If you're a human being, all of you experience this kind of thinking called Negative thinking or Unhelpful thinking. Such thinking that does not benefit you at all, when it is not useful and does not add value to your life.
You're gonna notice these thinking patterns and then you're gonna think of the situation or event differently that's what CBT (Cognitive Behavioral Thereapy) is. Having a situation, thinking about it one way and saying 'oh I can think about it differently in a more positive way or more helpful way' Does that make sense?
So we're going to discuss ten errors that stops us thinking or react situations differently or in a positive way.
1. All or Nothing thinking
Sometimes called 'black and white thinking'
If I'm not perfect I have failed
Either I do it right or not at all
Yes, we have all done it before , an example, alot of you are in School, College , University where if you fail a test you say I failed a test there's the fact therefore I'm stupid that is black and white thinking there is not gray area there saying I failed this test but previously I passed so many I did well in that Science exam. So I don't want you to discount the positive there. Life isn't black and white there is so much gray.
2. Over-generalising
Everything is always rubbish
Nothing good ever happens
Seeing a pattern based upon a single event, or being overly broad in the conclusions we draw. for example I read on a news article where group of teenagers literally watched someone drown and don't help them and laugh so you think ' okay I'm going to over-generaliza those teenagers are assholes therefore all teenagers , all millenials are assholes'. That's not the way it works. ' You go see a basketball game and you notice there's alot of black people on a court therefore I'm gonna overgeneralize all black people must play basketball.
So over-generalize completely skews facts from fiction. That doesn't make any sense at all. So this what we do all the time, we see something and we put labels on everything thing based on what we see which is completely wrong.
3. Belief System
Only paying attention to certain types of evidence
Noticing our failures but not seeing our successes
Everyone has a belief system that helps them to interpret their everyday reality. Based on what they actually belief and this could be in the form of spirituality, philosophy or religion.
When you're upset with something or you're offended by what someone said or what someone did. If you're offended think about what thought is going through my mind did someone challenge my belief system and if so what is my belief system is it factually wrong , is it actually right and they're telling the truth , are there any statistics behind what they are saying and its not my truth and I can't believe it. The reason we get offended and upset is things challenged our belief systems and make us feel very uncomfortable like everything you've ever believed and your whole entire life is now wrong and its extremely difficult.
4. Magnification ( catastrophising ) & Minimisation
Blowing things out of proportion ( catastrophising), or inappropritaley shrinking something to make it seem less important.
Exagerrated a certain event for example let's say at work or school you're doing a presentaton and you stutter or If you fall over in front of a million people and after that you felt embarassed and thought about yourself as a freak you're over-generalzing certain situations just ask yourself will this matter in a week , will this matter in a month , will this even matter in a year? No, people forget new things come up in their lives , new things come up in yours that's life so try not to magnify and exaggerate situtations or anything you go through.
5. Emotional reasoning
Assuming that because we feel a certain way what we think must be true
I feel embarassed so I must be an idiot
This is one of the most important one. This is why there are many problems in the world. This why murder happens. This is why everyone's in jail because people think with emotion e.g ' I want to murder that person because I am angry , I want to take revenge , revenge is so emotional. Logically if we took emotion aside ' okay if i kill that person I'm going to go to jail for the rest of my life and I won't be able to see my family and friends, okay i shouldn't do that'.
Emotion really motivates us to make bad decisions alot of the time. Suicide is so complex and such a tragedy and it is brought on and is attempted with obviously emotional reasoning. I feel depressed , I feel like I will never be happy again my life is worthless all emotion there so therefore the best thing I can do is to end my life. Understandable that in that situation you cannot see an end it is all emotional reasoning there is no logic there saying 'oh okay a year from now if I try medication if I do this and this I could feel better and five years from now on I could be so happy no it doesn't work that way'. Emotional reasoning is very important to think about that unhelpful thinking style where you need to look at the logic of the situation.
6. Should/ Must Statements
Using critical words like 'should', 'must', or 'ought' can make us feel guilty , or like we have already failed.
If we apply 'shoulds' to other people the result is often frustration.
When we are looking into our past should is always used like ' I should have done that'. That to me personally creates instant regret ' I didn't do it I should have therefore what I did was a failure'. Instead of the word 'SHOULD' use 'NEXT TIME I WIll' when you say next time I will you're looking forward to the future you're making a plan. But when you say I should have you're looking into the past where something that's already been done . What's there to do? You can't plan for what that's already happened it's already done. So get rid of that word should and especially labeling other people ' he or she should have done that they should have said this' labeling people trying to control them with that word should doesn't work. Next time I will done.
7. Labelling
Assigning labels to ourselves or other people
I'm a loser, I'm completely useless, They're such an idiot
All teenagers are assholes because I saw an asshole the other day. This is called Labelling. Now I want to talk about labelling yourself ' I am depressed, I am anxious, I am schizophrenic, I am bipolar'. Labelling yourself with mental illness. I don't think helps you recovery or helps in anyway when you say 'I am' it almost like I have this is part of me which is okay but I prefer saying I'm feeling because saying 'I am' means I am depressed that means it's part of you every single day every single moment where in reality we know that emotions come and go depression comes and goes anxiety comes and goes, unwanted thoughts come and they go just like clouds in the sky. You don't have panic attack 24 hours a day seven days a week impossible. If you say I'm feeling depressed versus I am depressed the word feeling means it's not a part of me it's a feeling ,it's an emotion. Emotion they come and they go therefore just for changing your vocabulary around this.
8. Personalization " This is my fault"
Blaming yourself or taking responsibility for something that wasn't completely your fault.
Conversely, blaming other people for something for something that was your fault.
Something about people who suffer from depression and are mentally or have some kind of mood disorder feel like the world is on their shoulders and I bet you feel that way. You feel like everything is your fault and it creates that compression and depression in you and you're holding so much up all of the time. People don't like me because it's my fault and I'm not a funny person , I didn't get the job because my interview skills suck therefore it's my fault , I messed up that meal because I'm a shitty cook and damn it's my fault that I didn't watch more chef Ramsay on TV it's always my fault.
But let me tell you something depression is not your fault , having an anxiety disorder is not your fault it's not. And it doesn't help you continuing to say that it is your fault you're not choosing you didn't put your hand up at birth saying yeah I would love to suffer from depression for a good 10 to 15 or 50 years that would be really fun, no. You didn't want this for yourself.
So when those thoughts come in saying it's my fault just notice it look at the logic saying you know what it's not my fault.
9. Jumping to Conclusions
Mind reading ( Imagining we know what others are thinking)
Fortune telling ( predicting the future)
You're not a fortune teller yeah. I hate to break it to you, go to these fortune tellers they're all bullshit they can't predict the future either. No one can therefore notice in your thought patterns if you're maybe about to go somewhere if you're going to a party and you're replaying in youre head what it's going to be like ' here she will probably be there and maybe they'll have shrimp and I bet they will have a red wine or white too. Here you're creating a scene predicting a future about what's going to happen and you know what that makes you anxious doesn't it? because you want to know everything. Anxiety is sometimes the fear of unknown so ofcourse we want to put the pieces together but you can't .
10. Disqualifying the positive
Discounting the good things that have happened or that you have done for some reason or another.
That doesn't count
Human beings love doing this. Let's focus on our failures, where did we mess up, where did we go wrong. Let's think of a positive a little more e.g You'll come home from that party and you'll say "I only spoke with one person and I was so quiet the whole time ahh that sucked that was shit I failed". Where's the positive? ' You went to the party you did it right you didn't get the job doing the interview but you went to the interview, you have some great interview experience now the failure is experienced but let's not disqualify the positive make it there. There's always two sides to the coin.
good job bro..keep it up