Focus on Self: Automatic Thoughts
Quite often, our mind focuses on the negative, or worst case scenario. In a primitive way, this is useful because it can prepare ourselves for danger. More often then not, though, the automatic thoughts run away on us and become an obstacle. Automatic negative thoughts will always be a part of us, but they can be controlled by calling them out, and rationalizing them.
Take a minute, now, and recreate the following chart in your notebook:
| RECORD | RATIONALIZE | REPLACE |
Write down your negative thoughts in the first column, in detail, as described in the video.
Then, assign them a category. Remember, negative thoughts often can be categorized as follows:
- Assuming
- Should, Musts and Ought’s
- Fairy Tale Fantasy
- Over Generalizing
- Catastrophizing
Other types of thoughts are:
- All or Nothing Thinking: “If I don’t pass this exam, my life is over”
- Labeling: “I’m stupid and will never understand math”
- Filtering: “I can’t believe I got those two answers wrong”
- Should Statements: ” I studied a lot for this exam, so I should get at least a 95%”
- Emotional Reasoning: “I am really worried about this exam, so that means it will be really difficult”
- Over Estimating Danger: “I’m really going crazy” or “I’m going to have a heart attack”
Finally, write a positive and realistic statement that accurately describes the situation. When writing realistic statements, it may be useful to think of:
- What is the evidence that this is true?
- What would I tell a friend if they had the same thought?
- How many times has this really happened?
- What is really the worst that could happen? If the worst happened, what would I do to cope?