Importance of Capturing Your Thoughts
I have found that paying attention to my thoughts is very important to my wellbeing! When I let my thoughts go unchecked I start to be in negative thought patterns, vicious cycles of disappointment thinking of all the things that I “should” do and assuming what others are thinking. None of these patterns are helpful and it takes being intentional to notice these thoughts in yourself to create change. Paying attention to our thoughts is essential to our mental and emotional health.
Common Thought Distortions
One of the books about resilience that I have enjoyed is by Dr. Glenn R. Schiraldi, called The Resilience Workbook. This book has a lot of helpful information and exercises for building resilience and overcoming past stress and trauma. Below is a list from Dr. Schiraldi of common thought distortions:
- Flaw Fixation: getting stuck on all the things that we consider to be wrong, undesirable, or negative.
- Dismissing the Positive: choosing to not notice, accept, or believe the positive in a situation or about yourself.
- Assuming: this could look like thinking that you know what someone else is thinking without them expressing themselves or predicting what you think will happen as fact.
- Labeling: when we reduce ourselves, others, or a situation down to one characteristic.
- Overgeneralizing: thinking that a certain type of situation always or never happens.
- All-or-None Thinking: I find when I am engaging in this kind of thinking I am wanting to either have everything exactly as I want it and am all in or I totally walk away and don’t invest any of myself. In this thought process solutions in the middle are not considered.
- Comparison: Comparing someone’s situation to your own, but often it is comparing someone else’s best to your worst.
- Catastrophizing: thinking the worst is going to happen.
- Emotional Logic: making decisions based solely on emotion and not considering the facts of the situation.
- Should Statements: when you have rules or beliefs of what life has to be like.
- Personalizing: believing something is about you personally, without considering other possibilities or circumstances.
- Blaming: not taking responsibility for our own thoughts, words, and actions.
Looking at a list like this can be overwhelming because chances are we might be struggling with several of these thought processes. Next, we will look how to focus in on one of these thought processes and start the process of making change!
Changing Thought Cycles
Sometimes it can feel very difficult to change our thought processes especially when we have been thinking a certain way for a long time. When I was first trying to change my thought processes I first reflected on which one caused the most difficulties in my life. Or consider which one is holding you back the most from goals you are working on. Making changes is not only about what we won’t do, but figuring out what we will do instead. For example one of my struggles is assuming what other people are thinking. So when I catch myself doing this I remind myself that I am not a mind reader or that I can only control my thoughts, words and actions. Once I’ve reminded myself of this I take a step back and look at the facts. What did the person actually say? What circumstances were happening that led me to assume their thoughts? And what do I actually know about the situation based on these things? Here are these steps laid out below:
- What thought distortion do you want to work on?
- How can you replace this thought process with a new health thought process?
- Are there circumstances that trigger this thought distortion?
The awesome thing about our brain is that the more we practice a skill and put our attention to it, the more our brain adapts to support the new thought process or habit. It might take time, but you have the power to change your brain and to change your thoughts! Take time to reflect on this! Leave a comment below of what action step you are going to take!
References:
Schiraldi, G. (2017). The Resilience Workbook. New Harbinger Publications, Inc.
Blooming Resilient 