Good Stuff

Once upon a time, (yesterday) I did something really stupid.

Afterwards I laid in bed thinking "I can't believe I did that, I'm such a failure." Almost immediately, I realized that the aforementioned statement was fraught with cognitive distortions. 

PAUSE: Quick lesson, just in case you don't know what those are!

Cognitive distortions are faulty thought patterns. Once I learned about these, I realized that I can't always trust my thoughts because I'm thinking in a way that IS NOT TRUE. 

A few examples: (these are taken from a website, which I would love to link to but can't figure out how to from the iPhone.)

All-or-Nothing Thinking: Susan applied to a PhD program in Clinical Psychology. She was invited for an interview and did a pretty good job at it. It turned out they offered the slot to another good student. Susan wanted to get into that program very much and now feels that she will never have the same opportunity again. She feels like a total failure.

Jumping to Conclusions: Charles is waiting for his date at a restaurant. She's now 20 minutes late. Charles laments to himself that he must have done something wrong and now she has stood him up. Meanwhile across town, his date is stuck in traffic.

Overgeneralization: Linda is very lonely and often spends most of her time at home. People sometimes suggest that she should get out and meet people. Linda feels that that is it useless to try to meet people. She believes that no one really could like her.

Mental Filter: Dwelling on the negative aspects of a situation and neglecting the positive ones. Kate's husband clearly enjoys the birthday party she threw in his honor, but comments that the food was a bit salty. Kate filters out all his positive comments and criticizes herself for being a lousy cook.

Okay so the trick to cognitive distortions is not getting ticked off that your thinking patterns are faulty sometimes. The trick is to recognize, identify and modify.

So my thought was:

"I made a mistake, therefore I am such a failure."

1. Recognize: Natalie, that's not true. 

2. Identify: This is a classic example of "all or nothing thinking" "labeling and mislabeling" and "overgeneralization."

3. Modify: What do I need to change to make this a true thought?

"I made a mistake, but in no way, shape or form does that make me a failure."

Upon completion of this exercise, I was able to:

A. Fall asleep

B. Wake up without the desire to beat myself up.

C. Recommit to abolishing that behavior in my life.

D. Proudly report to Miss Kathy that I was finally applying what she's been trying to teach me for three months.

And that...is good stuff.