![]() Despite the majority of the feedback being positive, negative filtering might cause us to perceive the review as wholly negative, triggering emotions of disappointment, sadness, or anxiety. We call this phenomenon negative filtering, which means filtering out all but the negative information. It’s not uncommon for people who have a mostly good performance review to filter out most of the praise and instead fixate on the one or two areas where there’s room for improvement. Take, for example, a pretty common experience, the job performance review. Other times, we assign meaning to something that isn’t totally grounded in the actual facts of the situation. This process works well most of the time, but sometimes, we focus on less important bits of information, filtering out the more relevant parts. It does this by focusing on certain aspects of a situation and then assigning some kind of meaning to those aspects, resulting in our thoughts and opinions about things. The brain is pretty good at filtering what it deems unimportant information and focusing on what seems most salient. Most thoughts enter and leave our minds out of our awareness. Thankfully, that’s not how our brain works. If we were to attend to each one of these, we would be overwhelmed by the flood of information. Our minds are thought-processing machines, creating and sifting through as many as 60,000 ideas in a given day. Often, we are completely unaware we are even having thoughts, but with a little instruction and practice, you can learn to easily identify them, and, as a result, get a better handle on your mood and behavior. In this book, we’ll be referring to a specific kind of thoughts that we call “automatic thoughts.” Automatic Thoughts DefinitionĪutomatic Thoughts are the thoughts that automatically arise in our minds all throughout the day. ![]() Thoughts influence much of our experience of the world, including our emotional experience. The key to understanding feelings is identifying the thoughts associated with them. Sometimes, we feel an emotion seemingly out of the blue, too strongly for what’s going on, or in a way that doesn’t seem to fit the situation at all. Some feelings may seem predictable in certain situations, but others may be puzzling. ![]() (e.g., Replace “I can’t do this homework” with “I can do the title page and the first problem.If you’re working through this book in order, you’ve been spending some time identifying and thinking about feelings. Every time you have a negative automatic thought or cognition that interferes with a task, replace it with a task-oriented cognition.(e.g., This teacher just doesn’t like me. Find contradictory evidence for what you perceive.(e.g., I’ll always get C’s because the teacher is too picky, or maybe I’m not understanding what he wants.) Think of alternative explanations for what you perceive to be true in a situation.If I volunteer to answer a question at the beginning of class, then I’ll be ready.) (e.g., I hate it when the teacher calls on me in class and catches me off guard. “Inoculate” yourself against the stress or negative thoughts of a particular situation by imagining or planning exposure to the activating event in order to practice new thinking.Practice “thought-stopping.” Every time you recognize that you are having a negative automatic thought, say “Stop.” (e.g., I’ll never be able to do this math problem.Hey, I wonder if we have cookies for my study break!) (e.g., I’ll never get an A in math this year. Distract yourself by thinking of something else rather than putting yourself down.Reattribute by looking for the positive in the situation.(e.g., I don’t like being in language arts class, but at least my friends are with me.). ![]() If I were the teacher, I’d probably get angry if kids didn’t pay attention to me in class.) For example, try to imagine how another person sees the situation. Reframe or relable problems to view them from another perspective.Rehearse positive self-affirmations.(e.g., I am capable of doing this.(Self-monitoring activity below is a variation). In the next, identify the related logic error, then, in the third, write an appropriate and rational response. In the first column, record the dysfunctional automatic thought. In other words, changing negative automatic thought patterns is easier said than done and requires practice. *Remember that changes of the “heart” often lag behind those of the “head” when adapting to a new situation.
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