Learning about cognitive distortions

Hi everyone! I hope you are doing well. Did you know not everything we think is actually true? I know, shocking! But it turns out that is the case. However, it does not stop us from believing everything we think. According to the National Science Foundation, 80% of our thoughts are negative and 95% of our thoughts are repetitive. If we are thinking negatively so often, we must equip ourselves with tools to help weed out the thoughts that are not true.

This brings up the topic of cognitive distortions. Harvard Health describes them as ‘Internal mental filters or biases that increase our misery, fuel our anxiety, and make us feel bad about ourselves’ Examples of these distortions:

• Everyone hates me

• Everything sucks

• I will for sure fail this test

• Life will never get better

• This always happens

• I can never resort to anything

There are many distortions but they all have one thing in common, they magnify the worst, minimize your ability to deal with negative outcomes, and make you feel pessimistic. Everyone falls victim to them but some of us more than others. But how do you save yourself when you don’t know what they are? That is why if your life feels all negative, if your days feel only gloomy, or if you feel no hope, it's worth following along with this post series and identifying these distortions to improve the quality of your life.

I will be making a series of posts addressing one distortion at a time, hopefully once a week. What we will do is look at one distortion at a time, notice it in our thoughts and slowly cultivate the habit of challenging negative thoughts with more realistic less flawed thoughts.

If you wish to be tagged in the posts, please fill out this form.

Series now open for participation. Complete all prompts given in the posts and submit the series evaluation form to earn a certificate. The deadline is January 12, 2025. 

All the posts made so far are linked below:

1. Catastrophizing 
2. Mind Reading
3. Black-and-white thinking 
4. Personalization
5. Emotional Reasoning
6. Fallacy of Change
7. Comparison
8. Labeling
9. Should statements
10. Mental Filtering 
11. Series eval form