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If that assumption is neutral or positive there is no harm done. For example, if I go grocery shopping, I can safely assume that my spouse will like a certain brand of ice cream. This is mind reading from past experience and does no harm (unless he has decided to go on a diet, of course).

The vast majority of time, however, our assumptions are far from positive or neutral. They are negative interpretations that we have come to from a given set of facts without checking them out.

If someone does not greet us in a public place, we may assume any of the following:

All of us (that’s a generalization by the way!) have made a generalization or a broad statement to a group of people or things. Basically, our minds are so hungry for the impression of knowledge and certainty about our circumstances that they automatically form broad, sweeping conclusions based on very little information or experience. This is particularly true when we’re under the influence of strong negative emotions.

The problem with generalizations is that they are seldom true and can be the basis of prejudice and racism if they embody negative assumptions about entire groups of people.

As Albert Einstein said: All generalizations are false, including this one.

When we say things like "She always", "You never", "Some people are so . ." we are making...

Today let’s look at Black-and-White Thinking which is sometimes also called Polarized Thinking.

He is a terrible person

My sister is so beautiful and I’m so ugly.

This option is great and the other one is awful.

When we think in this way, we are unable or unwilling to see shades of grey or a middle ground. Things are either good or bad, right or wrong. In other words, we only see the extremes of the situation.Nothing is okay or good enough or somewhere in the middle – it is either fantastic or awful, we are either perfect or we are a total failure.

1)   Intention.

2)   Learn about distorted thought patterns

3)   Recognize distorted thinking

4)   Replace with helpful thinking

...

Negative thoughts are perfectly normal and according to many psychologists, may be the default position of our mind.

This is because negative thoughts exist to keep us safe. Really.

Our ancestors survived by constantly being on the lookout for threats, fixing problems as they arose, and then learning from their mistakes. If they were optimists and stopped to admire the sunrise and smell the roses, they may not have survived to give birth to their children and we may not have been here.

They used their imagination to consider potential threats and problems, enabling them to solve the problems before they got into trouble and were attacked by predators.

So thankfully they were able to watch for and deal with trouble before it attacked them and that...

If we get used to examining our thoughts however, we begin to recognize that our thoughts can be unstable and often arbitrary, shifting depending on context and contradicting our better instincts. If we are upset at someone for something, for example, we may begin to develop "tunnel vision", and our thoughts focus only on their negative aspects and ignore the positive ones.

The problem does not lie in the fact that we have thoughts, but in the fact that we sometimes begin to form our personal identities around the things we think. We begin to believe every thought that we have. If I think that someone is mean, for example, they must be mean.

One of the key aspects of self growth, of emotional intelligence and of mental health is to recognize thoughts as passing phenomena of the mind without attaching ourselves to every thought that we have and...

Did you know that the average person thinks between 50,000-70,000 thoughts per day? The thoughts that pass through our brain last only split seconds and range from the mundane -- I need to do groceries, to the significant – My family really matters to me, to the self-destructive -- I'm not good enough.

And did you know that most of these thoughts are the same thoughts we think every day? Our thoughts seem to be on autopilot most of the time and appear to come from nowhere.

AND did you know that the majority of these automatic thoughts are negative. (The reason for this is rather interesting and something that we will deal with on another day)

Psychologists have coined a phrase for these thoughts: ANTs – Automatic Negative Thoughts.

I like to think of them as ANTs eating the positive side of my brain. A yucky but powerful image, wouldn’t you say?

How many ANTs can...

Over the last little while, we have been talking about the link between emotion and motion – in other words how taking action can change your feelings. 

This week, let’s explore how we can sometimes get to the very source of negative emotions to prevent them rather than changing them once they appear.

Before I explain this further, let’s do a quick exercise. 

Imagine that your family is rushing to get out of the house in the morning and you are trying to do several things at once: get ready for work, make sure the children have everything they need for the day, feed them breakfast and connect with your spouse about the evening plans. It is one of those days and everyone is running a bit late. 

Get the picture?

Now, just as everyone is about to bolt from the breakfast table and get into the car/bus/bicycle, your six-year-old spills the entire box of cereal on the floor. Oooops. Now everyone will be late for sure.

What is your reaction? 

Do you think:...

What can we learn from this? That if you act like lovers on a set with your significant other, it is quite likely that you can kindle or rekindle the feelings of love.

However, science now suggests that smiling can trick your brain into happiness — and boost your health.

The strange thing is that for the most part, the brain cannot detect whether it is a genuine smile or not. It is the...