If you go through your day-to-day life as a "half empty" person, you are most likely increasing your stress level without meaning to.
Stress occurs when you have the perception that your physical or mental well-being is in jeopardy, and you also have the perception that you do not have the resources to get yourself out of the situation.
I am not advocating a Pollyanna, rose-colored glasses approach to life. However, what you tell yourself, that internal monologue we all have, has an incredible impact on how you view events that happen in your life. For example, if you are in line in the grocery store and your line is moving the slowest, what is going through your mind?
"I always pick the slowest line! Why is it that every time I go out I waste so much time in line? Why can't I be a better judge of a situation? I can't win!"
We give ourselves messages like these all day long. An estimated 70 percent of what we encounter on a daily basis is negative and much of this is our internal dialogue. There are many different ways of turning situations into negative thoughts. Do you recognize yourself in any of these negative and distorted thought processes?
All or Nothing: See the example above. If something negative happens, you see yourself as a complete failure. Your thinking is very black or white. No gray for you!
Overgeneralization (one event becomes the truth): You see one negative event as evidence of a pattern of defeat. For example: a person cuts you off and pulls into the parking space you were going to use and you think, "This happens every time! People just don't care anymore. What is this world coming to? How can I function in a world like this?"
Mental Filter (your focus is always on the negative, you don't see the positive): You dwell on a single negative experience and are unable to see anything but that dark view. For example: You have a meeting with your boss and she discusses a comment you made during a conference call. Even though the rest of the meeting was spent praising your work, you ruminate for hours about her remark.
Disqualifying the positive (self-deprecation): You deny positive events, insisting they don't count. For example, your friend thanks you for helping her in a difficult situation by saying, "I didn't do anything special, anyone would have done that for you."
Jumping to conclusions (predicting the future): You jump to a negative conclusion without any evidence.
Mind Reading: You see a friend in the bank and they don't say hello to you; you assume that she/he is mad at you.
Fortune Telling: You know with certainty that a negative result is going to happen. For example, you decide not to apply a new position within your company because you know you'll never get it.
Magnification (catastrophic): You amplify the importance of a mistake or negative event. For example, you find a bruise you can't explain and assume you have a life-threatening illness.
Should Statements: Statements you make to yourself that contain the words ought, should or must.
Labeling and Mislabeling: Giving yourself a label based on an event. For example, you eat a candy bar and you say, "I'm such a pig." You miss an exit, "I'm such an idiot."
Personalization: You take responsibility for events, no matter what the situation is (GUILT). For example, your child has trouble in school and you are sure that it is due to your bad parenting.
Perfectionism: You expect yourself and others to perform without making mistakes. You become upset even if the mistake is understandable within the circumstances or without consequence.
Approval Seeking: Every person in your life must approve of whatever choices you make or actions you take. You consistently change what you do to achieve approval of others.
Self-Righteous: You expect that the people in your life (and even others) should do what you consider to be right. If they don't, they deserve to be punished.
Woe Is Me: You see yourself as the victim of the situation, no matter what the circumstances. You have no control in your life. For example, your computer crashes at work. You interpret this as a considerable tragedy that happened just to make your life worse and you know that you are not going to be able to get through this.
Reductionism: You are unable to see the complexities and possible positive outcomes of a stressful experience. You reduce the reasons for an event to one simple reason. For example: You pull a muscle during an exercise class and decide that it is the instructors fault even though you know you skipped your warm-up before class and used a larger weight today.
Fallacy of Fairness: You judge events in your life as unfair even when the events have nothing to do with justice. For example, you are not picked to be part of a five-person panel for a company you volunteer for. You decide the process was unfair, when in reality 25 people signed up and they took the first five.
Comparison: You continually compare yourself to other people in your life that leave you feeling either better or worse than they are. These comparisons often have no impact or merit in your life. For example, you compare your car to the cars others drive.
While these thought patterns are common - did you recognize yourself in several of the categories? - they can have a significant impact on your perception of a situation. And, your perception of an event is what is important. You can make a situation, which admittedly is negative but manageable, into an event that causes you to lose sleep or causes you to have that "feeling" in the pit of your stomach turn. Over the long term, these types of thoughts can contribute to low self-esteem and even physical problems as that "feeling" turns into a real life ulcer.
What can you do?
As with any other change you want to make in your life, changing your automatic thoughts will take time. The first step is awareness. Read over the list and keep the categories in mind over the next week. When you are in the middle of a stressful situation listen to your internal dialogue. See if the things you are thinking could be one of the above distortions.
As you are listening to the internal dialogue think about what you thinking: do I have evidence that it is really true? Am I exaggerating? Can I look at this in a different way? Do I know for a fact that this is really going to happen? Is it to my advantage to keep thinking in this way?
As you find that you can identify the thoughts that are negative, you can begin to counter the thoughts. Tell yourself that this is only one way to look at the situation. Concentrate on giving yourself a more positive view of the situation, one that isn't so personally damaging. You will begin to notice when you are in a cycle of negative thoughts. Consciously tell yourself to stop and reflect on what you are thinking.
As you practice stopping and redirecting your thinking you will find your perception of situations will change. You will find that negative events, while they still happen, won't affect you as much. You may even find yourself able to put yourself over into the "half full" side of the population!
Adapted in part from: Burns, D. 1990. Feeling Good: The New Mood Therapy. New York: New American Library Skills Training for Mind/Body Change, Mind/Body Medical Institute and Harvard Medical School Department of Continuing Education, December 2000.
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