Understanding cognitive distortions in daily life

Have you ever thought something, then caught yourself and said, “I shouldn't be thinking that?"

To me, it seems like it is a daily ordeal, or more likely, thoughts just pop into my head. One day, when I was on a school field trip, a bird flew onto my arm and then flew away. Thoughts can be a lot like that bird; they hit us, then they fly away.

I realize I write a lot about the way we think, but it is so critical we remain vigilant to our thinking patterns. Most of our thoughts are just on repeat from before.

Have you ever felt like your mind is a broken record? Basically, it is.

In psychology there is a grouping of unhelpful thoughts called cognitive distortions I thought might be helpful to my readers. When we see some of them, we can call them out. The one I have the most trouble with is catastrophizing. This is when something goes wrong, we think the absolute worst.

Picture a very smart teenager who went to school feeling under the weather, took a difficult test and failed. Now we know being sick and the difficulty of the test all play a contributing factor in them not passing. If they catastrophize, they may think they will never graduate, go to college, get a job above minimum wage, and will end up living under a bridge in a cardboard box and will die by their 30th birthday. Sounds ridiculous, right?

Another one we are all guilty of is all-or-nothing thinking. Things are all good or all bad; there is no middle ground. Life is full of middle ground. We don't like having unknowns or uncertainties. All or nothing can make things seem like we are in control, but it leaves us empty inside and feeling powerless. However, if we see the gray middle, we will be more compassionate and open to accepting others.

Not everything has to be pass or fail. I think some of the difficulty is we are dealing with people and their feelings. Words don't have emotions, but we should not hurt other people just to be right.

The last one I want to touch on is personalization. That is where we take everything too personally. Say you are in the checkout line at the grocery store and the cashier was not friendly. You might think they really don't like you when, in reality, you have never seen that person before. A good rule is to think they might be upset about something that doesn't involve you. Their car might have broken down, they might be struggling financially or they might have a headache. Not everything is about us.

It will be difficult at times, but if we try to catch ourselves, we can make an improvement in ourselves.

Kyle Snyder can be emailed at kylesnyder86@yahoo.com.