Identifying and Reframing Negative Thinking Patterns

“That the birds of worry and care fly over your head, this you cannot change, but that they build nests in your hair, this you can prevent” – Chinese Proverb

Negative thinking patterns can prove to be a great hindrance to personal joy and the ability to move forward with our lives, taking healthy risks and receiving rewards for the same. Identifying negative thinking patterns is the first step in stopping their debilitating effects on our lives.

Below are some common negative thinking patterns.

1.?All-or-Nothing Thinking: You see things in black-and-white categories. If your performance falls short of perfect, you see yourself as a total failure.

2.?Overgeneralization: You see a single negative event as a never-ending pattern of defeat.

3.????Mental Filter: You pick out a single negative detail and dwell on it exclusively so that your vision of all reality becomes darkened, like the drop of ink that discolours the entire beaker of water.

4.?Disqualifying the Positive: You reject positive experiences by insisting they “don’t count” for some reason or other. In this way you can maintain a negative belief that is contradicted by your everyday experiences.

5.?Jumping to Conclusions: You make a negative interpretation even though there are no definite facts that convincingly support your conclusion.

6.?Fortune Telling: You anticipate that things will turn out badly, and you feel convinced that your prediction is an already-established fact.

7.?Magnification (Catastrophizing) or Minimization: You exaggerate the importance of things (such as your goof-up), or you inappropriately shrink things until they appear tiny (e.g., your own desirable qualities).

8.?Should Statements: You try to motivate yourself with should and shouldn’t, as if you had to be punished before you could be expected to do anything. The emotional consequences are guilt. When you direct should statements toward others, you feel anger, frustration, and resentment.

9.?Labelling And Mislabelling: This is an extreme form of overgeneralization. Instead of describing your error, you attach a negative label to yourself. “I’m a loser.” When someone else’s behaviour rubs you the wrong way, you attach a negative label to him” “He’s such a cow!” Mislabelling involves describing an event with language that is highly coloured and emotionally loaded.

10.?Personalization: You see yourself as the cause of some negative external event, which in fact you were not primarily responsible for.

Our thoughts impact how we feel and subsequently how we navigate through our days and deal with challenges. It’s important to have a healthy mind frame and look at challenges as an opportunity to build muscles of grit and resilience.

Below are some strategies to reframe negative thoughts.

1.?Identify Your Negative Thinking Patterns: As described, it’s important to know the different negative thinking patterns and determine which ones you seem to fall victim to most. Writing down your thoughts and the corresponding negative thinking pattern in your journal helps you keep track of what you’re thinking about and how you’re feeling.

2.?Challenge Your Thinking: Challenge your thoughts because not all our thoughts are true! As you write down your thoughts and the corresponding negative thinking pattern, ask yourself: Is this true? Do I know this to be true, for sure? Have I checked the facts? Take a step back and assess the situation again. Continue challenging your thinking with other questions such as “Am I really a loser, or could it be just a case of inconsistency for a period?”

3.?Compassionate Self-talk: We are often extremely hard on ourselves. Our self-talk is harsh, negative, and sometimes abusive.?When you think about how you would speak to a good friend, chances are you’d never say the things you say to yourself to your friend. For each negative thinking pattern you’ve identified, write down how you would respond to a good friend. Then, practice using this more compassionate self-talk with yourself.

4.?Seek Support: Find a therapist or counsellor to help you challenge your assumptions and distortions. The right questions can help you shift your perspective to consider things you wouldn’t have on your own. Creating some flexibility in your thinking can help you lower your stress, feel less anxious and shift away from depression.

5.?Consider positive/negative outcomes: By asking yourself to assess the positive and negative outcome of sticking with your perspective, you’re able to decide whether it’s worth keeping or changing it.

Asking these questions will help:

1. How will it help me or hurt me if I believe this distortion?
2. Will it move me closer to being the person I want to be or farther away?
3. If I continue to believe this thought, how will it impact my relationship(s)?
4. How do I feel about myself?
5. Does believing this distortion help or harm my depression, confidence, self-worth, anxiety, etc.?

Challenging your cognitive distortions takes practice and patience, however, your life will become so much better as you take control of your thoughts instead of allowing them to control you.