The Ten Forms of Twisted Thinking




1. All-or-nothing thinking - You see things in black-or-white categories.
If a situation falls short of perfect, you see it as a total failure. When
a young woman on a diet ate a spoonful of ice cream, she told herself,
"I've blown my diet completely." This thought upset her so much that she
gobbled down an entire quart of ice cream.


2. Overgeneralization - You see a single negative event, such as a romantic
rejection or a career reversal, as a never-ending pattern of defeat by
using words such as "always" or "never" when you think about it. A
depressed salesman became terribly upset when he noticed bird dung on the
window of his car. He told himself, "Just my luck! Birds are always
crapping on my car!"


3. Mental Filter - You pick out a single negative detail and dwell on it
exclusively, so that your vision of reality becomes darkened, like the drop
of ink that discolors a beaker of water. Example: You receive many positive
comments about your presentation to a group of associates at work, but one
of them says something mildly critical. You obsess about his reaction for
days and ignore all the positive feedback.


4. Discounting the positive - You reject positive experiences by insisting
that they "don't count." If you do a good job, you may tell yourself that
it wasn't good enough or that anyone could have done as well. Discounting
the positives takes the joy out of life and makes you feel inadequate and
unrewarded.


5. Jumping to conclusions - You interpret things negatively when there are
no facts to support your conclusion.
Mind Reading : Without checking it out, you arbitrarily conclude that
someone is reacting negatively to you.


Fortune-telling : You predict that things will turn out badly. Before a
test you may tell yourself, "I'm really going to blow it. What if I flunk?"
If you're depressed you may tell yourself, "I'll never get better."


6. Magnification - You exaggerate the importance of your problems and
shortcomings, or you minimize the importance of your desirable qualities.
This is also called the "binocular trick."
7. Emotional Reasoning - You assume that your negative emotions necessarily
reflect the way things really are: "I feel terrified about going on
airplanes. It must be very dangerous to fly." Or, "I feel guilty. I must be
a rotten person." Or, "I feel angry. This proves that I'm being treated
unfairly." Or, "I feel so inferior. This means I'm a second rate person."
Or, "I feel hopeless. I must really be hopeless."


8. "Should" statements - You tell yourself that things should be the way
you hoped or expected them to be. After playing a difficult piece on the
piano, a gifted pianist told herself, "I shouldn't have made so many
mistakes." This made her feel so disgusted that she quit practicing for
several days. "Musts," "oughts" and "have tos" are similar offenders.


"Should statements" that are directed against yourself lead to guilt and
frustration. Should statements that are directed against other people or
the world in general, lead to anger and frustration: "He shouldn't be so
stubborn and argumentative!"


Many people try to motivate themselves with shoulds and shouldn'ts, as if
they were delinquents who had to be punished before they could be expected
to do anything. "I shouldn't eat that doughnut." This usually doesn't work
because all these shoulds and musts make you feel rebellious and you get
the urge to do just the opposite. Dr. Albert Ellis has called this " must
erbation." I call it the "shouldy" approach to life.


9. Labeling - Labeling is an extreme form of all-or-nothing thinking.
Instead of saying "I made a mistake," you attach a negative label to
yourself: "I'm a loser." You might also label yourself "a fool" or "a
failure" or "a jerk." Labeling is quite irrational because you are not the
same as what you do. Human beings exist, but "fools," "losers" and "jerks"
do not. These labels are just useless abstractions that lead to anger,
anxiety, frustration and low self-esteem.


You may also label others. When someone does something that rubs you the
wrong way, you may tell yourself: "He's an S.O.B." Then you feel that the
problem is with that person's "character" or "essence" instead of with
their thinking or behavior. You see them as totally bad. This makes you
feel hostile and hopeless about improving things and leaves very little
room for constructive communication.


10. Personalization and Blame - Personalization comes when you hold
yourself personally responsible for an event that isn't entirely under your
control. When a woman received a note that her child was having difficulty
in school, she told herself, "This shows what a bad mother I am," instead
of trying to pinpoint the cause of the problem so that she could be helpful
to her child. When another woman's husband beat her, she told herself, "If
only I was better in bed, he wouldn't beat me." Personalization leads to
guilt, shame and feelings of inadequacy.


Some people do the opposite. They blame other people or their circumstances
for their problems, and they overlook ways they might be contributing to
the problem: "The reason my marriage is so lousy is because my spouse is
totally unreasonable." Blame usually doesn't work very well because other
people will resent being scapegoated and they will just toss the blame
right back in your lap. It's like the game of hot potato--no one wants to
get stuck with it.


The Five Steps


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------




What are they?
This simple coping technique can save lives and has been shown to be a
highly effective form of Cognitive Behavior Therapy (CBT). Please keep in
mind that simply knowing what the Five Steps are doesn't mean that your
life will change overnight.


Putting the Five Steps to practical use on a daily basis will take time and
practice.


Don't get upset if you can't master them right away.


Pick yourself up, dust yourself off and try again the next time!


One of the most effective ways to learn to incorporate the Five Steps into
your list of coping skills is to work the steps in hindsight.


By this, I mean that it's totally understandable that after years - even
decades - of learned and practiced behavior cannot simply be stopped dead
in its tracks by sheer desire.


There are years of behaviors to undo first.



Stop / HALT
Just stop and breathe for a moment. Are you Hungry, Angry, Lonely, or
Tired? The HALT feelings are physically-based and only temporary. Remember
that!


Determine what the problem is
Sure there can be (and usually ARE) more than just *one* problem but even
still, write the problem(s) down on a piece of paper.
Come up with THREE possible courses of action
Start with one of your problems and come up with three (and only three -
not a hundred, not just one) possible things you could do.
Figure out which one is best for now
You don't have to make a lifelong commitment right now and if things don't
work out quite the way you'd hoped they would, you can work the steps again
and again and again - just like everyone else does!
DO IT!
Nothing will happen to change the situation/problem until you actually DO
something, no matter how small.


A Practical Approach
Instead of trying to implement the steps up-front, pick a recent situation
where you recognize that you acted quite co-dependant. Then apply the Five
Steps. Start at the beginning and check the HALT. Working all the way
through the steps shows your conscious and subconscious mind that there are
other ways to cope with stressful situations. It is this preparation that
gears us up for implementing the Five Steps in real-time scenarios.


BE IMPECCABLE WITH YOUR WORD


Speak with integrity. Say only what you mean. Avoid using the word to speak
against yourself or to gossip about others. Use the power of your word in
the direction of truth and love.



DON'T TAKE ANYTHING PERSONALLY


Nothing others do is because of you. What others say and do is a projection
of their own reality, their own dream. When you are immune to the opinions
and actions of others, you won't be the victim of needless suffering.


DON'T MAKE ASSUMPTIONS


Find the courage to ask questions and to express what you really want.
Communicate with others as clearly as you can to avoid misunderstandings,
sadness and drama. With just this one agreement, you can completely
transform your life.



ALWAYS DO YOUR BEST


Your best is going to change from moment to moment; it will be different
when you are healthy as opposed to sick. Under any circumstance, simply do
your best and you will avoid self-judgment, self-abuse and regret.