Do you pay attention to your thoughts? Have you noticed how they change, depending on how you feel and what you do?
Is there a connection between your thoughts and emotions?
In my previous post, I discussed how cognition (thoughts and beliefs) influences our behaviours and emotions. I also listed some common cognitive distortions that we all have at one point.
Today, I am going to address a few more maladaptive thought patterns, and also ways to recognize/ overcome them:
Over-generalization
Magical thinking
Personalization
Emotional Reasoning
Jumping to Conclusions (Mind Reading & Fortune-telling)
Disqualifying the positive
Over-generalization
Overgeneralization is when you take one example and use it to make generalizations. Or you take one negative experience, and make blanket statements about yourself.
You might notice that these statements are often times extreme, and that you frequently use words like “always, seldom, no one, everyone”.
These global statements are not helpful because chances are they do not accurately represent us, others and the world around us. As mentioned in the previous post, we do not live in a binary world. It is dangerous to extrapolate one example to form general beliefs about anything. When go unchallenged, these beliefs become “truths” and “facts”, and we will start seeing things through a skewed lens.
To overcome our tendency to overgeneralize, start by correcting yourself when you use extreme terms, such as those mentioned above. Ask yourself if it is reasonable to extrapolate from one example to other aspects of you, while reminding yourself that you are complex and chances are you are not “always” or “seldom” ______ (fill in the blank)”.
Magical Thinking
Magical thinking is the belief (conscious or unconscious) that your thoughts or actions will directly lead to a specific outcome that could be either positive or negative. For instance, you believe that weight loss or being fit would help you find a romantic partner. Or that good things will happen to you if you do good deeds. This kind of thinking is faulty because as we know it, life is not always predictable. Performing certain actions might increase the chance of something desirable happening, but it is never guaranteed.
This type of thinking is problematic when our thinking/ actions become rigid because we are convinced that it would lead us to a desired outcome. It is therefore a good practice to always question your motivation when you take different actions - how many of those actions come from sincerity, and how many of them are just a means to an end?
Personalization
Personalization is when we put the blame on ourselves, or hold ourselves accountable whenever things go wrong, regardless of whether it is truly our fault.
People who fall into the trap of personalization frequently struggle with guilt. You might find yourself constantly trying to “fix” things, or to take actions that would benefit those around you, rather than yourself.
You no longer prioritize your personal interest. Your focus often goes to others. Over time, you might start feeling burnout, which could manifest in the form of chronic anxiety and guilt.
Next time you feel that familiar guilt creeping in, ask yourself why you’re feeling that way, and whether it is true that you are accountable for someone else’s misery.
Ask yourself: “How sure are you that this is about you? Where is the evidence?”
Emotional Reasoning
Emotional reasoning occurs when you see your feelings as facts. Now that we know that our feelings could arise from maladaptive thoughts, we understand that our feelings are dependent on our perception of the situation, our previous experiences and our belief system. I’m not saying that you should ignore your feelings because they might not reflect the reality. Honour your feelings, understand that there are no right or wrong way to feel. But at the same time, avoid making assumptions based on how you feel.
Here are a few examples:
You can work on this by labeling and differentiating between feelings and facts. Remind yourself that you can feel inadequate even when you are adequate. You can feel lonely even when there are people who love and support you.
Jumping to Conclusions (Mind Reading & Fortune-telling)
Mind Reading
I personally do this all the time, and I’m still trying to overcome it. When I sense that someone is slightly agitated or annoyed, I immediately assume that it has something to do with me. I might spend hours trying to figure out what I did to offend that person, and later learned that they had a bad day.
Mind reading happens quite often, especially among those of us who are people pleasers. It is stressful, and so unnecessary. It often brings on feelings of sadness, anxiety and guilt, even though we have nothing to feel sad or guilty about!
Similar to Personalization, start paying attention to times when you feel guilty. Notice when you attempt to make someone “feel better”, is it because of guilt? If so, see if it’s because of your own insecurity and your tendency to jump to conclusions. Is it possible that this person’s reaction/behaviour has nothing to do with you?
Fortune-telling
Can you think of an example in the past when you made predictions about negative events because of a small piece of evidence?
An example would be: You had a bad breakup, and you are convinced that you will never find love again.
This is similar to over-generalization, in that you take a small piece of information and use it to “fill the gap” in order to see the bigger picture. Fortune-telling Is different because you are not using the information to form generalizations, but instead you predict what’s going to happen with limited facts.
Whenever you find yourself convinced that something bad is going to happen, ask yourself if this prediction is based on sufficient evidence/ facts. Our brain is wired to hold onto certainty (even if it’s a negative one), because it dislikes uncertainty. Therefore, you might find yourself jumping to conclusions quite automatically. This could change, however, when you make the conscious effort to screen you thoughts and correct them.
Helpful questions to ask yourself are:
Do I actually know what’s going to happen?
Am I willing to challenge this thought and see what happens?”
Disqualifying/Rejecting the positive
This is similar to the minimizing that we talked about in my previous post. Rejecting the positive means that you are not giving yourself credit for your accomplishments. It means that your strengths and accomplishments weigh less. People who tend to “disqualify” their positives tend to have low self-esteem and confidence. They don’t give themselves enough credit. In fact, compliments make them feel uncomfortable, maybe because they feel that they don’t deserve them.
Try to accept the compliment next time someone says something nice about you. It might feel uncomfortable at first, but over time you will get used to the discomfort and begin to see your strengths as they are.
Conclusion
We don’t really know how these cognitive distortions came to be. They could be learned during our upbringing, or formed as we develop our personalities. From an evolutionary point of view, one way to look at it is that our brain is wired to search for patterns - to find a better way to organize the world we’re in. And one way to do that is to use past experiences to make predictions of what might come. It is more comforting for our brain to know that our world is predictable (even if it’s through a negative lens), than to exist in an uncertain world.
Our brain also holds onto negative experiences and neglects positive experiences. Evolutionarily, we are more likely to survive if we air on the side of caution. It is much safer to remember past negative experiences and use them to guide our actions and to increase our chance of survival, than to only remember the happy memories. Anxiety helped us survive, whereas positivity did not. This is why many of our cognitive distortions favour negative experiences.
It is difficult to challenge your thoughts, as you are working against the natural tendency of your brain. Try to be patient with yourself, and allow mistakes to happen.