10 Thinking Errors Keeping You Miserable 6 Weeks to a Happier Healthier You Quickstart Guide

Foreign. I'd like to welcome everybody to today's presentation of Integrative Behavioral Health. I'm your host, Dr. Donnelly Snipes. Today we are talking about 10 thinking errors that may be keeping you miserable. Thinking errors are just what they sound like. They're errors in our thinking that happen when our brain manipulates our thoughts to fulfill our expectations of the situation. So, for example, if somebody in your present life starts behaving like somebody from your past, you may expect that they're going to do the exact same thing as that person in your past. But that doesn't necessarily mean that that's true. However, thinking errors would cause you to start seeing the things that are going to fulfill your expectations. Thinking errors are when our brain conforms our thoughts to our current headsp. If we are in a negative headspace, we tend to see the glasses half empty. We tend to see the sky, as, you know, partly cloudy instead of partly sunny. Thinking errors are usually extreme and involve words like, I must have this all of the time and often create feelings of failure, inadequacy, unsafeness, and disempowerment. So when you have those thinking errors, it's important to take steps. Now, I've done a lot of videos on thinking errors and cognitive distortions, so you can look at the specific thinking errors that psychologists have identified over the years. In some of those videos that are on the YouTube channel today, we're going to talk more specifically about 10 or so thinking errors that people have. Specific thoughts that people have that may be keeping them stuck. Before we get to that, let's just really briefly think about why you care about this. What is the impact of thinking errors? And if you remember from the cognitive triad, our thoughts can impact our emotions, and our thoughts can actually impact our behaviors and our health because our thoughts can trigger that HPA axis that fight or flee when we are stressed. When we are having stressful thoughts, it can have negative effects, including dysregulation of the fight or fleet response, the HPA axis, dysregulation of the hpg, or hypothalamic pituitary gonadal axis, and hypothalamic pituitary thyroid axis. Our gonadal hormones are our sex hormones, and that involves our libido as well as a lot of other things. Your gonadal hormones are responsible for so much more than just reproduction. And the thyroid, we're all familiar with that as being a source of energy, if you want to think about that. But when your thyroid gets out of whack, it also can contribute to mood symptoms when we're stressed. It alters the gut microbiome, increases inflammation, increases stress related illnesses, headaches, GI distress, the risk of addictions, sleep problems and eating change and causes eating changes, which tends to impact our mood. Increasing feelings of helplessness, hopelessness, depression, anxiety and anger and interpersonally tends to make us more irritable, impatient, and sometimes we even withdraw. So obviously we want to address these thinking errors. We don't want to keep feeling miserable. One of the things that I think is important is to really evaluate our beliefs in the current context and identifying those aspects that we can control and the probability that if we do what we're able to do to address the situation and improve the next moment, the probability that the worst case scenario is going to happen. So the questions that I suggest that you ask yourself, and then we'll get into the beliefs. What are the facts for and against my belief? Not what is my gut telling me? Not as what am I? Not? You're not going to ask yourself what are my assumptions? You're going to ask yourself what are the facts, the cold hard facts? Does this belief focus on one aspect of the whole situation? Does it seem to use thinking errors like extreme words? What are some alternate explanations? What would you tell your child or your best friend if they had this belief? What would you want someone to tell you about this belief? If you went and told your best friend, what do you want them to tell you? And how is this belief either moving you toward what is important in your rich and meaningful life or away from it? So those are the questions that you want to kind of keep at the ready. The first belief that can keep you stuck. I cannot be happy until. I cannot be happy until the people around me change. I cannot be happy until I get a new job. I cannot. You see where we're going? Okay, well, happiness in part is a state of mind. And it's important, we've talked about hardiness before, to recognize that you can have unhappy aspects of your life. But it's important to take a step back and look at your life in totality. Looking, looking at the whole situation, not just one or two aspects of your life. So to identify are there things that are going well. It's also important to recognize that your thoughts and your perceptions of a situation can impact your mood. If you choose to see the negative, the scary, the downtrodden, then of course you're probably going to feel that way. So are there ways that you can perceive this situation as instead of a failure, a learning Experience instead of a travesty as an opportunity to grow so you can choose to address your thoughts. Now, obviously, when you're unhappy, feelings are natural. That is your body's way of releasing energy. When you have distressful feelings, your body's way of releasing energy to say hey there might, emphasis, underscore, italicize, might be a problem. Use this energy to check it out. Based on my prior learning, my prior experiences, I think that there might be something that that's amiss here. But your brain does not necessarily know it's going on prior learning. It's not taking into account necessarily all of the facts in the current situation. So it's important to recognize that when you feel a feeling, it's important to check that feeling out. Make sure there's not a threat. Make sure you're safe. Once you're safe, then focus on, instead of focusing on all the ways that you're disempowered, focusing on all the ways that you can be empowered to learn from, grow. Use your strengths to address this situation. Thought 2 It needs to be perfect, whatever it is, or I must be perfect in order to be loved. Well, all right. What are the facts foreign against that belief? What are the facts that say that something or someone needs to be perfect in order to be lovable? And I would just jump down to this other question here. If your child or your best friend came to you and said, I need to be perfect in order to be loved, would you tell them, yeah, you're darn tootin, you need to be perfect? I'd hope not. So really consider whether you're using logic and you're using facts. What are the facts that support that? Lovability is tied to perfection. Look at some of the people that you admire, whether they're celebrities or people in your neighborhood, people at your church, people in your family, whomever, people that you admire, people that you love, people that you care about, are they perfect? And I'm gonna go out on a limb and say no. I really believe in my heart of hearts that there is no such thing as a perfect human being. However, do they. Are they deserving of love? Are they deserving of respect and caring? Okay, so if they are, then why are. Why is that not true about you? So really checking that and rephrasing it instead of saying I must be perfect in everything that I do. You know, you see, those are extreme words there, saying to yourself, I must do my best in the things that I do. Okay, does your best mean perfection? No. But in recovery, a lot of times we talk about progress, not perfection. I would also underscore the fact that even if you're not perfect, even if you aren't doing your absolute best all the time, does that mean that you're not worthy of love? And it's important to recognize that. It's important to recognize that people are worthy of love because they're human beings. Not everybody's going to be on their A game all the time. Not everybody's going to be able to give 110% all the time. But does that detract from their lovability, their acceptability, their worth as a human being? And only you can decide that. But you want to look at what are the facts that say that if you're not perfect or doing your best a hundred percent of the time, that you are not worthy. And I don't think you're really going to find many supporting facts for that. So restating things can be helpful. Things are either right or wrong or good or bad. Well, when we think dichotomously, it really can help keep us miserable. So we think that somebody is either a good person or a bad person. Again, I would say let's look at the facts. If you're saying this person is a good person, you know, let's look at the facts supporting that. Let's look at the facts. Are they perfect? Are they always good? And my guess is you're going to find the answer to be no. You know, we can be good most of the time, you can be a mostly good person, but I dare say the majority of people are not perfect. People are not good all of the time. So it's important to recognize that you can make mistakes and be lovable. You can be, you can make a bad choice, you can hurt somebody's feelings and, and still be lovable. You know, occasionally you may do it, you can make amends for it, those sorts of things. But cutting yourself some slack and being willing to embrace the dialectics, being willing to embrace the middle ground, recognizing that people can be good and do things you don't like, people can be bad, you know, just really rotten to the core and do things that you do like, and that can be, you know, kind of confusing. So it's important to look at the situation, not overly globalize. If you're in a job that you like, and I think I talked about this yesterday, sometimes there are going to be things at your job that you don't like. And does that mean that your job is bad? No, it means that 90% of your job you absolutely adore and 10% of your job you know, you really don't like. If you're in that framework of having to categorize as all good or all bad, what do you do with that? It makes it really hard. If you embrace the fact that that virtually everything has good and bad aspects and you can choose to accept things as they are, it relieves a lot of energy. I should be feeling. Well, you know what I think about shoulds? When you are feeling something, when you are doing thumb something, when you are thinking something, that is what you are feeling, doing or thinking it is what it is. Who tells you what you should or should not be thinking? What are the facts telling you you should be thinking, feeling or doing something different? When you say I should be feeling, you know, I should be unhappy about this situation? Okay, well does that belief focus on one aspect of the whole situation? Does it seem to use thinking errors? Well, shoulds are a thinking error because it's saying based on what other people tell me or what other people have told me in the past, I should be feeling this way. It's discounting your own thought process in the present moment. I don't like shoulds. It's important to back off from that. When you notice yourself saying shoulds and we'll go with feeling instead of saying I should be feeling, stepping back and saying I am feeling and recognizing non judgmentally how you're feeling and then deciding based on the facts in the current moment, what is the next thing that you can do to improve the next moment? And when you get stuck on shoulds, you know, really recognizing what voice that is in the back of your head that is telling you you should feel one way or another. Which takes us down to I must please everyone. What are the facts for that? What happens if you don't please everyone? Does it mean you're less lovable? Does it mean that some people may get, you know, snitty for a minute? Well, maybe. But what does that mean about your lovability, your acceptability as a human being? What does it do to you if you focus on pleasing everyone else all the time and don't focus on what your thoughts, wants and needs are? Who told you that you must please everyone and do you believe them? Do you think that that is actually true? Would you tell your child that they must please everyone all of the time? And, and if you do, you know, why are you doing that? What are you trying to communicate to them? And what standard does that set if they don't please Everyone, what's going to happen and is that based in fact? If they don't please you and if you're a parent, you know that there are going to be times that your kids don't please you. Does that mean you don't love them anymore? There are going to be times when your friends don't do whatever you want them to do to please you. Does that mean that you don't love them anymore. If someone does not? Sorry. What others think is more important than my own opinion. Well, that kind of goes back to I must please everyone. Who told you, you know, let's go back to the facts. Where did this come from? Who says that what others think is more important than your own opinion? What are the facts telling you? That that is the God's honest truth? What's going to happen if you assert your opinion? What are the facts? What do you know for a fact is going to happen if you hold on to your opinion instead of accepting others opinions or holding others opinions up above yours? And it's important to recognize that there's a difference between being willing and able to hold on to your own opinion for yourself versus forcing or trying to force your opinion on other people. So recognizing that it is in general important for you to have your own opinion. Now, if you were raised in a household where someone had borderline personality disorder or an addiction, you were often taught don't talk, don't trust, don't feel. And you are also taught don't have your own opinion, which kind of goes along with don't think. But it's important once you are out of that situation to ask yourself what is more important, what others think or what I think and living authentically in my own self. Again, what would you tell your child? Would you tell your child that other people's thoughts and beliefs are more important than theirs? Would you tell that to your best friend, number seven? If someone does not like me, it must mean that there is something wrong with me. All right, back to the questions again. What are the facts for and against their disbelief? If somebody doesn't like you, are there any facts that support the notion that there's something wrong with you? You know, you may fear there's something wrong with you, but that's an emotion. What are the facts that there's something wrong with you? What are the facts that there's absolutely nothing wrong with you? Does the belief focus on one aspect or the whole situation? Well, if somebody doesn't like you, are they focusing on one aspect of the whole of you? Or the whole situation. If someone doesn't like you, are you focusing on, you know, what everybody thinks or just what this one person thinks in recovery? Again, one of the things that we talk about a lot is if there's something that you don't like in someone else, it's often, not always, it's often a reflection of something you don't like in yourself. So if you are being triggered by someone else, you know, check that, that as maybe a mirror of something that you don't like in yourself. There's also the possibility that you remind them of something or someone from their past has nothing to do with you, but when they see you, it triggers those memories and triggers those unhappy feelings a lot of times. My point being, a lot of times when people don't like us, it has more to do with them than it has to do with us. So check your facts, check the situation, check your beliefs about, you know, what would you tell your child? Are you going to tell your child that everyone must like them all the time? Are you going to tell your child or your best friend if somebody doesn't like you, it must mean that your broken or not acceptable. I, I just can't imagine a world when you say that. I can't wrap my head around saying that. So I wonder why we say it to ourselves. A lot of times I think we do because we don't understand. We're looking for an alternate explanation for why this person may not like us, but we may not have the knowledge about transference and past experiences and reflection and all that stuff I just talked about. So it's important to think, you know, why must this people, why must this person not like me? Are there any alternate explanations that have nothing to do with me? Number eight, I know what other people think. And mind reading is such a toxic belief. If your significant other comes home and they're in a mood and you know, quote unquote why they're mad or why they're in a mood, you know, that sets you up because you are using emotion based reasoning to assume you know what they're thinking or what they want. So go back to the facts for and against the belief. We'll stick with that scenario. The significant other comes home, they're in a, they're in an awful mood. Does the belief focus on one aspect or the whole situation focuses on one aspect? Significant other came home, they're in a bad mood. So I'm going to start making all these wild assumptions about why it is and what's going on. What Are alternate explanations. You know, you may jump to one conclusion or explanation for, for why they may be acting, reacting, feeling that way. But what are some alternate explanations for why that may happen? Maybe you assume that they're angry with you because you, the house is a mess. Who knows, maybe they are in a bad mood because they got a flat tire on the interstate on the way home or they got called into their boss's office and got chewed out for something. You know, there are a lot of reasons why somebody can be a bat in a bad mood that have nothing to do with you. So it's important to communicate instead of assuming you know what other people think. Ask, talk, listen and, and asking the questions. You know, I see you're really upset. Would you like to talk about it or what is going on? That's, that's keeping you, that's making you this upset right now? Asking and then listening to what they have to say is going to get you a lot further than assuming you know what's wrong. Number nine, nobody understands me and I am all alone. Well, that could be true. You know, what are the facts for and against your belief? It may be true that nobody in your closest inner circle that you've maybe chair chosen to share something with understands what you're going through. That's possible. But is it true that nobody anywhere understands? And likely the facts for that are not true. You know, whether you're dealing with grief or you know, you got a diagno diagnosis of some sort of disease that you are, are coping with, or, you know, whatever the case may be, you're having a crisis of faith. Certain people may not understand, that's true. But to say that nobody understands is going back to assuming you know what other people think, assuming that you are that unique. So it's important to evaluate the facts and then try to find other people who have shared similar experiences. And that is one of the beauties. You know, I, I knock social media and, and I knock the Internet a lot because it can add a lot of stress. But that is one of the beauties of the Internet these days is that you actually can reach out and connect with people that may not be right in your city or in your town. So if you're dealing with something that may be a little bit unique, it's easier to find people who've had similar experiences. And number 10, I cannot feel safe unless I control everything. Well, those are extreme words. I cannot means I can never feel safe unless I control everything. Now, are there any people actually out there that can Control everything. They can control other people, they can control the weather, they control the media, they can control, you know, just the list goes on. And the answer, answer is no. So it's important to look at the facts for and against your belief. I cannot feel safe unless I can control everything. Well, going back, looking at, at your past, maybe even last week, were there times in that week when you felt safe? And if the answer is yes, then looking at those times and saying, was I in control of absolutely everything? And the answer is probably no. You may have been control, in control of the things in your immediate environment. You know, you may have been at home where you could control, you know that the, the doors were locked and whether the blinds were open or shut and all that stuff, but you were not controlling what was going on 20 miles away. You are not controlling probably other people's behavior to a large extent, because other people are independent entities. So it's important to recognize what is it that you need, you know, what are the facts that identify what you need in order to feel safe? And does it mean that you have to control everything? What would you tell your child if they had this belief? They go to school and they say, I can't feel safe unless I can control everything. Well, are they going to be able to control the teacher? Probably not. The classmates? Probably not. The school bell schedule? Probably not. So what is it that they can control? And part of feeling safe is remembering or developing a sense of personal power, a sense of that you can deal with things that come along. Even if you can't control everything, you can deal with things that come along and you have the power to keep yourself safe. Again, when you're evaluating, well, when you start having thoughts that are contributing to distress especially, it's important to just stop. And the exact nature of the quote, what we call cognitive distortion or unhelpful thought, whatever you want to call it, the exact characteristic of it, whether it is all or nothing. Thinking or over a generalization or any of those that I've talked about in other videos, is not as important as just looking at the thought itself and saying in this context at this point in time, what are the facts for and against my belief? Does this belief focus on one aspect or the whole situation? Does it use thinking errors? What are some alternate explanations that might help me understand what's going on? What would you tell your child if they came to you and had this belief? If they said this to you, what, what would you tell them? Or a child, not necessarily your child? What do you want someone to tell you about this belief. If you went to your, you know, best confidant, your best friend, your pastor, whomever, and you told them this, what do you want them to tell you? What are you hoping they'll tell you to help you feel better? Well, then tell yourself that. And when you have beliefs that are unpleasant, that are, that seem to be keeping you stuck in a quagmire of misery, it's important to really ask yourself, how is this belief moving me toward the things and people that are important in my life? Sometimes beliefs are there and they're just not even worth struggling with. And it's, you can make the choice to say, you know what? I'm not even going to focus on that right now. Sometimes beliefs that we have and, and hopefully you can alter those beliefs to make them or to help them move you toward the people, places and things that are important in your rich and meaningful life. Focusing on, for example, instead of saying, I must please everyone, saying, I will try my hardest to please the people that are, that are important in my life. I can't please everybody all the time, but my energy is best served. Trying my hardest, not all the time, you know, I know I'm not going to do it all the time, but trying my hardest to please those people that are important in my rich and meaningful life. Alrighty, everybody. Have an absolutely wonderful day today and I will see you tomorrow, same time, same station.