Distortions don't do diddly; desist!

Just how important are your thoughts?  Let’s look at how influential thoughts, specifically negative thought distortions can be.  I call them “stinkin’ thinkin’” because they muck up your life.

The problem with negative distortions is they are, well, distorted.  They don’t reflect a neutral and more realistic view of things.  They don't do diddly!  Usually they feed off one another and negative thoughts create negative moods and often lead to bad behaviors.  You become disconnected from yourself and others.  This is the effect of the negative stories you tell yourself.

What do you do about it?  You challenge the negative thoughts, but first you have to recognize you have them!

Here are the ten most common thought distortions:

1. All or Nothing:  a.k.a. black and white thinking.  You view yourself, the world, or others in absolute categories, they are either one way or another with no middle ground.  Perfectionism is an all or nothing trap.  This is like a circle split in half one side black, other white instead of the healthy yin/yang symbol which has a dot of black in the white and a dot of white in the black. 
2. Overgeneralizing: You take one event and take it to mean a never-ending pattern of defeat.  If you don’t get a job after an interview then you say, “I’ll never get a job”, or after a fight with your spouse you think your marriage totally stinks.  This is like putting a single drop of ink into a glass of water, and it makes the whole glass grayish- it’s only a single drop (event) but you’ve let it affect the whole thing.   
3. Mental Filter: You only look at the negatives and ignore all the positives.  This is the opposite of “rose colored glasses” where you can’t see anything wrong on someone you love.  In this distortion you only see the bad in yourself, or the world, or others.  Like wearing dark mean sunglasses. 
4. Discounting the Positives:  You insist the positives in your life or your accomplishments really don’t matter.  I call this distortion the “this old thing?” distortion.  It’s when someone gives you a compliment on the shirt you are wearing and you say “This old thing?  It’s been in my closet for years.”  You’ve just discounted a compliment.  If someone gives you a compliment, just say “thank you” and be quiet.
5. Labeling: You use a label for a person (yourself or another) instead of for a behavior.  You say, “I’m a jerk”, “He’s a loser”, “She’s a failure”, rather than talking about the event or behavior.  Like the person is wearing a bar code on their forehead and that is all they are.  Think of it this way- if a child throws a ball through a window, is it healthier to call them “stupid” or to talk to them about throwing the ball through the window?  Most people and child specialists agree to focus on the behavior for a healthy child.  If we can agree to do this with a child, we can do this with ourselves and other adults- focus on behavior, label the behavior if you must. 
6. Jumping to Conclusions: You conclude things are bad without evidence, there are two types.  Mind Reading: You assume people are negative toward you.  Example: you walk into a room of people, the sound level goes down as people turn to look, you assume they were all just talking dirt about you.  The reality is, when someone walks into a room, people just naturally turn to look who came in!  You know the old saying about “ass-u-me.” 
   Fortune Telling: You assume events will turn out badly.  It’s like you think you have a crystal ball, so you tell yourself you won’t enjoy the family get together.  Here’s the ironic part; you are so sure you won’t enjoy it, that when you get there, you stand in the corner with such a puss on your face, and no one wants to talk to you because of it.  You have a terrible time, but you caused it! 
7. Magnification & Minimization: You either blow it out of importance or play down the real importance of something.  Most recognize magnifying- making a mountain out of a molehill.  Minimizing is where you take something important and say it isn’t.  People minimize the importance of their illness or stresses, “It’s only worry, everyone deals with stress”.  They minimize their positives, “anyone could do that.”  Alcoholics and addicts minimize the effects of their use or their use; “it’s only pot” or “I never lost my job”.
8. “Should” statements: You judge yourself and others by using words like “have to”, “must”, “ought to”, “should”, “need to”.  These all or nothing words leave no room for choice and judge the person (or yourself) badly if they don’t follow the rule outlined.  Don’t “should” on yourself or others (hence the picture of a toilet). 
9. Blame: This is the shaking finger.  You either take on all responsibility for something you weren’t entirely responsible for, or you blame others totally and overlook the ways you might have contributed to the problem.  It is important to realize most problems have internal (you) and external (world, event, and others) contributing factors.  
10. Emotional Reasoning: Here you reason from your feelings (which aren’t always reasonable).  Example, “I feel stupid; therefore, I must be stupid.”  It’s like looking into a mirror and seeing what’s in your heart and believing that’s the truth of the world.  Stick to talking about the feeling as an emotion, not the fact of the world

As you can see, distortions are about extremes, and often they blend into each other.  When you are distorted, you don’t recognize a middle ground or that there can even be a middle ground.  Because of this you are unwilling to negotiate in your thinking let alone in action.  You take your idea to an extreme because you are holding so tightly to it.  Let it go and take off your blinders.
   
The first step in challenging these distortions is recognizing they are happening.  So your courageous work and this week's relationship resolution is to identify each time you are slipping into a distorted form of thinking.  Recognize the extreme, and then chose if you want to continue to muck up your life with it.  Try to think in a different more neutral way.   

And enjoy using my silly drawings to help you remember the distortions!

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by the way, notice this was another awesome alliteration?