Thoughts and emotions love to move together. When we think of good and positive things; happier, more morale, more excited, more positive, etc. we feel. However, when we think about bad and negative things, our energy decreases, we become unhappy, anxious, a pessimistic mood occurs and suddenly we may think that everything is getting worse and become depressed. In fact, this may not be an accurate reflection of your current situation. So your brain may be playing with your thoughts and perceptions. In this case, it causes your emotions to change and you to have a negative feeling.
Your ability to cope with the situation you are experiencing determines whether your emotion goes to the positive or negative side. No matter how difficult the situations you encounter, your ability to cope with that situation determines your emotions at that moment. When your thoughts (inner voice) tell you "you will not be able to get out of this" during an event, the emotion you will feel (unhappiness, pessimism, depressed mood, anxiety, fear, etc.) will be negative. If you cannot change this thought state, you will not have a chance to get rid of this emotional state. When people are in a negative mood or depressed, they have the ability to make themselves believe things that are not true. What needs to be done here is to restructure the thought. In other words, it means getting rid of the cognitive distortions that contribute to the formation of your negative thoughts.
What are Cognitive Distortions?
1-All or Nothing Thinking: This distortion means seeing your personal characteristics in extremes such as black and white. The student who always receives “Appreciation” concludes, “I am useless” when he receives “Thanks”. All-or-nothing thinking forms the basis of perfectionism. You are afraid of any failure or mistake. Because this situation will make you feel worthless, inadequate and incompetent.
It is unreal to evaluate events in this way. Because in a very short time, life actually compares us with the logic of "either one way or another".
2- Overgeneralization: Not being able to evaluate events in their own way means reaching a generalization by combining them with other experiences. In fact, it is a mental delusion and illusion. is to enter. When something happens to you, you confirm that it will happen again and again and again. The pain of rejection often comes from overgeneralization. When a young person is rejected by two different girls, he concludes that he will be rejected by all girls. 3- Mental Filter: It is the perception of all events as negative by concentrating on a negative detail in an event. When you're depressed, it's like you're wearing glasses that filter out everything positive. Everything that gets stuck in your consciousness is negative. If you don't know this concept of mental filter, you will decide that everything is negative. This is a bad feeling that drags you into unnecessary pain. This situation is called “selective focus”.
4- Invalidating the Positive: Positive events are ignored as if they did not exist. It is the tendency to constantly turn positive events into negative ones. Someone who is depressed may have developed the ability to do the opposite. This is done without realizing it. Invalidating the positive is the most destructive type of cognitive distortions. When you have a negative experience, you conclude, "This proves what I've always thought." The price paid for this tendency is intense pain and failure to appreciate the beauty that exists.
Even if your life experiences are not this extreme, ignoring positive experiences takes away the joy of life and causes a person to drift into a pessimistic mood.
5- Jumping to Conclusions: Jumping to a negative conclusion that is incompatible with reality.
a- Mind Reading: Understanding other people's feelings and thoughts and believing them without the need to research.
Example 1: “He doesn't say Good Morning to me because ………” – He cares about me/ He ignores me. The real thing is that he has to act quickly because he has a job to finish.
Example 2- For a sleeping listener - Thought "I think I bored the listeners too much" - The real situation is that he is sleepless because his child got sick the night before and he had to spend the night in the hospital
br /> b- Fortune telling: It is like having a magic ball in your hand. It means making a prediction that something bad will happen to you and accepting it as true. It's like someone having anxiety attacks saying, "I'm either going to faint or go crazy." These predictions are unrealistic. Because� � He has never fainted or gone crazy in his life.
You sent a message to your friend. You thought he got the message and didn't find it valuable enough to get back to you, and you were upset. (MIND READING) You got angry and wanted to call again, but you said, "If I call again, I will make a fool of myself." (WORTH TELLING)
6- Magnification - Reduction: It can also be called the binocular trick. When you look through the normal side of the binoculars, you see it larger. This usually happens with negative events. “Oh my God, how did I make this mistake? “This is a disaster” (Catastrophizing)
When we look at our successes, we look at them through the reverse side of the binoculars, that is, the side that makes them look smaller. In fact, if we magnify our flaws and minimize our good sides, it is certain that we will feel bad and pull ourselves down.
7-Emotional Decision: Your emotions are proof of your logic. “I feel like a failure, then I am a failure.” This kind of reasoning is misleading. Feelings; It reflects our thoughts and beliefs. Your feelings cannot have reality if they are distorted. Reasoning based on emotions is present in almost all depressions. Because everything seems negative to you, you assume they really are. One of the effects of emotional decision-making is procrastination.
8- Should sentences: Trying to motivate yourself by saying "I have to do this too" or "I have to finish this too" will make you angry and angry. It puts pressure on you. This situation causes the person to experience feelings such as guilt and anger.
9-Labeling: It is an advanced form of overgeneralization. Labeling is not only destructive but also irrational. When you have a problem at work, they say "I'm nothing" instead of "I made a mistake". Life; It is a complex and ever-changing flow of thoughts, feelings and actions. Therefore it is variable. It does not have a static structure. Putting negative labels on yourself is a misinterpretation. Focus on your work or behavior instead of yourself. This is healthier. 10-Personalization: Taking responsibility for a negative event without any reason. It is a very significant distortion. It makes you feel guilty, leaving you helpless in the face of personalization. “I am a bad mother” “This is my success It shows that I am a bad manager.”
Example: If a person's illness does not get better, he says to the doctor, “I am a bad doctor. It may make you feel like "I can't heal him." However, there are many factors that prevent the disease from getting better.
The 10 cognitive distortions mentioned above are the cause of one, if not all, of the depressive states. Learning these 10 distortions will help you benefit from this knowledge throughout your life. Knowing these definitions and knowing them helps you know that when you encounter such situations, they are actually a cognitive distortion and not real. Being aware of thoughts will help you control them and shape their reflections on your emotions.
Emotions can arise from thoughts. A negative thought can lead a person to a negative emotion or depression. Your feelings are not always your facts. In fact, your emotions are sometimes meaningless except as a mirror of your thoughts. Negative emotion creates the feeling of reality and lends credibility to the distorted thought that creates it. This cycle continues and you remain trapped in it.
In fact, negative emotions are not very desirable because they are often the product of our distorted cognitions. Your thoughts often create your emotions, so your emotions cannot be proof that your thoughts are true. Unpleasant emotions are an indication that you are thinking and believing something negative.
Read: 0
