I struggle with negative thoughts about myself when I wake up in the morning. Lately, instead of letting the negative self-talk run wild in my mind, I find myself combatting the thoughts. After comparing myself to others, I think about what I have dealt with for as long as I can remember. The words depression, anxiety, and PTSD come to mind. When mistakes I have made come to mind, I think, “I am loved by God and by myself.”
The positive thoughts in response to the negative ones happen automatically. Those positive thoughts are born out of good habits I have cultivated for years:
Bible study and devotional reading every morning.
Tapping and meditating at least once a day.
Journaling every day.
Reading helpful books and jotting down quotes and ideas from them.
How we think does not change by merely wishing it to change. We need good habits to help us learn self-love, self-acceptance, and self-compassion. James Clear explains in his book Atomic Habits that daily practicing good habits lead to breakthroughs. “Breakthrough moments are often the result of many previous actions, which build up the potential required to unleash a major change,” Clear stated.
We often think that setting goals will lead to change. Goals are great, but setting them won’t insure we hit the targets we set. We must change our system to let go of the bad habits that keep us from meeting our goals. Little habits done daily will eventually lead to big changes.
“It is your commitment to the process that will determine your progress.” James Clear
Defeating the ANTs in our head
Changing our thinking also requires looking at our thinking errors. David D. Burns, M.D. lists 10 cognitive distortions, a fancy word for thinking errors, in his book and workbook. I was 17 years old, someone gave me Burns’ book. I began practicing a method detailed in his book where you make three columns on a piece of paper. One of the columns is titled automatic negative thoughts, or ANTs, as Daniel Amen, M.D. calls them. The second column is titled cognitive distortions, and the third is a rational response.
Here is a summary of the 10 cognitive distortions:
All-or-nothing thinking–Seeing things in black or white categories. Thinking you have blown your diet after eating an ice cream cone is a good example.
Overgeneralization–Seeing one event as a pattern of defeat. Using words such as always or never is a good indication of this thinking error. For example, if you do poorly on one test you think, “I always screw up when I take a test.”
Mental filter–Dwelling on one event so much that your thinking about it becomes distorted. One person criticizes a speech you made, but everyone else praises you, and you dwell only on the negative comment.
Discounting the positive–You reject positive experiences and insist that they don’t count. Saying that the praise you received from your boss about a report he thinks is well-written doesn’t count because anyone could have written it is an example.
Jumping to conclusions–Interpreting things negatively when there are no facts to support your conclusions. There are two types of this distortion: mind-reading and fortune-telling. With mind reading, you decide that someone is reacting negatively to you without any facts to back it up. With fortune-telling, you predict that something will turn out negatively.
Magnification–You either exaggerate your problems and issues, or you minimize your good qualities.
Emotional reasoning–You assume that because you feel negative about a situation, then your feelings reflect reality. You think that you are a hopeless person because you feel hopeless.
Should statements–You think that things should be the way you hope or expect them to be. You think that you should not strike out when playing softball.
Labeling–You attach a negative label to yourself. You call yourself a failure because you made a mistake.
Personalization and blame–You hold yourself personally responsible for an event that isn’t entirely under your control. You think that you are a bad parent after your child brings home a bad grade.
Challenge
I challenge you to try Burns’ method for raising self-esteem and defeating negative thoughts. Practice it while adding good daily habits to your life, and you will one day start automatically combatting negative self-talk.
Resources
Atomic Habits: An Easy & Proven Way to Build Good Habits & Break Bad Ones by James Clear
The Feeling Good Handbook by David D. Burns
Feeling Good: The New Mood Therapy by David D. Burns
Image by Carlos Alvarenga from Pixabay
Thank you, dear Gina for sharing your healing journey. It is so important to change our negative thinking into positive thinking. Yes, it takes effort on our part to break old habits. One day at a time. Yes, change our thoughts and then we can change our lives with Jesus all things are possible. Love you and so proud of you. <3
Once again I love it that you're meditating and I totally agree with you about the ANTS keep up with your incredible writing you're an inspiration (and of course reading is the key to just about everything) change our thoughts change our lives Brilliant