Workshop Synopsis

Primary cause of unhappiness is never the situation but your thoughts about it .

What is cognitive distortions?

Our situations don’t define us, no matter what happens in your life we always have power to choose our attitude and the way we react to the situation. So, what is the difference between the people who remain quite hopeful even after the great suffering and the person who remains angry and annoyed just because he or she got late for office by few minutes. The difference lies tine the person’s pattern of thinking.

These patters can also be defined by term Cognitive distortions. Cognitive distortions are biased perspectives we take on ourselves and the world around us. they are irrational thoughts and beliefs that we unknowingly reinforce over time. in simpler words cognitive distortions are ways that our mind convinces us for something that isn’t true. These inaccurate thoughts are usually used to reinforce negative thinking or emotions — telling ourselves things that sound rational and accurate, but only serve to keep us feeling bad about ourselves.

E.g.1. I am the unluckiest person in entire world

2. I am not good at sports, I just can’t do anything

Short term side effects

Lowers the self confidence

Increases stress level

Negative thinking increases

Efficiency to try again or perform a task reduces

Long term side effect

Anxiety

Stress

Depression

Advantages of knowing these patterns

learning to correctly identify this kind of “stinkin’ thinkin’,” a person can then answer the negative thinking back and refute it. By refuting the negative thinking over and over again, it will slowly diminish overtime and be automatically replaced by more rational, balanced thinking.

Most common Types of cognitive distortions

Overgeneralization: overgeneralization is a cognitive distortion which can lead consequential errors in thinking and has capability to cause lot of unnecessary emotional pain

In this person comes to a conclusion from a single situation or a evidence which happened to her. if something unfortunate happened with them just once, then they expect that situation to happen again and again . a person might see one unpleasant event as never-ending pattern of losing.

For eg ; if you failed in maths test ones , you will have fear of your maths test your whole semester , which in turn will lean you anywhere but stress which will decrease your efficiency to work towards your maths test more.

Black and white (polarized thinking): Black and White Thinking is a cognitive distortion where we tend to see things as all-or-nothing. Things are either good or bad, right or wrong. In other words, we only see the extremes of the situation. We either see one apex or another. we forget that between white and black other shades like grey exist.

These types can block your mind for any other options except the extremes and in these types can result to feeling of disappointment which can hit very hard

E.g.: I must become an engineer or else I cannot achieve anything in my life. In this you are only making yourself belief that only one job is made for you in this entire world which is engineering anything other than that is not for you, this thinking stops you to explore yourself and your skills more

Mental filtering: mental filter is cognitive disorder where person filters out its though, manly focusing on negative emotions and thoughts , we choose to focus on what’s not happening in our life rather than what’s happening in our life . Therefore, the way we perceive and interpret reality is based on a flawed negative perspective that is preventing us from seeing things clearly.

This type of thinking can result in just focusing on negative and not at focusing on positive areas of your life. Can also results in panic disorder and also in series of over thinking pattern which can prove to be harmful in your decision-making ability in future.

For e.g.: if you have applied in two competitions in school in both you had really good chances to win but unfortunately you could only win one then u will be only focusing in what u could not win and miss the happiness and enjoyment of what you did win.

Blaming: as the name refers blaming , this is very common knowingly and unknowingly lot of times we hold others accountable for our results , we forget that no matter what happens its our action which brought us in this situation , this can be opposite also you can start blaming yourself for every problem which is worse .

This can lower your self-confidence extremely vise versa even spoil your relationships with your; loved ones and friends as you don’t take responsibilities of your own actions.

For e.g.: “Stop making me feel bad about myself, in this you are forgetting that its not others who are making you feel bad about yourself but its your own thought which is making you think like that.

Jumping to conclusion: in this type of distortion we all become a fortune teller, or we think we have ability to predict future. FUNNY right, but it’s true in this type we start to jump to the conclusion of any situation or conversation , where you start believing whatever you presumed that will only happen in that particular situation even though that’s not true, and so you start acting according to your assumptions.

In long run this can be very harmful as jumping to the conclusion before anyth8ng happened can lead to negative impacts on situation and thoughts, so this will also lead you to have fixed mindset about a situation or other person so you will not even bother to put efforts next time

For e.g.: a person may conclude that someone is holding a grudge against them but doesn’t bother to find out if they are correct.

Personalization(mind reading) : in this type of distortion an individual starts thinking that every situation or topic or conversation is directed to his or her . he or she thinks that whatever is happening even in other life is revolving around his or he r, these types are commonly seen in teenagers as they have very high emotions at this point of time and easily get offended.

In long run this can lead you to have social insecurities, interactions problem with people, overthinking, anxiety. it can also lead to negative comparison including jealousy.

For E.g.: We were late to the dinner party and caused everyone to have a terrible time. If I had only pushed my husband to leave on time, this wouldn’t have happened.

Emotional reasoning: in this type of distortion our emotions tells us how to react to a situation, or in more simple words your reaction to outside world and circumstances will depend on your mood, which is not so helpful a s your mood becomes the barometer how you see our life and situation.

This can lead to series of negative emotions and situations cause if you are in bad mood then if anything good is also happening you wont be able to appreciate it , and also you might hurt your close ones unintendedly as you mood will control your behavior and response towards them .and I feel this line is really appropriate in this which is from really famous book tv shows shadow hunters that "emotions cloud our judgment"

For E.g.: if you had a bad day at school or work but at home your mom made your favorite dish as you are in bad mood you wont even appreciate her efforts or worse might take things on her in turn making her feel special you will end up hurting her.

Magnification/ minimization: in this type of distortion one starts exegeting its problem out of portion and minimizing its achievements or more simple words neglecting. or this maybe opposite also that you may get so high headed with your achievement that overlook your upcoming challenges.

In first case it ca lead to panic attacks, anxiety and even depression as you might see your problems really major ones while the truth its all in your head ,in second case you might loose the scope of improvement as you might develop the feeling you are the best and don’t need to feel the improvement and not improving will make you loose your talent

For e.g.: Kim had rehearsed a speech for her sister’s wedding. When it came time to make her toast, though, Kim blundered a couple of words. She quickly regained control and ended up giving a moving and heartfelt toast. Afterward, many people complimented her on her speech. However, Kim complained that she was embarrassed by her slip-ups and felt she'd ultimately ruined this special occasion for her sister. ​

Kim is magnifying her flaws and minimizing her accomplishment. If Kim were thinking more realistically, she would recognize that most people enjoyed her speech and didn't even notice the small imperfections. Her mistakes may have made her toast sound even more genuine and sincere. Kim likely missed out on the fun of this wonderful event by focusing too much on the few errors that occurred in her speech.

Should and musting: this is when we have unrealistic demands from ourselves and from others. many times, it happens that we put ourselves in a state that we tell yourselves we should do like this or we should behave like this, we should get this, they should have behaved like this with me. this puts us and other in great pressure to fulfil the demands because a sense of expectations comes here. hey now don’t get me wrong here I am not saying you should ot expect from yourself I am saying you should expect yourself things which you know you can really achieve at one go and then try for bigger goals, and as for others we shall try to keep our expectations to minimal as it’s not their responsibility to rise over your expectations , obviously now parents case is different.

Simple is that disappointments lead to sadness, sadness will lead to negative emotions and negative emotions can lead to violent behavior and thoughts. For e.g.: my friends should wish me at 12 midnight, I should get this position in student council

Heaven fallacy :This distortion is a popular one, and it’s easy to see myriad examples of this fallacy playing out on big and small screens across the world. The “Heaven’s Reward Fallacy” manifests as a belief that one’s struggles, one’s suffering, and one’s hard work will result in a just reward.

It is obvious why this type of thinking is a distortion – how many examples can you think of, just within the realm of your personal acquaintances, where hard work and sacrifice did not pay off?

Sometimes no matter how hard we work or how much we sacrifice, we will not achieve what we hope to achieve. To think otherwise is a potentially damaging pattern of thought that can result in disappointment, frustration, anger, and even depression when the awaited reward does not materialize.