Let us start of with another bold claim: Feeling bad is not down to emotions at all. As David D. Burns, M.D. puts it in ‘Feeling Good‘: “A change in how you feel is of no more causal relevance [to depression or feeling bad itself] than a runny nose is when you have a cold.”

Feeling bad is a symptom – a consequence – of bad thinking! Distorted negative thoughts underlie every stressful feeling we’ve ever experienced. Have you ever felt sad and cried during a movie, or felt triumphant when the hero finally beats the bad guy at the end of a good book? You were sad or happy then – but did it ever make you feel bad? Did you feel stressed or pained?

You see, positive emotions can accompany negative events, and vice versa. But every painful or stressful emotion is always and necessarily accompanied by negative thoughts. Most of them are completely involuntary and automatic, and usually hidden from us by our subconscious!

Let’s start looking at emotions in a new light: There are no good or bad emotions, only positive or negative experiences. Emotions are neither positive nor negative until they either cause us or relieve us of stress or pain.

Any emotions that are traditionally seen as either good (like excitement, or the feeling of being in love) or bad (like anger and sadness) can also be both positive and negative, depending on… Our attitudes, thoughts and perceptions!

We need only look at the friend who laments falling in love again, making another one of those “mistakes,” and hates herself for it! Or look at someone like Nick Vujicic, who thinks a life without limbs can actually be a blessing in disguise!

There are no such things as good or bad emotions, good or bad thoughts, or good or bad events. The only question that you should ever want to ask yourself:

“What I feel, what I think, what I believe over what is happening: Is it helping me, or not?”

Are your thoughts helping you? Is your anger doing something useful, or just causing you more pain? If it is helpful, it’s worth keeping. If not, it’s stress you don’t need. Whether or not something is helpful is the only question worth asking.

Negative thoughts are destructive. Negativity causes your mood to become gloomy, your self-image to crumble, your body and willpower to become exhausted, and your actions and emotions to defeat you. Nothing breeds negativity like negativity, and this negativity is due to a lifelong cycle of negative thoughts that we were never taught to strip of their power, because we have never taken the time to convince ourselves that they aren’t helpful in the slightest.

So, our goal is to trade in our automatic and start switching the gears manually! Change your thoughts, change your reality. Sounds simple enough, right? Well, if it were all so easy as thinking positively, then people’s often well-intended encouragement to “cheer up” or “look on the bright side” would actually be a pleasant experience, and not the unnerving and often counterproductive guilt-trip it can be. Furthermore, if it were that easy, why can people be stuck with their negative thoughts for sometimes an entire lifetime?

Well, there’s a wrong and right way for doing anything, and practice doesn’t make perfect. Perfect practice does. Even the best of intentions don’t always give the best results, so together we will learn a method that allows you to do things right.

But before we get started with that, let’s get rid of one more seemingly intuitive, but completely inaccurate lies we’ve learned and maintained over the course of our lifetime: the persistent untruth of having ‘real problems.’

Let’s talk about The Problem With ‘Real’ Problems.

This is a part of a series on Good Thinking.
Foreword

Welcome to the Good Thinking course!

Throughout the next series of articles, I will teach you everything you need to know to take back full control of your mind and your life, no matter your goals, your obstacles, your life situation, your current level of self-mastery, and your skillset.

To do this, I’m going to teach you certain skills, some of which you may already be somewhat familiar with, or at least have heard about at some point in the past. The red line throughout this course is the importance of CBT, which stands for Cognitive-Behavioral Therapy, as well as some crucial theory behind self-mastery, and some tried-and-tested exercises that come from all disciplines of self-help and psychotherapy.

Relax! It’s not as difficult and technical as it sounds – in fact, practicing CBT for any reason (a minor grievance, or a major mental disorder that’s destabilizing your life) is not only simple and intuitive, but can also be very rewarding, empowering, self-affirming, and most of all life-improving.

To start of, let me explain what Cognitive-Behavioral Therapy is, how and why it’s used, and how you can harness its mind-altering power to kickstart a new and improved you!

Why CBT?

First off, CBT very down-to-earth and intuitive, which means that it is very understandable to a layperson, that it’s easy to see how and why it works, and it is very simple to practice and use. It’s also something that can be practiced and done personally and individually.
It can be very useful for a large number of common problems, such as anxiety, depression, but it can also work as a general motivation aid and to stop procrastination, and general life problems. It can be applied to nearly everything using exercises such as the NC/PC lists, and top down reasoning – it can be useful for almost any problem you have.
There’s a very strong popular demand for CT as well, and because of its simple and effective nature it’s become very prevalent as a treatment tool in psychological circles, as well as in regular (life) coaching and humanist therapies.

Side note: using EMDR in combination with CBT can be very powerful, but since it is a more complicated type of therapy, where you’d need a lot more backing information to truly understand its mechanisms use it properly, it will be covered in a separate course. However, feel free to test our official EMDR and Meditation Assistance Tool and see if it has any immediate benefit for you!

How Does CBT Work?

To answer how CBT works, you first need to understand what a cognition is. Broadly speaking, a cognition is any thought or perception, most of which are automatic and subconscious. There are a lot of subconscious thoughts and perception, which we will teach you to find and alter, but for now just remember that really any reaction, or feeling, or emotion, has at its root one or multiple cognitions.

Feelings result from these thoughts more than they do from actual events. Technically speaking, these events also cause thoughts leading to those feelings, so even when there is an event at its root there’ll be a certain thought that guides and elicits the emotion. If you experience an event that is naturally very traumatic, your reaction is still dependent on what thoughts and attitudes you have towards that event, both prior, during and after. Basically, it determines how traumatic is going to be, or even if it is going to affect you negatively at all.

This implies that you can be trained to rid yourself of certain fears, meaning you might be affected little if at all by events that would leave others paralyzed entirely.

Since thoughts guide emotions, and not the other way around, it’s important to take to heart the old adage that ‘nothing is either good or bad – thinking makes it so.’ Kind of a cliché, but very true even so. Thoughts don’t create your reality, but they do determine your experiencing of that reality.

Right about now, you might think: “Well, I don’t have a problem with my thoughts. My problems are real.” Truth is that everything is based on some real event. Additionally, in your mind, there’s a very real thought attached to every event and experience that you perceive or imagine. There’s no denying either of those.

However, you could also read this text right now and think, “Oh, that’s interesting. I might learn something that is really exciting from this course, and that can be very useful.” This is a P.C. (positive cognition) that in and of itself will contribute heavily to your own self-improvement.

Thoughts decide your valuation of everything, including this course, and so they decide how much progress you can make. Whatever you decide, you’re correct – there’s no arguing with the thoughts you’re having, since they arethere regardless of whether or not they are useful. However, every depressing negative thought can have an uplifting one take its stead, and every demotivating thought can be replaced with a more enthused counterpart.

There is no wrong emotion or thought – only helpful or unhelpful ones. This is very important: We do not intend to contradict our negative thoughts, or repress them – instead, by simply becoming aware of them we can then take steps to change them to more positive ones.

An Attitude Adjustment

Negative cognitions might make you think you feel inadequate because of some personal defect, or childhood trauma, bad genes, your environment, or a chemical imbalance – very prevalent beliefs among the general public, particularly those who are depressed or suffer from other mental disorders.

There’s a lot of critique against the idea that you should simply “think positively” or “cheer up,” which is justified, in a way. The truth is – thinking positive thoughts won’t really help you if they are incongruent with your own negative thoughts and beliefs. If they don’t line up or ‘align’ with the negative thoughts you are currently having, you will try to believe two inherently contradictory things. This will make your brain doubt the truth of one of the or even both, and this will cause confusion and stress.

So, you don’t just need to know what to think, but why. Positive thinking can work, but it’s not as easy as simply repeating “I am fine” over and over. You need to realign what you currently think to what you want to think in a natural way, which is something that we will teach you over the duration of this course.

Another common argument is saying that depression, demotivation, or any heavy emotion is due to a chemical imbalance, or hormones, or genes; or, they say their emotions and thoughts are justified due the actuality or severity of their current situations, their past childhood trauma’s, or predicted future doom.

Not only is this self-defeating – as you place your feelings and thoughts outside of your control, meaning you become a victim or your own mind or your life situation – it is also both irrelevant and a moot point, because changing your thoughts changes your chemical balance, as well as your brain structure.

You can change almost none of these things listed previously – you can’t change the trauma’s you had, you cannot change your genes, etc., but you can change how you feel about them, by changing the way you think. This can be done in retrospect, by neutralizing bad memories, or even in prospect, by neutralizing anticipation of failure or distress. Accepting a failure after, while or before it’s happening can minimize its impact or even neutralize it entirely.

Changing your thought patterns and changing your behaviors causes lasting changes in your brain, your mind, your outlook, and your productivity. It’s the same way antidepressants work – if or when those do work.

You Are All You Need!

There are three things more things I want you to keep in mind:

Life influences are the most common causes of happiness or unhappiness. The way you look at your life and your experiences within it influences you in precisely the way you allow it to influence you. Your thoughts and mindset going to decide what your mood is, how your outlook is, and how productive you are.
Therapy, and particularly cognitive therapy, are the most effective forms of treatment for most mental problems. As a therapy, CBT is more lasting than most other therapies and medications, mostly because eventually you will regress back to your depressive/anxious/demotivated self unless you learn how to change the thinking leading up to these negative feelings. Through CBT, you get a habit of happiness.
Self-help is a key to recovery irrespective of the presence or absence of professional therapy. If you don’t allow yourself to be helped, or if you keep being convinced that this type of care won’t help you, if you keep being a victim of your own thoughts or resent having those thoughts or your life’s circumstances, then you won’t be able progress.

With self-help alone you can and will recover; the same is not true for professional care. (Though it might be even better in tandem, so never rule out professional help as an option!)

Bibliotherapy, which entails things such as this course, our video’s, well-known books like ‘Feeling Good’ by Dr. David D. Burns (which a lot of this information came from, and is a must-have for anyone aiming to improve their own lives – so do yourself a favor and go buy it!), might be just as effective as professional psychotherapy – and in combination it might very well be even more effective!

Bibliotherapy works this well for several reasons:

It’s a very intuitive system that, if used properly, can be used by you just as effectively as any psychologist can do for you, especially because you tend to know your own thoughts better than a psychotherapist would, and in the privacy of your own mind you can explore your thoughts without the usual limitations such as pressure and shame. However, this all depends on how well you know how to use these methods, and in this course we aim to teach you as best we can!
It gives you an incredible sense of control over your own emotions, moods and your own perceived ability in regards to affecting things around you and effecting changes in your life. You can learn how thoughts work and how to manipulate them to work for you rather than against you, and stimulate them to bring you much more positive, productive and happy outlook.
Self-help through bibliotherapy wards you against the devastating and demoralizing effects of emotional relapses. Fact is, your life will know many more periods of positivity, and equally many gloomy times. By understanding your thoughts, becoming aware of them and accepting them, you can stop a gloomy day from turning into a depressive or apathetic mood that can knock you out for weeks, months or even years. Rather than feeling out of control when this happens, you can quickly regain that sense of control and well-being.
You won’t have to be completely dependent on your therapy or healthcare professional, a situation that otherwise causes people to feel resentment and powerlessness.

You might need some additional, professional help at some point for issues that are either very severe or just very complex and difficult to figure out on your own, but you will be able to improve your life by doing things entirely on your own, both through small incremental changes and the occasional large leap that might change your outlook on life and your own personality entirely.

The key is to help yourself and to want to help yourself, and understand that this alone is both necessary and sufficient. If you learn how to help yourself – if you let us teach you how to help yourself – you will be able to take back control of your mind and your life.

Sometimes you will set two step forwards only to make three steps back, but you will progress. The road to self-mastery is long and arduous, and you will need to practice many skills to pass all the obstacles, but as long as you keep walking the path you’ve set out for yourself, you will reach every signpost, you will reach every checkpoint, and you will reach your final destination. You will reach your own potential and you will become happy. You will master your life.

You will become a better you.

Enjoy the rest of the course, and thanks for reading!
The next lesson in this course is still under construction. Please join our community here to be notified as soon as it launches!

The 10 Cognitive Distortions
This is part two of an article on Cognitive Distortions, and part of the course Good Thinking. To read part one, click here.

“Depression is not an emotional disorder at all! How you feel is of no more causal relevance [to depression] than a runny nose is [to having a cold]. Every bad feeling is the result of your distorted negative thinking… Intense negative thinking always accompanies a depressive episode, or any painful emotion for that matter.”

     – David D. Burns, M.D., Feeling Good, p.28

Remember: Thoughts are never wrong – they are either helpful or unhelpful. Don’t shame yourself for thinking negatively, but become aware of the fact that problems can be viewed differently, in a way that is more helpful to you and contributes to finding a solution!
Contents

Six: Magnification and Minimization
Seven: Emotional Reasoning
Eight: ‘Should‘ Statements
Nine: Labeling and Mislabeling
Ten: Personalization
Recap

Six: Magnification and Minimization
The Problem

Whenever something negative happens, you tend to blow it out of proportion, causing a minuscule upset to have an explosive fall-out. Whenever something positive happens, you shrink it down until it’s nigh on invisible and you inadvertently step on it.

Also known as the ‘binocular trick,’ magnification causes you to look at your own errors, fears or shortcomings through the end of the binoculars and exaggerate their importance, incorrectly judging them as irreparably damaging. For example, you accidentally stumble over your words during a presentation at work, and think, ‘How could I make such a terrible mistake, my reputation is surely ruined now!’

Turning over those binoculars, minimization causes you to devalue your good qualities and achievements and see them as less of a concern when evaluating your own efforts.

You catastrophize by seeing negative experiences as a disaster, and categorizing positive experiences as meaningless. And as you focus on your imperfections and make them larger, and lose sight of your own good points, you’re guaranteed to feel worthless, incompetent and inferior.

The Solution

Put down your goggles! It’s no wonder your outlook is gloomy when you zoom in on the shadows but forget to scope out the colorful things that cast them!

The problem here isn’t you – it’s your narrowed perspective!

The good things are not inconsequential, and they are far more numerous than you think. You stumbled over a word or two, sure, but you worded a thousand more with perfect elocution and delivery. Yes, you might have been nervous for a bit – but you were charismatic and warm every other bit. Your wording might have been a bit silly that time, but that only helps reinforces your expertise in the eyes of your audience with every other line that went swimmingly.

However bad some things were, even they are positive – by becoming aware of them, you helped yourself improve. Not only can you take these examples of bad behavior and learn from them, but knowing your weakness helps you emphasize your strengths.

Example N.C.: ‘I can’t believe I stepped on her foot just now. I am a horrible dancer. How am I ever going to pick up a girl at bar when I can’t even do this one thing right?’

Example P.C.: ‘Oops, I guess I’m not that good a dancer yet. At least we have something to smile about. Besides, what I lack in technique I make up for in style and enthusiasm. And if dancing isn’t for me – who cares? She might be better at dancing, but I sure play a mean game of pool.’

Seven: Emotional Reasoning
The Problem

This is one of the most common cognitive distortions we experience in our day-to-day thinking, and when emotional reasoning is underlying our negative cognitions, they become some of the hardest to convince ourselves are actually unhelpful and unfounded. When reasoning emotionally, you use your current emotional state as justification for how you’re feeling. Sounds circular? That’s because it is.

We’ve all had this next situation happen to us at least once in our lives. Imagine this: You wake up in the morning with a particularly bad mood. One of your best friends comes over, and somewhere along the course of the day they do something that ends up annoying or deeply upsetting you, but you’re not sure why. You end up lashing out and the situation escalates. You both end up throwing around a number of accusations, “Well you started it by…” followed by “no, you started it by …,” and as they end up leaving you both refuse to apologize.

In your head your thoughts churn and churn, and you become convinced that your friend must have done something to upset you – why else would you be upset? You repeat the accusations over and over again, and you become entirely convinced they were at least partially to blame.

A few days later, you admit you both made mistakes, and you apologize.

But why were you mad in the first place? And why couldn’t you just explain that at the start, talk it out, and be done with it right then and there?

You believe that because you were mad, you had reason to be. B ut the truth is, your emotions reflect your thoughts and beliefs, so this is misleading – your emotions will have no validity at all if your thoughts are distorted. Look at the following N.C.’s:

‘I feel guilty, therefore I must have done something wrong.’
‘I feel overwhelmed and hopeless, therefore I can’t do anything to fix this situation.’
I feel inadequate, which means I must be a failure.’
‘I’m not in the mood to do anything, and this means I am depressed and it would be useless to do anything.’
‘I’m mad at you, and that proves you’ve done something wrong.’

In each of these situations, you are using your own emotions as evidence for how bad things are. And, because things feel so negative, you assume they truly are.

The Solution

You have to understand that all emotions have thoughts underlying them. For instance, thinking ‘I was horrible company’ causes you to feel sad and worthless. So first, find out which thought underlies your current emotion.

If your answer to the question ‘Why am I feeling worthless?’ is ‘Obviously, I did something that shows I’m inadequate,’ and your answer to the question ‘Why do I think I did something wrong?’ is ‘Because I feel worthless,’ then you are being completely irrational. You are trapped in a circle where your emotions justify your thoughts and your thoughts justify your emotions, while neither have any basis in reality.

If you cannot pin-point a specific instance that makes you feel like you’re worthless, then you have no reason to assume that you are worthless. In other words, tell yourself: “I’m worthless? Prove it.” And like with any argument, your own saying “Well, I must be.” is not an argument at all.

When you accept as your only justification for your emotions the fact that you’re having them, you will never find a way to stop feeling those emotions. Challenge the validity of the perceptions that create your feelings, and find out what the real reason is behind those feelings – if there even is one.

Emotional reasoning plays a role in nearly all your depressive and unhelpful thoughts. Realize that emotions are first and foremost an effect, not a cause.

Example N.C.: ”I am lazy. I can’t get anything done. The fact that I’m sitting here procrastinating instead of doing something proves it.”

Example P.C.: ”I am only feeling lazy because I’m not doing something. As soon as I start doing something, it’ll be clear that I’m not lazy at all.”

Eight: ‘Should’ Statements
The Problem

We have a tendency to obligate ourselves and our reality to be a certain way – more often than not, a different way than they currently are. ‘I should do this, I must do that, this should’ve gone differently.’ When you want so dearly for things to be different, especially when they are things you have no control over, or things that are bound to not meet your expectations at some point, you end up making yourself feel pressured and resentful.

When you feel that things shouldn’t just be different, but you see no way to change the situation nor how you feel about it, you wind up feeling apathetic and unmotivated. Telling yourself you need to be better in some way, or be a different person than you are (causing your ideal self to be incongruent with your real self), creates feelings of worthlessness, misery and self-loathing or self-pity. Directing those ‘ should’ statements at others, and you will feel inevitably feel frustrated, unappreciated or powerless.

‘He shouldn’t be so rude or egotistical. He should be prompt. He should be appreciative.’

In expecting a person to not be rude, you get aggravated. In expecting him to be prompt, you get agitated or impatient. In expecting a ‘thank you’ for your hard work, you can only ever be let down when people act indifferent towards or are inattentive of what you’ve done for them.

The Solution

Stop expecting! Stop dreaming! Stop looking to the future or looking back on the past! Stop trying to change the present! Stop wishing any of these things to be different, and accept them as your reality – because they are. You can work to change something without feeling like it must change. You can work to change yourself without hammering on about your own flaws. You can not change the past, only whether or not you choose to accept what happened or learn from it. You cannot predict the future, so you can only put in your best effort to get the result you want – but when doing so, enjoy the process, not the goal, because you won’t always reach your goals! And when you do find out those goals are unreachable, accept that fact and change your dreams rather than lingering in a fantastical image that you know won’t come your reality. Dream on, but dream of something else.

Eliminate should and must and need from your vocabulary, and replace it with want and desire. You don’t need to do something, you want to do something. Something shouldn’t be a certain way, but you’d prefer it to be so.

Your shoulds and shouldn’ts create self-loathing, shame, guilt. You’ll feel bitter and self-righteous if others fall short of your ideal and expectations. So, change those expectations to be realistic or always feel let down. That’s the choice you have. Recognize this bad habit of thinking in should statements, and write down everything you think would be better if it were different, in a way that replaces the shoulds and musts and replace them with wants and coulds. Rethink them into P.C.’s that don’t require those wishes to be fulfilled. There are no genies, and wishing for something to be one way or another and expecting it to become true is belief magic, not realism.

Remember that without stress you are much more capable of motivating yourself to change something. Without expectation, you cannot be disappointed, only be pleasantly surprised or relieved when something does work out. So, start accepting what is and change only what you can, starting with the way you feel about it. Let everything outside of your control be none of your business, because it really is.

Example N.C.: ‘I should be more confident and charismatic. Nobody will like me if I’m not. And come to think, why don’t they like me? I’m a nice person. They should like me the way I am.’

Example P.C.: ‘I can become more confident and charismatic only with a healthier mindset and experience. If they don’t like me, that’s fine, there are plenty of people who do, and more and more will like me the more I keep working on improving.’

Nine: Labeling and Mislabeling
The Problem

Labeling and mislabeling are an extreme form of overgeneralization. Concluding that someone (including you) acted in a bad way, you conclude that they are bad people for precisely that reason. A partner to the Fundamental Attribution Error, you conclude that what happened is not a part of circumstance and an isolated event, but representative of that person’s fundamental nature.

Completely negative self-images, and completely negative images of others (as is the case with stereotypes), are built on the idea that things happen because that person is the type of person those things happen to, or that a person does these things because they are the type of people that do those things. When labeling yourself, you conclude that since you did a bad thing, you are thus a bad person. When having an unproductive day, you conclude that you must be a lazy person. When being cheated on repeatedly by several significant others, you conclude you are a worthless individual that doesn’t deserve a person for yourself. Other such labels are ‘I am a failure’ when really you just made a mistake, or thinking ‘I’m a born loser’ when really you were just having a bad day.

Labeling yourself is not only self-defeating, it is irrational. Your self is not a fixed, singular thing, that cannot be changed or improved. Your personality cannot be equated with any one thing you do. You are a complex and everchanging flow of thoughts, emotions and actions. As Burns says, ‘You are a river, not a statue.’ You eb and flow, and you can change your course if a path is blocked. A few loose rocks here and there won’t stop you from reaching the sea. When you label yourself, you instead build a solid dam, stopping the flow of the river, stopping you in your tracks.

Mislabeling describes events that are both inaccurate and emotionally heavily loaded. ‘I am a complete and total failure,’ ‘John is an incorrigible ass,’ and so on. These words accompany thoughts that in turn lead to self-defeating behavior that mirrors that extreme level of emotion.

Notable examples of this type of mislabeling are stereotypes, which follow the same pattern of behavior. A foreigner (pick any appropriate demographic for your region) takes your purse, and you conclude ‘foreigners are rotten criminals, all of them.’ This in turn causes you to try and avoid (communicating with) foreigners, giving you no option to see how wrong that mislabeling is, or make your behavior unintentionally combative and confrontational, which leads to negative interactions that confirm your suspicion (‘all foreigners are rude and antisocial’), when really your own pre-programmed behavior caused those interactions to be negative in the first place – a self-fulfilling prophecy.

The Solution

Break those dams! Negative labels are overly simplistic – they are wrong, and you should not believe them. Making a mistake now and then is not only natural, but an integral part of learning. Learning through failure is surefire way to progress, and accepting past failures an incentive to work towards change change. Temporary failure is not permanent reality, and your own temporary behaviors do not decide your personality.

You are not a dishwasher because you wash your dishes, you are not a bather because you bath, and you are not a failure because you fail. Stop defining yourself by momentary things and swim with the current instead of drowning yourself.

And it isn’t just you who is an ever-changing and dynamic amalgamation of actions, intentions beliefs. So is everyone else! When labeling others in that way, you will invariably generate tension, and hostility. Your occasionally pestering brother becomes ‘an arrogant prick,’ your best friend who tends to poke fun of you for things you do is suddenly an ‘insensitive asshole.’ In turn, your response behavior might get you labeled as ‘an irritable bitch.’ This escalates, and continues as you focus in on each other’s weaknesses or imperfections as proof of the other person’s worthlessness.

So instead, view those negative experiences as isolated events and not permanent reality or fixed personality. Categorizing is an effective way of processing information quickly, but when you categorically categorize those experiences in a negative way, you are damning yourself and your reality to perpetually be negative and stressful. This is not only irrational and unfair to yourself and others, but it’s absolutely destructive. So instead, try labeling positive experiences as a given, and view negative experiences as the exception.

N.C.: ‘I didn’t do any work for school today. I am going to fail, and I deserve that, because it’s part of what I am: a giant failure.’

P.C.: ‘I did plenty of work in the past year, and even if I am lagging behind a bit now, I should be proud for being aware of that and wanting it to change. A desire to change is a good first step on the road to self-improvement.’

Ten: Personalization
The Problem

The mother of all guilt. You assume responsibility for a negative event even when there is no basis for doing so. Conclude that what happened was your fault, or reflects an inadequacy on your part (like not being likable). However, you are not responsible for what happened, so what gives? When your best friend doesn’t want to stop dating a guy you know to be bad, you might think ‘It’s my responsibility to make sure she gets away from that guy.’ In extremer cases, you might see an elderly woman drop her groceries on the street, but as you rush to help her, another person is already on the scene. You might feel rguilt for not having been there in time, convinced it’s your job to cure the world of all bad things that happen – which is both irrational and entirely self-defeating. You become the world’s caretaker, attempting to literally carry it on your shoulders. With that much responsibility, no wonder you feel bad!

The Solution

Personalization makes you feel crippling guilt. It’s a paralyzing sense of responsibility, where you confuse your influence with total control – you can influence people, and influence situations, but you are not all-powerful, even if at times you wish you were. You can never live up to that level of responsibility, so stop trying to – it’ll make you miserable! Try to overcome this tendency to personalize and see everything directly or indirectly as your fault. Trim it down to manageable, realistic and healthy proportions!

N.C.: ‘Everyone is upset with me today. I’m not sure what I’m doing wrong, but I’m sure it’s happening for a reason. If they are agitated just from talking to me, how bad does that make me?’

P.C.: ‘My colleagues are a bit stressed out today. That’s understandable, it’s a monday after all. And with that deadline coming up, I’m sure they’re too moody to realize what they’re doing. I’ll mention it some other time, and if by then they’re still moody, who cares? There are plenty of people that don’t project their own negativity on others.’

Recap

6. Magnification and Minimization: Overvaluing the negative traits and behaviors your have, and simultaneously minimizing the good traits and behaviors. This causes your self-image to be overly negative, and ends up making you feel worthless and incompetent, diminishing your own desire and ability to fix those perceived wrongs.

Correct this distortion by affirming the positive and diverting attention away from the negative. There are at least equal parts good to every bad situation or person. Additionally, there is no one fixed image of who a person is, and by focusing and strengthening on your more positive aspects, you can work towards becoming the person you want to be, rather than lamenting the person you think you are.

7. Emotional Reasoning: Using your own emotions as justification for feelings those emotions, even when there is no apparent external cause to point to. You believe that because you’re feeling a certain way, there must be a reason why you are feeling that way. Because you feel so negative, you assume that your current situation or your experience must be equally bad.

Correct this distortion by challenging the validity of your emotions. If you cannot point to the specific instance, situation or behavior that makes you feel so negative, there is no way to resolve those emotions. Challenge the validity of these emotions and find the underlying cause, and as soon as you find out what the real reason behind them is – if there is one -, work to resolve that issue. Either way, understand that there is no rational reason to hold on to these emotions, as they can only ever be a source of pain.

8. ‘Should‘ Statements: Incorrectly expecting that just because a change is wanted, it should also become your reality. You have no control over what has happened in the past, you cannot reliably predict what is in the future, and you do not have full control or command over what is happening in the now.

Correct this distortion by replacing all shoulds with wants. Your past is as it is, so accept it for what it is and only work to change how you feel about it. If you want the present to change, then work towards that change to the best of your ability, but don’t expect it to change. If you want something to happen in the future, then do what you can in the present to affect the future, but again, don’t expect all your dreams to come true. You can’t always get what you want, and if your dreams don’t end up as they seemed, dream on, but dream differently.

9. Labeling and Mislabeling: Mistaking situational behavior for fundamental qualities or personality, assuming that what someone does or thinks is who that person is. Not only is this irrational because all people make mistakes often and behave differently from usual for a number of reasons, but also because a person is an ever-changing and not one fixed entity that is incapable of changing or improving.

Correct this distortion by isolating individual behaviors and not falsely inferring from them or overgeneralizing them. A person is not his actions, and even when a negative behavior reflects what a person is thinking at that time, it does not predict how they will or want to behave, both at that time or in the future.

10. Personalization: Assuming responsibility for a negative experience even when there is no basis for doing so. They erroneously conclude that what happened was their fault, or reflects an inadequacy on their part. It is a distortion because only circumstances or behaviors can be problematic, never a person. More generally, personalization implies believing yourself to be a burden on others.

Correct this distortion by realizing it isn’t all on you – or all about you, for that matter! You are not the world’s caretaker, nor can you expect yourself to be responsible or at fault for everything wrong within it. Think realistically and healthy by tackling the parts that you can influence – but never assume you have control over them.