Positivity

Cognitive distortions are self-constructed notions the brain conceptualizes that can make an individual feel worse about themselves and most likely are not true (https://www.mayoclinic.org). Here are some examples to look for:

• Filtering 

  • Magnifying the negative aspects of a situation over other positive parts

• Personalizing

  • Labeling everything that went wrong as your fault 

  • Ex. The party was canceled today, it had to be because no one wanted me to come.

• Catastrophizing

  • If one small thing goes wrong, you start to make generalized thoughts and statements that the rest of your day will be terrible

• Blaming

  • Faulting someone else every time something could have easily been avoided by you.

  • Ex. If you didn’t study for an exam but instead of realizing this is your fault, you say the professor is unfair and complain about them being a bad professor.

• Seeing only what you didn’t do

  • Ex. When you have a plan for the day and you didn’t do a few of the things you wanted to but instead of focusing on the things you did do, you are ruminating on the things you didn’t do

• Polarizing

  • Seeing things as only two sides of the spectrum, there is no medium between good and bad when describing things in your life.

  • Ex. If your day went minorly wrong (your coffee order went wrong) but you say the entire day was terrible instead of saying “it went alright”