The more we have on our plate, the easier it is to become harder on ourselves. As the summer ends, half-day work Fridays wind down, and the school year starts up, we see our schedules start to fill up. The demands on our time increase, and so does the pressure we place on ourselves to show up in every domain of life. It’s easy for someone to say, “Don’t be so hard on yourself, you can’t do everything,” but…how do we do that? 

This is a key that no therapist, doctor, or medication taught me. It’s a tool to help you understand exactly where, how, and why our thoughts can do a disservice to ourselves. These mechanisms are called cognitive distortions. 

Here’s how they work:

While we always experience automatic thoughts in response to events, which lead to emotions and behaviors, what’s in those automatic thoughts represents our core beliefs about ourselves, others, and the world. So, if negative core beliefs are activated and negative automatic thoughts arise due to errors in reasoning that aren’t based on logic, then a negative, neutral or even positive event may cause us to feel a negative emotion and trigger associated behaviors (Rnick et al., 2016). 

There are 14 types of cognitive distortions: 

1. Catastrophizing: “What if the worst happens?” Over-exaggerating. Believing in the worst-case scenario of any situation. Thinking something is extremely unbearable or impossible when it actually isn’t that bad.
2. All-or-Nothing Thinking: “I am a total failure.” Thinking in black or white thinking and extremes as absolutes. A person with all-or-nothing thinking may believe that they need to be perfect, and any slight deviation from that means they’re a complete failure. This type of thinking lacks any nuance or middle ground.
3. Emotional Reasoning: “I feel this way, so it must be true.” Believing that if you feel something is true, it must be true.
4. Magnification of the Negative: “I totally ruined everything.” Putting greater emphasis on possible failures, weaknesses, or threats. Exaggerating the importance of negative events over more positive ones.
5. Minimization of the Positive: “They didn’t really mean that.” Putting lesser emphasis on possible success, strength, or opportunity. Minimizing the importance of positive events and focusing more on negative ones.
6. Jumping to Conclusions: “She didn’t say hi, so she hates me.” Reaching a hasty conclusion or judging something with little to no evidence. A person who jumps to conclusions may believe that they know what others are thinking and feeling.
7. Fortune Telling: “I’ll fail my exam.” Predicting a negative outcome before the event happens and without sufficient or adequate evidence.
8. Mind Reading: “He doesn’t want to talk to me.” Assuming another person’s thoughts or beliefs. Interpreting another person’s thoughts or feelings without sufficient or adequate evidence.
9. Self-Blaming: “This is my fault.” Blaming yourself or thinking you’re personally responsible for a situation that you have little or no control over. A person who blames themselves may see any negative situation as a direct consequence of their perceived incompetence. Personalization may lead to feelings of guilt, shame, and inadequacy.
10. Other Blaming: “This is their fault.” Blaming others or holding other people responsible for things done to you that they may have had little or no control over. A person who blames others may see certain negative situations as entirely the fault of others and overlook ways in which they are contributing to the problem.
11. Filtering Out Positives: “Nothing good happened today.” Only focusing on the negative aspects of an experience while ignoring the positives. A person who filters out the positive may focus only on information that confirms what they already believe in.
12. Overgeneralizing: “Everyone dislikes me.” Making a very broad conclusion based on one event or taking one situation and expecting the same result to happen in all future situations. A person who overgeneralizes may view one or a few pleasant or unpleasant incidents as a never-ending pattern of defeat.
13. Labeling: “I’m a loser.” Taking one characteristic of a person and applying it to the whole person. Attributing a person’s behaviors to their character or personality rather than thinking it’s temporary or just for one event. A person who labels takes all-or-nothing thinking to an extreme level, where, in addition to blaming oneself or others, they will also attach a negative label to the person.
14. Should Or Must Statements: “I should have done this.” Thinking that you are obligated to behave, act, or feel a certain way. Believing that things have to be a certain way. These usually involve should or must statements.

The key to changing our inner voice, which can increase our self-esteem and self-worth is by tearing down these cognitive distortions. The way that we could do that is by restructuring them and challenging them with evidence, just like lawyers.

Here’s a series of questions you can use to help work through cognitive distortions (Wenzel, 2017). You can do this in a written journal, or even on a note in your phone when you’re in a pinch. 

1. What’s going on now that’s stressing you out?
2. Are there any cognitive distortions that may be present in your current thought process? Can you identify the specific fear is driving this distortion?
3. Take a second to zoom out of your current perspective.
   1. What are all of the counter-evidence and facts that disprove the cognitive distortion?
   2. Are there aspects of this situation that I’m not seeing?
   3. Is there a middle ground or gray area that I’m rejecting?
   4. Is it realistic to hold myself to these expectations?
   5. Would somebody else also arrive at the same conclusion?
   6. What’s the overall effect of how I’m thinking?
4. Using the counter evidence, how could you look at the situation in a different way?
5. How do you feel now? 

Sometimes, we’re too distressed to even do an exercise like this. In those situations, the first step is to down-regulate, using strategies like breathwork to help us feel safe enough in our bodies to use our prefrontal cortex for higher level cognition work like this. If you haven’t tried out breathwork yet, come check out one of our upcoming events. 

If there was any improvement in how you feel, celebrate that you just self soothed! If you still don’t feel better, don’t worry. Try repeating the exercise, talking to someone like a therapist who will help you provide even stronger evidence to counter the cognitive distortions, or using a different emotional coping technique. There’s a great app called Clarity CBT that walks you through this exact exercise. The app asks you how you’re feeling, cognitive distortions might be present, and then what evidence there is to counter these thoughts.

References

Rnic, K., Dozois, D. J., & Martin, R. A. (2016). Cognitive Distortions, Humor Styles, and Depression. Europe’s journal of psychology, 12(3), 348–362. https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v12i3.1118

Wenzel A. (2017). Basic Strategies of Cognitive Behavioral Therapy. The Psychiatric clinics of North America, 40(4), 597–609. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.psc.2017.07.001