Automatic thoughts - A way to record, rationalize and replace negative thoughts.

Have you ever had thoughts that made you feel stuck, maybe overwhelmed? Thoughts that started an explosion of more thoughts to the point that you couldn't bear it anymore?

I tell you a little secret: I have them too. And this thoughts don't come from nowhere. They happen because of our past experiences, our beliefs, our moods or health condition. When we are sick we can be prone to more negative thinking.

There are different types of automatic thoughts. Here are some of them:

Fortune telling:

I never played guitar, I will never learn it."

I don't want to go to the party, nobody will like me.

We can not tell the future for sure. Thinking like that will keep us from trying things and we might miss opportunities in life.

Mind reading:

The people in the chat didn't reply to me. They must hate me.

He is smiling at me, He is making fun of me.

We don't have mind reading skills. This are our thoughts and we are assuming things.

Emotional reasoning:

I feel bad therefore I am a bad person."

I feel sad. Life is just sad."

Fairytale thinking:

I never should feel sad. Life is aweful."

I must deal with everything on my own. I'm a failure if I can't."

Catastrophizing:

If I mess up my presentation I will never get a chance to fix it and everybody will hate me forever."

If I get an C on my exam, I will never be able to finish my college, since must be

dumb.

When these thoughts come up we have to remind ourselves that thoughts are not facts and feelings are neither.

So we have to challenge our thoughts and do the following 3 steps:

Step 1 record thoughts:

We record the event that triggered our negative thinking and what thoughts came up.

Step 2 rationalize thoughts:

For every thought we look for evidence (positive and negative). So we can balance and rationalize our thoughts and put them into perspective.

Step 3: replace negative thoughts:

After we rationalized our thoughts we replace them with comforting, helpful and kind thoughts.

Here an example:

Nobody ever understands me. I can't stand this. I want to sh again. I didn't sh for a week, I am a failure.

Record:

I am feeling sad and overwhelmed. I tried to tell my parent but they said I should be grateful and happy for my life. It hurt so much my parent did not understand that I'm sad. I want to sh to feel better again. I am a failure that I want to sh again.

Rationalize:

I am feeling sad and overwhelmed at the moment. It's normal to feel sad when sad things happen. I'm not sad all the time.

I tried to talk to my parent about my sadness. They tried to cheer me up by reminding me of things that they think I should be grateful and happy about. I want to sh again but I managed to be sh-free for a week. I can do this again.

Replace thoughts:

It's normal that I'm sad but I'm not sad always. There are better times ahead. I can call my friend and tell them how I feel. They listen and understand me. I can try other things before I sh again. I might feel better then.

Maybe you want to try this too. You find a template at this link: https://www.get.gg/docs/ThoughtRecordSheet7.pdf

#selfharm #recovery #simplesteps

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