Challenging your thoughts!
Hey all!
Challenging your thoughts can be one of the most helpful and strongest tools to have in your coping skill/mental health toolbox!!
Challenging your thoughts is taking an irrational thought you may have/had, and rationalizing it and challenging whatever negative things it is saying!
For example, if I were to have the thought "I am not good enough" I would do my best to immediately recognize that that is an extreme and irrational thought. I would challenge it with other thoughts like "others tell me i am good enough / I do my best every day / my best is enough / I hold too high of expectations for myself / I need to be kind to myself"
Even if you don't believe it, that's okay! It can be hard to believe things like that when your brain has always been telling you negative things about yourself! You have to try to get into the rational part of you, the "what the heck that is not true" part of you!!
Another great way to help practice this is when you aren't even necessarily in a bad moment. If you're feeling neutral or good, you can take a journal and write down a negative thought you have had, and write down other thoughts to challenge it!
Make sure y'all are taking care of yourselves!!
QOTFT: What is one positive thing y'all will do for yourselves this week??
(question of the forum thread cx )
I started reading a book called The Subtle Art of Not Giving a ... (blank) by Mark Manson. Yes, there is a lot of profanity in that book, but the author uses it well to get his points across.
Recently, I had to let go of a friendship that started out being promising and all that but it turned out my so-called friend was lying and being emotionally manipulative and emotionally abusive to me. I decided that (1) I need to get out there and find better, more worthwhile friends and (2) NOT try to reach out to that guy because if I do so, I will just end up in a Feedback Loop from Hell (as the author puts it) where I get down on myself because I would worry too much about what he thought of me, hence compounding my feelings of anxiety and depression.
