Reframing Negative Thoughts 💜
Hello everyone! Today I wanted to talk a bit about challenging and reframing our negative thinking. Negative thoughts often come quickly, before we are able to assess and question them. Cognitive distortions are inaccurate, negative thoughts that cause the person experiencing them distress. To be able to challenge our negative thoughts, it’s important to understand some of the different types of them. Let’s take a look at five common cognitive distortions:
🌸 Personalization: Blaming yourself for a situation you are not personally responsible for.
🌙 Example: “I was late to the party, which caused everyone to have a bad time.”
How would we reframe this thought? When we take a look at it, we see that the person uses the word “caused.” They are taking the blame for the attitude of the party’s guests.
💌 Reframed thought: “I had fun with my friends for the 30 minutes that I was there, and they were happy that I showed up.”
🌸 All-or-nothing thinking: Seeing situations in the extremes. Also known as black or white thinking.
🌙 Example: “Things will never get better. I am always upset.”
Looking at this example, the words “never” and “always” show evidence of this being all-or-nothing thinking. Take some time to ask yourself if you have been pushing yourself and setting the expectations you have for yourself too high.
💌 Reframed thought: “Nobody is happy all of the time. My emotions are always fluctuating.”
🌸 Jumping to conclusions: Assuming the outcome of a situation before it happens, often without evidence.
🌙 Example: “I am going to fail this math test next week. I am so unprepared!”
This thought is predicting the outcome of a future event. The test is next week, which means this person has time to prepare.
💌 Reframed thought: “I can balance my time this week so that I am able to study for my math test as well as take care of my own mental health. I have time to prepare.”
🌸 Mind reading: Assuming what others are thinking/how others feel about us or a situation.
🌙 Example: “My friends think that I’m a burden when I open up to them about how I’m feeling.”
The person experiencing this thought may be fearful of being a burden, but their friends have not given them any reason to feel this way.
It’s important to ask ourselves what evidence we have been given to believe that the other person/people feel this way. What has this friend said to them when they ask for support? How does this friend act around them?
💌 Reframed thought: “When I open up to my friends, they listen to me and support me because they care about me.”
🌸 Catastrophizing: Expecting the worst, exaggerating the situation without evidence.
🌙 Example: “If I fail this test, I won’t pass this class and I’ll fail school.”
If this person is fearful about taking their test, they may think of the worst possible outcome, which is failing, and then the worst possible outcome which could come out of failing, which is failing the class. Notice how the thought just spirals out of control?
💌 Reframed thought: “I didn’t study very hard for this test, but it is only one test out of the semester. I will study harder next time to get my grade back up.”
Questions to ask yourself when you encounter a negative thought:
➡️ “Who do I have in my support system that I can talk to when I am experiencing a negative thought?”
➡️ “What are some coping skills that have helped me in the past that I can do independently? With others?”
➡️ “When do I experience negative thoughts most often? Is there a particular time of day or person I’m around when they are the most frequent?”
➡️ “How have I been managing my time recently? Have I been taking time for self-care?”
➡️ “When I start to experience a negative thought, how can I remember to work on reframing it?”
These are only five of the common types of negative thoughts! There are many more. Here are some resources to learn more about negative thinking (all clickable links):
15 Common cognitive distortions
Reframing cognitive distortions
What are cognitive distortions and how do we reframe them?
Thank you all so much for reading through this post! Learning about the different types of negative thinking can help us reframe our own thoughts as well as help support others dealing with their own negative thoughts.
Tags: @LoveLilly @emmaishereforyou88 @calmingMermaid5761 @DreamTouch @shiningSky3745 @optimisticMagic0014 @ALovelyFriend @AnnaListens06
@fairyava
An amazing well written thorough post Ava! Thank you so much for tagging me🧡
@AnnaListens06 Thank you for reading Anna 
Thank you for providing insight to this, Ava!
It is very informative to all. So proud of you. 😃♥️ Jumping to a conclusion can be devastating if the actual outcome to it is totally something else. If you put a negative thought in your mindset, you most likely will get that result, sadly.
(This post was written on app so it'll be horrible, I am sorry.) I'd suggest the following: 😃😜
1.) Have a god set of friends, it's hard to face fact that you'll need a new friend.
2.) Have friends who're aware of self-esteem and self-confidence, as those two are likely to weigh you down. People who know about that can really help.
3.) Coping skills would include the following: having a schedule, set a decent amount of time for studying per day, have a after school routine, get a decent amount of sleep, and stuff like that.
4.) Maybe you could look into positive outlets? Watching TEDx and some other Interesting, and motivational things may help.
5.) Self-care is super important. Break your day into set blocks.
6.) Remember things in the past that you did very well in and it may bring back happy memories! 🎉
Thanks for the post, @fairyava 😃 Loved it!
@optimisticMagic0014 These are all amazing, having a set schedule/routine definitely helps me, thank you for adding that! 
@fairyava
Thank you! You're awesome, keep it up!!
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wow such an informative and important topic! thank you for making this and it’s very well written! i love the questions at the end as well and this post will definitely help a lot of people ❤️
@emmaishereforyou88 Thank you for taking the time to read it Emma!
@fairyava
Great post Ava
I really love it and information you provided in it :D
@shiningSky3745 Glad you enjoyed reading it Sky thank you!
Great post Ava! loved the examples and the way it's laid out! extremely interesting!
@thisisirene Awh thank you so much Irene!
Sometimes it's hard to let go negativity
@placidIdea4691 Absolutely! Reframing our negative thoughts is extremely difficult, especially when you've been dealing with the same negative thought patterns for a while. I'm here for you! :)
I needed this today:)
@braveTiger8098 I'm so glad this could help
What a great post, @fairyava! Thank you for creating such a good, easy to comprehend resource! I bet this will be really useful to plenty of people in our community.
Knowing cognitive biases and how to respond to them makes a great difference in battling depressive states and negative thinking. All the best to you! ^^
@Celaeno Absolutely. Understanding the different ways you might have a negative thought can help you overcome them! Thanks for reading!
I am such a mind reader! I do it all the time, especially to my family. A while ago, I heard they found me immature and taxing to talk to, so I don’t call them unless it’s a scheduled family Zoom call. Besides, they all have others in the house or are very busy socially (while self quarantining). It’s hard to hear their tones of voice when they find out it’s me on the phone. I’m probably projecting the “oh, not HER again” thought. At least I recognize what’s happening. Thanks for listening.
@ImANeurotic1965 I'm so proud of you for recognizing which cognitive distortion you deal with the most! Thank you for sharing that with us here.
I’m currently working on my catastrophizing thoughts with my therapist. It’s something I have done for years and no one has ever called me out on it before. I just thought it was normal to think that way and it is for me but we are working on recognizing it and how to keep it from spiraling. It makes so much sense now that it’s been brought to my attention. I have issues with the other cognitive distortions too but this is the first one we are working on. I have been in and out of therapy for 20 years and the therapist on 7 cups is the first to pick up on this. Amazing. It’s so weird to think that our negative thoughts and emotions actually bring about negative results
@Bellabug I totally get that. Having these thoughts for years and thinking they're normal is completely common. I'm so happy the therapist you're talking with on 7cups is helping you understand these negative thinking patterns. Best of luck!
