Attracting even more negativity
When we are in an unfavorable state and hold negative thoughts in our heads, by default we cannot change our life and attract other people, circumstances, events, moods, etc. into it, except negative ones. In this mood, we ourselves contribute to something going wrong. The longer a person stays in the vicious circle of his negative thoughts, the longer this circle will be closed.
Check for negative thinking: self-diagnosis
Various tests are used for diagnosis. A typical questionnaire includes a group of standard questions:
- Do you like changes in life? Are you ready for them?
- Do you like learning something new?
- Are you impulsive?
- Do you get along with people easily?
- Do you want your life to become better?
- In a situation or person, do you see the negative first, then the positive, or vice versa?
- Do you often indulge in melancholy?
- Are you overcome by sad memories?
- Do you assess the future rather positively or vice versa?
The wording, as well as the number of questions, may vary. But not much. This is enough for diagnosis. The results of the test for negative and positive thinking are deciphered by a specialist.
A bad influence on others
If you are essentially worried (due to some serious problem or due to an internal conflict), this is normal. It is important not to get stuck in this state and not feed yourself with negative emotions and thoughts for a long time. Because if your bad mood lasts a week or more, whether you like it or not, it affects your loved ones, friends, colleagues. And believe me, this is not at all what they would like to receive from communicating with you. But no one canceled empathy and support, of course. Just don't let negative thoughts rule your life.
Benefits of Positive Thinking
Positive thinking is based on the search for personal benefit in everything that surrounds a person. Such people do not stop after an unsuccessful attempt, trying to achieve their goal. This is the key point that differentiates this thinking from negative thinking.
By acquiring positive thinking skills, you will get rid of fears and complexes, get to know the world around you in all its diversity, meet new interesting people, and also be able to qualitatively improve your life and overcome negative thinking.
Most importantly, by learning to think positively, you will be able to find positive moments in failures, as well as gain experience from negative life situations.
The world around is becoming terrible
If you view life, work and family through a negative lens, everything will actually become negative. You can ruin relationships with loved ones, lose your job, get sick, etc. You may even feel resentful towards those who are positive towards you. And eventually you will start to see blame in everything, and then everyone. This leads to a very dangerous state of passivity, inaction and aggressive behavior. Negative emotions affect not only mood, but also thought processes and physical well-being.
Prevention
Fighting negative thinking is more difficult than preventing it from developing. It is not always possible to deal with a problem at its root, nor with its source. But there are still some methods:
- If the climate in the family is unfavorable, it is worth going on an “independent swim” as quickly as possible. Toxic people, including relatives, are unlikely to change. This means that circumstances need to change.
- You should not communicate with toxic people.
- It is important to look for your strengths and focus on them. Real achievements are the best assistant in the fight for your “I”.
- You need to respect yourself. Through thick and thin. Always.
- Mistakes and failures are a natural part of life. This is an indicator of development. Don't forget.
- Mental disorders need to be treated. Depression does not go away on its own, it only gets worse. Psychotherapy will be required.
These simple practical tips will help you keep your emotional and mental status normal.
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The appearance of stress symptoms
The thalamus is the part of the brain that is responsible for transmitting sensory and motor information to the rest of the body. But he does not distinguish negative thoughts from real danger. That's why, when you have a negative mood for a long time, you may experience stress symptoms such as increased heart rate, breathing, increased blood pressure, sweating and a state of overexcitement. Negative thoughts affect the brain, causing the same reaction as stress. Chronic stress affects physical condition and is bad for health.
Exercise to develop creative thinking
Develop creative thinking. Try a simple exercise.
Assignment: imagine in front of you the most ordinary brick, white or red. Now write down on paper ten ways to use it in non-standard ways. What else can a simple brick be useful for, other than for construction? Write any answers that come to your mind.
Example answers: you can sell it, you can sit it, you can put it under a car wheel, use it for self-defense...
General goal: In the future, also reflect on any negative situation that has happened or may happen in your life. Ask yourself: what benefits will I get from failure in this case? Over time, you will learn to find positives in seemingly completely negative situations, which will help you avoid negative thinking.
Comment: instead of a brick, you can use any object that catches your eye for the exercise.
Do sports and yoga. Active sports will help you throw out suppressed aggression and negative emotions. Yoga promotes deep relaxation and healing of the body. Any physical exercise gives us a good mood and a boost of vitality. Try to be outdoors more often, in the fresh air. The contemplation of flowing water, the feeling of a warm breeze and the sounds of birds singing heal the soul no worse than psychotherapy. Try to combine walks in nature with deep, relaxed breathing. Active life as a way to combat negative thinking.
Learn to sincerely forgive. Perhaps your negative thinking is due to bad events from the past. For example, if a child once embarrassed himself in public and was ridiculed, he may grow up to be a withdrawn and unsociable person. Choose a time when no one will disturb you, remember the traumatic experience again. It can be helpful to write a letter to the offender in which you tell them all your feelings. If you want to cry, do it to your heart's content. Imagine how resentment leaves your body along with tears. At the end of the exercise, the letter can be burned and the ashes symbolically scattered to the wind. If you have been sincere with yourself, after this exercise you will feel freedom and lightness. This will be a way to get rid of negative thinking.
If you are worried about something, do it to the maximum! In foreign psychological practice, there was a case when a man came to a psychotherapist who considered himself... a giraffe. He did not have any mental disorders, but nevertheless, the unfortunate man could not rationally explain why he felt this way. The psychotherapist used a trick, telling the client “in secret” that all people are actually giraffes, it’s just that no one has the courage to admit it. As a result, the man felt understood and calmed down, his life improved. Based on this example, you can take your experiences to the most absurd form in order to eventually laugh and restore inner peace. It's good to have someone nearby who will laugh with you.
What's wrong with catastrophic thinking?
Some believe that this is an absolutely normal reaction and that it is generally better to play it safe than to miss something important and get into trouble. There is logic in such reasoning. Indeed, the tendency to catastrophize can make a person more vigilant, teach him, say, to use applications that show the location of family members using GPS, or to carefully read papers before transferring money somewhere.
But we should not forget that catastrophic thinking is not entirely harmless.
It spoils the mood
Calling morgues and hospitals, swallowing a sedative and vividly imagining how a loved one was smeared on the asphalt just because he did not answer a couple of calls and messages is a very dubious pleasure.
No one likes to experience this and waste hours of their life in horror, anxiety and foreboding.
It leads to depression
Psychotherapist David Burns calls catastrophizing one of ten cognitive distortions that are responsible for depressed mood and depressive disorders.
From the point of view of the cognitive behavioral approach, it is negatively colored thoughts and the cognitive distortions that they give rise to that lead to depression.
What is catastrophic thinking
This is a cognitive distortion that causes us to greatly exaggerate any negative events in our lives. Or not even the events themselves, but some faint hints and probabilities.
Cognitive-behavioral psychotherapist David Burns, author of the book “Mood Therapy. A Clinically Proven Way to Beat Depression Without Pills,” calls catastrophizing the “binocular effect” because the person who is prone to it blows things out of proportion.
Danielle Friedman, who advises on mental health issues, considers catastrophizing a form of distorted thinking that is not based in objective reality. The consultant believes that there are two types of catastrophic thinking.
Present-oriented
Then it seems to us that something terrible is happening in our lives right now, although we have no clear evidence of this.
Did your loved one not answer the call? He probably had an accident and died. Was your teenage son rude? He's definitely on drugs, aggression is one of the signs.
Future-oriented
In this case, we are sure that disaster will happen later.
Did the plane shake in the air? The engine has failed and we are about to fall and be killed. Did the manager make a remark? He'll fire me soon, I can pack my things.
Remember the fairy tale about smart Elsa? She went down to the basement, saw a hoe on the wall and very vividly imagined how this hoe would fall and kill her unborn child, who would go down to the basement in the same way. This is a classic example of future-oriented catastrophization.
Causes
In order to know how to overcome despair and hopelessness, you need to figure out where this destructive and harmful way of perception comes from. There are several reasons for the formation of negative thinking. All of them deserve detailed consideration, in order to gradually change the attitude towards them.
Vivid negative experience
If an individual constantly encounters failures, then this imprint is imposed on other events in his head and begins to influence the perception of all occurring phenomena. When we are constantly unlucky, we have to make extra efforts in order not to despair and not lose our way. Some people withdraw into themselves and no longer want to make any attempts at self-realization. A vivid negative experience opens your eyes to what is happening, helps you free yourself from illusions, and sometimes even deprives you of the necessary hope. In this case, you have to really help yourself get out of this depressing state. But not everyone knows how to deal with difficult feelings.
Fears
A person overwhelmed by negative doubts cannot remain fully happy. He is constantly under the gun of his own experiences, which sometimes grow like a snowball. If we are driven by fears, then pleasant impressions do not linger in the mind: they simply have nowhere to come from. Immersed in frightening thoughts, an individual can replay in his head many times all the things he would like to avoid. Of course, this approach to life does not bring satisfaction. There are even more self-doubts, even more fears about the future. Guided solely by fears, we get used to driving ourselves into rigid boundaries, and then we cannot get out of them without getting hurt, without losing faith and hope.
Excellent student syndrome
A condition that occurs in people who are accustomed to always receiving the approval of others in everything. And if at some point something starts to go wrong, despair sets in, a feeling of hopelessness develops, a feeling of being unable to cope with the next obstacle. If something cannot be achieved the first time, the individual gives up and stops making any attempts to correct the current situation. The depressing situation often does not change for years, causing a whole storm of negative impressions. Excellent student syndrome is not a useful thing at all, since it largely harms the perception of reality. After all, if we stop struggling with difficulties, we will never learn to overcome significant obstacles.
Expectation of failure
If an individual constantly focuses only on bad thoughts, it becomes difficult for him to make plans for the future. This is because you have to overcome too much, worry too much about the past and present. The fact is that the expectation of failure already attracts it to some extent. The person does not allow himself to relax because he is constantly focused on experiencing negative events. To overcome despair and depression, you will have to learn to think differently. You need to open your soul and stop being afraid of the future.
How to stop catastrophizing
Unfortunately, almost no one succeeds in simply giving up, thinking about the good and not stressing themselves out, as all-knowing experts on social networks like to advise. But if catastrophic thinking is getting in the way of your life, there are several ways to get it under control.
Change the wording
David Burns, in his book “Mood Therapy,” suggests writing down the automatic thoughts that arise in your head in response to a particular stimulus, examining them under a magnifying glass, looking for cognitive distortions in them, and ultimately coming up with more logical and calm formulations.
Here is an example of such analysis.
Thought: “I’m good for nothing and will never find a good job.” Where it came from: “Several good companies rejected my applications.”
What cognitive distortions are there: catastrophizing, self-devaluation.
Answer: “I haven’t been able to find a job yet, and that’s sad. But this does not mean that I am a failure and that they will not take me anywhere. Perhaps I need to be patient, because even very good candidates are rejected from time to time. Or perhaps it’s worth looking at my skills and thinking about what I lack for a good position and salary.”
If you methodically work like this with every thought that poisons your existence, after some time you will learn to think more realistically and constructively.
Use the "best friend test"
Ask yourself: what would you say to a loved one if he were in your place and suffering from anxiety. Most likely, you would appeal to logic and facts and try to gently convince him that there is no reason to worry. Now try saying the same thing to yourself.
Make time for worries
Give yourself, say, 30 minutes a day when you are officially allowed to worry and stew in your fears. During this time, try to look at what scares you from all sides. Analyze how rational this fear is, perhaps write down your thoughts. When the time is up, switch to work or other things.
Take a break
As soon as an alarming thought creeps into your brain and pushes you, for example, to search the Internet for symptoms of fatal diseases, tell yourself that you need to wait a little. At least a couple of minutes. During this time, do a breathing exercise, walk, drink tea.
Each time, try to increase the time between impulse and action. If you manage to hold out for 20–30 minutes, the panic will disappear, and the thought that caused it will no longer seem so scary.
See a Psychotherapist
If you can’t cope on your own and it’s hard for you, be sure to look for a competent specialist who can help you. Take a special look at those who follow a cognitive-behavioral approach to their work. It is considered Catastrophizing: What You Need to Know to Stop Worrying to be effective against catastrophizing and other similar cognitive distortions.
Our minds are beautiful
Thoughts can be bright, beautiful and helpful at times, and dangerous at other times. Navigating their labyrinths is like navigating a minefield or walking a tightrope.
Our mind is a powerful tool and we use it, along with inspiration and intuition, to create. This is a wonderful quality of the mind when it works for good. Our mind is also critical and analytical, and can direct our attention to identify the causes of fear, which helps us identify the real, immediate danger. As a rule, life experience and inner instinct help clarify such situations. At such moments, feelings, instincts and reason act together.
Distinguishing real from false fear can be very difficult. To do this, we must tune in and really “listen” to our inner leader. Which, coupled with a clear assessment of the current situation and an appeal to logic, will help us figure out whether we are really in a dangerous situation or whether scary and negative thoughts are coming into our heads that have no real reason or purpose.
Forgiveness meditation (video)
Forgiveness meditation helps me get rid of negative thoughts best. I often practice it if I feel that something is throwing me off balance and causing negativity. I advise you to try it too. I talk about how I practice forgiveness meditation in this video.
The ability to manage destructive thinking and knowledge of the reasons for the appearance of bad thoughts will help anyone who experiences anxiety to get out of negativity and find a state of calm and happiness.
