Take Control of AUTOMATIC THOUGHTS

Do your thoughts control you? Are you constantly distressed by automatic thoughts? Discover the consequences of stopping dominating your mind and how to change these thoughts.

There are many occasions in which we can find ourselves thinking about events or ideas that can harm us. These types of automatic thoughts can even take control of our entire mind, making us unhappy in our daily lives. But why does this exist? automatic thinking ? How can we stop these automatic thoughts?

What are thoughts?

The thoughts They are the way we have to dialogue with ourselves and constantly interact with the outside world. Thoughts in themselves are nothing more than brain events that we interpret as information, so the meaning of each thought is determined by the interpretation we make of them.

Types of thoughts

According to psychologists, there are different ways of thinking. In this way, we can talk about 2 types of thoughts the rational and the irrational.

Rational thoughts

When we talk about rational thoughts We are pointing out those thoughts based on logic, which have a representation in reality and allow us to verify their veracity through objective tests. That is, they are thoughts that, from the point of view of adaptation, allow us to evaluate and act in a functional and adaptive way to the environment. They have a function and a utility.

Irrational thoughts

But what about the irrational ? Well, irrational thoughts are another story, since they are thoughts that limit us in life, since they absorb energy from us and make us interpret reality incorrectly, deforming it and giving a meaning that is not appropriate, which carries a burden. negative emotional that translates into behaviors that do not bring us benefits, quite the opposite. The automatic thoughts They are part of this irrational way of thinking.

What are negative automatic thoughts?

The automatic thoughts They usually follow a series of patterns that we can identify based on the following characteristics.

They are automatic and involuntary

Automatic, irrational and negative thoughts are those that appear in our mind, without us being able to do anything to prevent their appearance. They are thoughts automatic and involuntary They often appear in the form of negative images presenting catastrophic situations. In short, they are thoughts that appear spontaneously and stay in the mind sending us negative, demanding and very harmful messages. For example, they would be thoughts like “No one will ever like me”, “I’m not going to find a job because I’m useless”, “Everyone laughs at me”, “I’m worthless”, “I’m a bad person”among many more examples.

Contain negative messages

As we can see, they are very negative and limiting messages, since one of the big problems that this has type of thinking automatic is that it is believed at the moment it appears; This means that we do not question it, we do not doubt it, but we believe it and that makes us identify with the content of the thought and incorporate it into our way of being, with which they begin to form part of us because we have learned to interpret everything under the influence of those messages.

They consist of erroneous interpretations

From psychology, this topic is worked on from different perspectives. One of them, the cognitive one, postulates that it is not the situations we experience or the events that happen to us that generate different emotional states, but rather how we take (interpret) the events.” Faced with the same event, several people can experience it in totally different ways. Therefore, when deactivate the contents of an emotion These automatic thoughts eventually disappear.

This means that not everyone will have the same emotional reaction to a situation or event. Each person will give meaning to that experience depending on different factors, such as previous experience, age, personality… etc.; which will cause the way you feel about such an event to be determined by the meaning of what happened (not the event itself).

Let’s take as an example the fact of taking an exam. Faced with this event we find these three people who have interpreted it differently, and we see how the result is that each one has generated a different emotional state. If the first one thinks “I have studied a lot and I think it turned out great” Your emotion is probably satisfaction. The second, for his part, thought “I’m sure I made a mistake in my answers.”, which may provoke an anxiety and fear response in the face of a possible failure. Finally, the third has thoughts of the kind “I haven’t studied and I’m going to fail, I’m not good for this” and the response can be rejection and helplessness, which can lead to avoidance.

They are catastrophic

These automatic thoughts tend to greatly exaggerate reality. So much so that they magnify negativity in various ways. The reason why a negative automatic thought It is precisely because these were a useful tool to try to survive during prehistory. The more negativity there was in us, the better we could prevent catastrophic situations.

They appear as an image

They may appear as an image, or sometimes it even seems as if we can “visualize” the content in our mind. They can be made up of a single word or entire phrases. That is to say, They do not have a defined shape but they can appear in different ways.

They are credible

They have the ability to make we believe them the moment they appear That is, we tend to validate them simply by having them in our minds.

As we have seen, the interpretation or meaning that we give to the situation makes us feel different things and behave accordingly. The situation is the same in all cases, but we already see how the thoughts give it a different tone in each of the examples. Therefore, emotional well-being fundamentally depends on us being aware of the automatic thoughts and its negative characteristics.

How do I know if I have negative automatic thoughts?

It is essential to know if we are really capable of detecting our automatic thoughts To do this, there are some methods to know if our mind is really dominated by parts that we control or that, on the contrary, we are not aware of.

Observe your emotions

The automatic thoughts They are what create emotions, so to identify if there are these thoughts, the first thing we have to observe is how we feel.

Ask what triggers your emotions

Ask yourself what exactly is causing that emotion in you. The answer to that question will probably be a automatic thinking For example: I am distressed. What exactly is distressing me? May I not get the job tomorrow at the interview.

Analyze the thought

See if your automatic thoughts Are they based on some evidence or is it more of a personal opinion or assessment. For example: In the previous case, as we see, it is an anticipation of an event that has not yet occurred, for which I have no evidence in favor but that I am believing is going to happen and that is causing me anxiety.

If throughout this analysis you have seen that your thoughts are preceded by emotions and come from events that you cannot control, then you can be sure that it is a negative automatic thought

How to control automatic thoughts?

This is probably the most complicated part, since we have to work with those thoughts, giving them a different perspective and seeing them in a more objective way. To do this, we use different techniques and resources in order to identify how they are deforming reality and subsequently moving to a restructuring of thoughts, as well as the basis that promotes them, which are the beliefs we have about what reality is. life and our passage through it. In order to face the discomfort or anxiety from negative thoughts there are a series of techniques that you can put into practice.

1. Ask yourself questions

When a automatic thinking It is vital that you face it by asking yourself certain questions such as the following:

Is this automatic thought true?
What good is this automatic thought for me?
Is there another explanation or another way of looking at things?
What advice would you give to a friend who had one of these negative automatic thoughts?

Thanks to these questions you will have a way to rationalize each of the automatic thoughts that come to your mind. So much so that you will be able to see the situation from a completely different perspective than the one dictated by the content of each of them.

2. Write down automatic thoughts

When a large number of these thoughts, it is vital to try to see what their origin is and why we are suffering from them. So much so that to achieve this, a good idea would be to write down each of these automatic thoughts.

3. Embody your inner critic

A good method to disable negative automatic thoughts It is precisely trying to give them a completely different voice. In this way, every time you detect thoughts of this style you can imagine a character other than yourself (a good example would be giving them the voice of Gollum from the Lord of the Rings).

4. Identify them as boring

Every time these negative automatic thoughts are repeated for the umpteenth time, take it as if these were boring. In this way you will deceive your own mind and stop paying them a minimum of attention.

5. Turn them into positives

To try to take over these parts of our brain that we do not control, a good method is to try to transform each of these automatic thoughts in positive events for us.

6. Leave the ‘Should’ behind

On many occasions the content of these automatic thoughts It is usually very defined by phrases like ‘should’ or ‘shouldn’t’. For this reason, it is essential to leave these statements behind and reformulate each of the thoughts within us with an attitude that gives us more benefits than the ‘should’.

If you detect that you have negative thoughts that you cannot handle and these are making you feel worse and worse and that is leading you to behave in a way that is bringing you complications, I recommend that you visit a professional so that both of you can work together on this issue and give each other some guidelines and some work tools so that you learn to handle them well and do not cause you so much discomfort.