncertain, or unhappy with my partner, etc.”

“I should always be on guard for any anxiety.”

“If I let my guard down, something bad will happen.”

“If people see that I am anxious, they will: reject me, humiliate me, think badly of me, etc.”

“My feelings, relationships, sex life, behaviors, etc. should be wonderful and easy at all times.”

These are unrealistic and lead to defeat – and thus to depression and self-rejection. Hence, they must be challenged and replaced in counselling.
 

According to Cognitive Behavioural Therapy, we often feel anxious, upset and annoyed because of certain errors in our thinking. These are faulty ways of looking at life which are automatic - and also very common. However, if we identify and change our way of thinking then our feelings are reactions will be much healthier. These errors in thinking include the following:

1. All –or – Nothing Thinking: Where the person evaluates themselves, others, situations and the world in extreme categories. It doesn’t allow for grey areas in thinking.  “I’m a terrible parent.”

2. Overgeneralizing: Thinking that because a bad experience happened once, then that’s the way it’s always going to be. For example, “I know I’ll fail my driving test. I’ve already failed it three times”.

3. Discounting the Positives: Ignoring the positive aspects of a situation and saying that they don’t count. For example, generally getting  good marks in school – but not praising yourself for that. One paper gets some negative feedback and you tell yourself you’re a useless student. The positive results are ignored.

4. Jumping to Conclusions -This has two aspects to it: mind reading and fortune telling.

(i) Mind reading is thinking you know what others are thinking without any evidence. For example, a person with social anxiety assumes her colleagues think she’s useless at her job.

(ii) Fortune telling is predicting that the future will turn out badly. For example, going for a routine mammogram and concluding that you have cancer.

5. Magnifying / Minimising: Evaluating the importance of a negative event, or the lack of evidence of a positive event, in a distorted manner. (Blowing things out of proportion.) For example, concluding that your sister doesn’t like you anymore because she forgot to send a  birthday card.

6. Emotional Reasoning: Believing that something must be true because it feels true. For example, when your boyfriend is an hour late in arriving for a film, you conclude that he isn’t interested in you. You discount the fact that, maybe, the bus was late, or he was delayed at work.

7. Labelling: Using a label (bad mother, idiot) to describe a behaviour - and then taking on board everything associated with that label. Seeing things is global terms. For example, a friend says or does something thoughtless. You label then them as “a terrible friend” and now you interpret anything they say in a hostile and negative way.

8. Personalization and blame: Where a person totally blames themselves for something that’s gone wrong when it is not their fault. For example, a soccer team member thinks she’s “put the coach in a bad mood” because she missed a goal. She discounts the fact that the coach may have been annoyed before the game started. The opposite is to totally blame another for something. For example, a wife may blame her husband for the break up of their marriage and not admit that she had any part in it.

9. Catastrophizing: (Similar to fortune telling) Dwelling on the worst possible outcome. For example, an employee had to do a presentation. He became obsessed with thoughts of performing badly, letting the company down, losing his job, then losing his home and family.

10. Making “should” or “must” statements:  Where the person has a fixed idea of how they, others or life should be. These become “rigid demands”. When they person is disappointed (as will inevitably happen) they become very upset and overestimate how bad this will be for them. For example, a student berates themselves for only getting 89% in an exam – when they wanted all their results to be in the 90s.

11. Selective abstraction: Dwelling on one negative detail instead of seeing the bigger picture. For example, a girl gets a haircut and 8 of her friends say they love it. One person says they preferred her old style. The girl thinks about that for hours and hours and wonders if she should have changed her hairstyle.