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. Deadline is November 30, 2024.
All the posts made so far are linked below:
- Catastrophizing
- Mind Reading
- Black-and-white thinking
- Personalization
- Emotional Reasoning
- Fallacy of Change
- Comparison
- Labeling
- Should statements
- Mental Filtering
- Series eval form
@Hope
Looking forward to them! Submitted!😊
I read the Harvard article, very helpful. Hope these post will help as well.
Signed up! Can't wait!
So based on the meaning, we can also have positive cognitive distortions, for example, someone thinking everyone likes them but turns out no one does (aka delulu/delusional) because they have a high ego; so is it still positive even if in the long run might be negative?
@ty47
The word distortion means a fault in thinking. I don't believe we will classify your example as a positive distortion as it is covered under the original verbiage. Whether it pleases your ego or hurts your self-esteem, if the thought it self is faulty and not contributing to a healthy mindset then it maybe covered under cognitive distortions.
I've signed up!
Can't wait to see more!
✨
I’ve signed up! :3 I’m so excited for these! 💛
Great! Thanks a lot
@Hope
This is amazing! Looking forward to following along
@Hope 🥺 Thanks for this post