I came across these videos on YouTube that have been a blessing and a help for me recently. The channel is called, “Therapy In A Nutshell” and the host is a licensed marriage and family therapist and her name is Emma. She has a beautiful gift of teaching and is able to share in comprehensive ways very helpful tools that can help improve our mental health.
I would not be sharing this new tool I found if I did not find it valuable and helpful for my own mental health.
I want to share with you just one nugget that has been significant for me.
Let us begin with defining cognitive distortion first.
A quick look on the internet and we discover Wikipedia providing the definition of cognitive distortion as “an exaggerated or irrational thought pattern involved in the onset or perpetuation of psychopathological states, such as depression and anxiety. Cognitive distortions are thoughts that cause individuals to perceive reality inaccurately.”
The Lord dropped in my spirit the phrase, “change the way you think and it will change the way you feel.”
And so I asked Him to show me what thought patterns I had, whether consciously or subconsciously, that are not healthy for me. And He answered this prayer through the discovery of these videos that share on the patterns of thinking we can fall into without meaning to that are harmful for us.
Some of these I had already been made aware of, but there were a few more that I was falling into habit of doing that I was not aware of.
Here is a list of the patterns of thinking Emma shares about that can lead to or keep you struggling with depression and anxiety:
1. All or Nothing Thinking
2. Overgeneralization (always or never statements)
3. Black and White Thinking
4. Mind Reading (assuming how others think about us)
5. Catastrophizing (what if…)
6. Emotional Reasoning (when your feelings do not accurately reflect your reality)
7. Labeling (labeling self or others based on behavior)
8. Mental Filtering (dwelling only on the negative/criticism)
9. Personalization (everything is about you, taking things personally)
10. Unreal – Ideal (comparison with others)
As I find more healing with my mental health and past trauma, I still find myself struggling with bad habitual ways of thinking that reinforce depression and anxiety.
I strongly believe in the importance of healing wounds in our souls and hearts in order for us to find more peace and freedom, as well as, being delivered from mindsets that contain lies from the enemy.
However, in order to move forward we also have to learn how to think with a new and healthy mindset, replacing the old habitual thinking patterns and the deception.
If I can pinpoint something I am doing and label it, along with identifying it as an unhealthy way to think, then I can be better at taking that thought pattern captive. We cannot change what we do not know is causing us mental damage.
I will admit that I tend towards number six on the above list where my emotions and feelings dictate a reality that is not true. When I heard about this cognitive distortion in particular, I realized that I often fall victim to this.
Being able to label what thinking pattern I am falling under in a given moment has been super helpful for me to cease thinking in that way. And the truth of how our emotions indeed follow our thought processes, leaves me understanding of why I am actually feeling a lot more joy even within stressful situations.
I also tend to dwell on the negative that has happened in my past and I realize that this pattern of “mental filtering” is not productive for me at all. There are times we need to process our past and pain in order to move forward in healing, but to continue to allow those thoughts to roll around in our minds way too often will affect our moods.
Keeping those times of processing within set times is helpful for me. Times when I journal and need to process or times when I talk with my counselor. And in order for me not to allow those memories to impact the rest of my day, I do a mental activity taught to me by my counselor of bottling it up and putting it away until our next meeting time.
Another freedom I found in the simplicity of practical tools found from this channel is learning how to reframe my perspective of a situation in order to not feel stuck or trapped. If we truly cannot change a challenging situation or a job we are in, we can still change our way of thinking about those situations that can free us from unhealthy mindsets.
That’s another nugget for another time. But me choosing to be vulnerable with sharing this is to encourage you to learn how to develop healthy thinking patterns that will bring your mood up. And to check out this amazing resource that has been a blessing to me!
Go check out the channel, “Therapy In A Nutshell” on YouTube if you want more tools like this!