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People who are successful and happy in this world have as many negative thoughts as you and I do. Really. 

The difference is that they find ways to remind themselves to focus on the narrative that they want to live rather than focusing on the mental chatter in their heads. 

Because if we continue to believe every thought that we have, and if our thoughts continue to be negative, it will be very challenging to live a life of positivity, purpose or peace. 
What we allow to settle in our minds and what we focus on will surely become our reality. 

So how about focusing on the narrative that we want to live? How about becoming aware of where our attention is, and being intentional about directing it where we want it to be? 

This week, continue our conversation on challenging unhelpful, negative or distorted thinking. 

We have talked about how valuable it can be to consult with a friend when our negative thoughts are getting the best of us. 

Sometimes, however, such a friend is not at hand, for whatever reason. What do we do then?

We can access our own inner wisdom by asking ourselves: what would we tell a friend or a younger sibling in this situation? 

Many of us are very good advice-givers. Superb advice-givers, in fact. 

When someone who is emotionally charged or triggered comes to us, we can look at the situation without the emotional triggers and come up with a balanced perspective. We can see the pros and cons of thinking this way and come up with helpful suggestions on how to combat this negative perspective (especially if we have been reading Daily Wisdom regularly ;) ) 

So while we have all inner knowledge, it can be hard to apply it to our own situation – unless...

That’s okay. You’re right. It is probably not.

But then neither are those interpretations that you put in the second circle, are they?

And that is the point: our judgements and interpretations are mostly conclusions that are mind comes up with to make sense of situations when we do not have complete knowledge. We make assumptions and arrive at conclusions with very limited information and perception.

So why not come up with explanations and interpretations that are helpful and empowering rather than distressing and disempowering?

Makes sense?

It is time to draw a third circle on our piece of paper.

This is the most challenging part of the exercise. The automatic negative assumptions that we make are usually automatic and don’t take much thought at all.

Coming up with alternatives to our automatic way of thinking WILL be challenging at first.

But please keep going. I promise you, it is worth the effort.

So write down several possible alternate explanations for the situation that is causing you distress.

You may ask yourself questions such as:

What evidence do I have for believing this?

What are the some of the things that I am ignoring that contradict these interpretations?

What conclusions am I jumping to that are not completely justified by the...

A very effective way to get back to mental and emotional stability is this little exercise:

On a piece of paper, draw two circles. Label the first one: What Happened and the second one: What I made it mean.

Now in the first circle write down a situation when you were upset with someone: someone did not respond to your text, did not return an email or a phone call, they spoke to you in a loud voice, said something, did not greet you on your birthday etc. etc. etc. What you write here should be observable on a video screen by anybody watching.

Next, in the second circle, write down all your interpretations: the labels you have put on them, the judgements you are passing, the meaning...

So instead of reacting to everything that we think, we can become unbiased observers of our thoughts.

When bad thoughts arise, (and they WILL), we can say, "It's interesting that I think that."

When good thoughts arise, we can say, "It's interesting that I think that."

Just watch your thoughts come and go, come and go, come and go.

When we practice observing thoughts rather than treating them as TRUE and then reacting, we can remain in control and not react based on our mental events.

Be like the ocean – underneath the waves, it is still, calm, unmoving.

Since thoughts are merely interpretations of events, why not choose more helpful interpretations? Why not choose interpretations that would make us feel good about ourselves and others rather than bring us down and cause us to blame and disconnect from our loved ones?

So the next time you catch yourself having a cognitive distortion, you may find it helpful to ask yourself: what are the facts?

Pretend that you are a lawyer (or a scientist) when you’re challenging your thoughts. The best lawyers and scientists generally don’t use feelings or opinions to win their argument – they stick to the facts (the evidence). Facts are those things, behaviours and events that you can see on a video screen.

For example, if you catch yourself thinking that you are a bad...

A person who suffers from a self-serving bias will attribute all positive events or achievements to himself while seeing any negative events or mistakes as outside his control.

If I do well at work, it is my hard work.

If I mess up a project, it is my boss who did not give proper instructions.

If I am a good hostess, it is my own creativity and hard work.

If the food turns out bad, it is my children’s fault who distracted me while I was cooking.

If my relationship is going well, it is because I am such an awesome spouse.

If we are going through a difficult patch, it is because my spouse is being extraordinarily challenging.

This pattern of thinking causes a person to refuse to admit mistakes or flaws and to live in a distorted reality where he or she can do no wrong. 

Since self growth and emotional and spiritual maturity begins with...

Today’s distortion is called "fallacy of fairness" closely related to, and sometimes referred to as "Heaven’s Reward Fallacy".

The fallacy of fairness leads us to believe that the world in general and certainly our life "should" be fair.

Truth be told, this is a distortion that I fall into quite often. In my head, if we have good intentions, work hard and do the right thing, we should get good results. Are you with me on this?

The problem with thinking in this way is that we are often disappointed and even angry when we are faced with proof of "life’s unfairness". When something happens which does not appear fair, we resist the reality of it, telling ourselves "it should not be like this". (Guess who wins when we fight with reality?)

Those who are realists are more at peace when faced with situations that appear unfair. They seem to accept that "it is...

Fortune telling is when we jump to conclusions and make predictions about the future – predictions which are most likely to be negative.

If we lose our job, for example, we may predict that we will be broke and poor for the rest of our days. If we have a bad experience in a relationship, we may assume that we will never find love or settle down.

As you can imagine, fortune telling can make us quite miserable about things that may never happen! Instead of being realistic that various different outcomes are equally possible, fortune telling convinces us that the outcome is bound to disastrous, even though the opposite may be just as possible.

So the next time you notice yourself fortune telling about yourself or others (hint: as parents some of us are rather skilled at telling our children’s negative fortunes if they...