Distorted Thinking

How we think can often be distorted or biased, and it often reflects past experiences rather than a mindful awareness of the current moment/reality.

Thus do not believe every though you have, because often your thinking mind will trick you. For example, anxiety may trick you into believing that you "can't handle it". Know that "I can't handle it" is just a thought. Often our thoughts are not based in the NOW and may not be true of the current moment or reality.

Examples of distorted or biased thinking:

• All-or-nothing thinking: seeing things as black or white, it’s all or nothing and there is no in between, no shades of grey. This often relates to perfectionism. See if you can try to see the shades of grey.

• Overgeneralization: tendency to see an isolated negative event as a never-ending pattern of negative events. Recognizing things as negative without evidence to support this thinking. This often causes people to live restricted lives because of beliefs of what they can/can’t do, do/don’t like. Try to see the world with no absolutes/generalizations.

• Filtering: screening out the positive/neutral information and only attending to the negative. Try to see the whole picture, and try not too keep reinforcing the negative.

• Under-focusing, Cyclical thinking, or Rumination: thinking of too many things at once, and thoughts just cycle around and around, but nothing actually gets done. Typically thoughts remind us of other thoughts, demands, or problems, which remind us of more… until we feel totally overwhelmed and confused. Try to use mindfulness skills and focus on only one thing at a time, and put the other reminders/demands/problems aside for another time.

• Disqualifying the Positive: Rejecting all the positives in life by minimizing them or believing they “don’t count”. Thus we hold onto the negatives no matter how many positives there may be. Try to see the positives in your life are at least as important as the negatives, because positives count too. For help on replaying the negative thoughts with positive thoughts see Positive Self Talk strategies.

• Mind Reading: You don’t have to ask how someone is feeling, what they are thinking, or why they did something, because you can read their mind/predict their thoughts. “She thinks I am a burden”. Mind reading tends to focus on the negative possibilities. Stay out of other peoples heads, you have enough going on in your’s. Remember you can’t ever really know whats in another person head, unless they clearly tell you.

• Catastrophizing or Worst-case scenario: Imagine/predict extreme horribly consequences that could happen as a result of one isolated and relatively small event. This causes the real event to become blown-up into something huge and scary, which is often very upsetting/stressful. When focused on worst-case/castastrophizing we are unable to cope with the real event. Be mindful and focus on the reality of the situation.

• Labelling: turning a temporary event into a fixed/permanent characteristic or trait. “The accident was my fault, I am a bad person”. Often we label ourselves as having a negative/flawed personal characteristic/trait that is permanent. Be mindful and focus on the event, and not the person.

• Emotional Reasoning: trying to “reason” from our emotional mind, and assuming that you emotions (scared, sad, angry) reflect things/situations as they really are. “I feel it, so it must be true”- “I am afraid to drive, so I should never drive again”. Emotions are influenced by our thinking and what we think is going on, is NOT what is really going on. Be mindful, see the feeling don’t be the feeling. Emotions are only meant to give you some information about how YOU are doing. Be aware that emotional reasoning is often illogical.

• Magnification and Minimization: exaggerating mistakes and other people’s successes; while, at the same time minimizing our own successes and other people’s mistakes. Why is it that we tend to be the hardest on ourselves and hold ourselves to a totally different standard than others. Try to have the same standards for yourself as you do for others. Be your own best friend.

• The Fortune-teller (similar to catastrophizing/worst-case scenario): predicting the future, and it always look’s negative. Anticipating that things will turn out badly, and we are convinced that our predictions are correct. The problem is this creates a self-fulfilling prophecy, and can make our predictions come true. Be mindful and stay in the present moment. Remember you do not have a crystal ball, you can't predict the future, thus the future is unknown.