Speak Nicely To Yourself — Cognitive Distortions to Learn and Avoid

“What’s interesting (and also kind of reassuring), is that we all generally exaggerate negative events similarly — and these irrational thought patterns have been broken down into a list by experts and stiffly labelled cognitive distortions.

What are cognitive distortions?

Cognitive distortions are just mental filters that bias our thoughts. They lead to faulty thinking which makes you view experiences more negatively than they are.

So what? What does having their names and descriptions give me?

Awareness. Once you can label something, you’re able to recognize it more quickly. And in the case of cognitive distortions, you can pause, take a breath and a step back, and course-correct your thinking before you lose yourself in aimless, negative emotion.

Depending on the sources you read, you’ll come across a list of 8–15 cognitive distortions as well as some related mental fallacies. Here’s a few.

1. Overgeneralization

You take an isolated negative event and view it as a never-ending pattern of defeat.

Example: You share an idea in a team meeting, and don’t get support to move forward with it. You leave the meeting thinking no one cares about you, no one likes your ideas, and you always say the wrong thing.

2. Filtering

You remove any and all positives in a situation, and instead, exclusively focus and dwell on the negative.

Example: You receive a performance review at work and your manager gives you a shining report, highlighting all your achievements. Your manager also shares a single area for improvement — and you leave the meeting feeling like a failure, focusing solely on that point.

3. Mind-reading

You jump to negative conclusions without any supporting evidence.

Example: Your coworker comes into the office looking serious and quiet. You jump to thinking they must be mad at you, and start to become defensive — when in reality, they’re just under-slept.

4. Catastrophizing

You fixate on the worst possible outcome in a situation (which can then spiral into other terrible outcomes) — even if it’s improbable.

Example: You are caught making a small, reversible mistake at work, and think this will cause people to lose respect for you, and ultimately lead to your dismissal, which will then lead to the loss of your mortgage and your house, and your stable family life.

5. Emotional Reasoning

You believe the way you feel is a reflection of reality. You reason from how you feel.

Example: You feel under-motivated by your current job which leads you to think you don’t fit in anywhere.

6. Labeling

You generalize a shortcoming and turn it into an absolute trait, either in yourself or others.

Example: You fail a job interview and label yourself a loser. A coworker doesn’t answer your question on time, and you label them useless.”

Read the full article on Medium.com

✨Takeaway: Simply recognizing these patterns and being aware of them could help in realigning your thoughts more often. it's valuable to consider your mental processes and make conscious corrections when you can.

✨Reflection: Do you have a tendency to speak negatively about yourself or an event? What kind of cognitive distortion do you tend to do?

#Self #Cognitive #Distortions #Self-Kindness #Psychology