“You cannot prevent the birds of sorrow from flying over your head, but you can prevent them from building nests in your hair.” — Chinese Proverb

“If everything around you seems dark, look again, you may be the light.” — Rumi

“When everything seems to be going against you, remember that the airplane takes off against the wind, not with it.” — Henry Ford

“Kites rise highest against the wind - not with it.” — Winston Churchill ¹

• Notice/identify/recognize/acknowledge these feelings/thought patterns in the negative loop and let them guide you. They are your compass toward growth. Don’t ruminate/dwell on negative thoughts. (內耗)
• Negative thoughts/emotions in life are like a glass of water. The absolute weight doesn’t matter. It depends on how long you hold it. Think about them for a while, nothing happens. Think about them a bit longer, they will begin to hurt. Think about them all day long, you will feel paralyzed and incapable of doing anything.
• We cannot grow when we are in shame, and we can’t use shame to change ourselves or others.

Examples

• 壓力 (Stressful)
• 不安 (Discomfort)
• 自我懷疑 (Self-doubt)
• 悲觀 (Pessimism)
• 失望、沮喪 (Depression & Frustration)
• 羨慕 (Envy)
• 忌妒 (Jealous)
• 炫耀
• 自私 (Selfishness)
• 在意別人的想法
• 拿自己和別人比較 (Comparison)
• 害怕、恐懼、心魔 (Fear)
• 擔心 (Worry)
• 焦慮 (Anxiety)
• 抱怨 (Complain)
• 憤怒 (Anger/Irritation)
• 不安 (Uncertainty/Insecurity)
• 羞愧 (Shame)
• 憎恨/惡 (Hatred/Resentment)
• 傷心 (Sorrow/Sadness)
• 憤世忌俗 (Cynacism)

Killing ANTs (Automatic Negative Thoughts)

Cognitive Distortions

[@burnsFeelingGoodDepressionen2011]

• ALL-OR-NOTHING THINKING: You see things in black-and-white categories. If your performance falls short of perfect, you see yourself as a total failure.
  • How to overcome it?
    • Avoid thinking in negative, unconditional, absolute terms, such as “never” or “nothing”.
• OVERGENERALIZATION: You see a single negative event as a never-ending pattern of defeat.
  • How to overcome it?
    • Think through the accuracy of the statement. When you catch yourself using words like “always” or “never,” stop yourself and ask those words are accurate.
    • Replace that overly broad language with something more realistic.
• LABELING AND MISLABELING: This is an extreme form of overgeneralization. Instead of describing your error, you attach a negative label to yourself: “I’m a loser.” When someone else’s behavior rubs you the wrong way, you attach a negative label to him: “He’s a goddam louse.” Mislabeling involves describing an event with language that is highly colored and emotionally loaded.
• MENTAL FILTER: You pick out a single negative detail and dwell on it exclusively so that your vision of all reality becomes darkened, like the drop of ink that colors the entire beaker of water.
• DISQUALIFYING THE POSITIVE: You reject positive experiences by insisting they “don’t count” for some reason or other. In this way you can maintain a negative belief that is contradicted by your everyday experiences.
• JUMPING TO CONCLUSIONS: You make a negative interpretation even though there are no definite facts that convincingly support your conclusion.
  • Mind reading. You arbitrarily conclude that someone is reacting negatively to you, and you don’t bother to check this out.
  • The Fortune Teller Error. You anticipate that things will turn out badly, and you feel convinced that your prediction is an already-established fact.
• MAGNIFICATION (CATASTROPHIZING) OR MINIMIZATION: You exaggerate the importance of things (such as your goof-up or someone else’s achievement), or you inappropriately shrink things until they appear tiny (your own desirable qualities or the other fellow’s imperfections). This is also called the “binocular trick.”
• EMOTIONAL REASONING: You assume that your negative emotions necessarily reflect the way things really are: “I feel it, therefore it must be true.”
  • How to overcome it?
    • Utilizing relaxation techniques or self-compassion, such as “I am safe.”
    • Give yourself permission to feel anxious. Then remind yourself that it is just a feeling and that does not have to define your reality.
• SHOULD STATEMENTS: You try to motivate yourself with shoulds and shouldn’ts, as if you had to be whipped and punished before you could be expected to do anything. “Musts” and “oughts” are also offenders. The emotional consequence is guilt. When you direct should statements toward others, you feel anger, frustration, and resentment.
• PERSONALIZATION: You see yourself as me cause of some negative external event which in fact you were not primarily responsible for.”

See Also

• A true transformation begins with a mental shift