Throwback Thursday – Thinking Traps and Thought Attacks Part 2

The 6th Unhelpful Thinking Style (Thinking Trap) is Magnification and Minimization:

I’ve also heard this Thinking Trap called the ‘binocular trick’ because you’re either blowing things up (out of proportion) or shrinking them.

Magnification, or catastrophising, is blowing things out of proportion, creating absolute despair. This most often occurs when we look at our errors.
“I made a mistake. This is going to end my career. Everyone will hate me. I have ruined my life”

Minimizing, or inappropriately shrinking, is to make something less important. This most often occurs when we look at our strengths. When we do this we are setting ourselves up to be inferior. It is also common to minimize our problems as well, keeping us in denial.
“My eating disorder isn’t that bad”
“Other people have it way worse than I do”

7) Emotional Reasoning
Have you heard of your rational mind, your emotional mind, and your wise mind? Well if you havn’t I’ll spend some time in a future post talking about those. With emotional reasoning, you guessed it, we are using our emotional mind only. We assume that because we feel a certain way what we think must be true. This is a really difficult trap to get out of because it taps into our core beliefs and becuase often these are lifelong messages set to us either formally or informally by: society, culture, community, race, gender, church, family, peers etc. These messages are often very very clear to us or are very very hidden in our subconscious. This is using emotions as facts. Facts are different than feelings. Both are true, though one is objective (facts) and the other (feelings) are subjective. It is important to recognize that both, facts and feelings, are true/real – but they do not influence each other.
“I feel embarrassed therefore I am an idiot”
“I feel rejected therefore I am alone in this world”
“I feel hurt therefore I’m unsafe”
It might be helpful to define terms. What do I mean by idiot, rejection, lonley, hurt, safe?

8) The dreaded SHOULD/MUST words
Using these words, should, must, ought, can make us feel guilty and that we have already failed and if we apply ‘shoulds’ to other people the result is often frustration, resentment, or bitterness. Should, must, and ought imply that there is only one way to do something, therfore if we don’t do it that exact way we have failed.
“I should have done it differently”
“I should be married and have kids already”
“Other people should understand me”
“They should know what I need”
This is one of my favourite thoughts to attack. Because it is really really simple.
Simply use the semantic method. Replace the word ‘should’ with ‘could’ or ‘would’
“I could have done this, or this, or this, or this”
Could gives us options, and options give us life!
Instead of saying “I shouldn’t have made that mistake” we could say “It would have been better if I hadn’t made that mistake”. This takes pressure off. It creates curiously and openness instead of blame and fear.
Try and take ‘should’ out of your vocabulary for a week and replace it with ‘could’ or ‘would’.

9) Labeling
Labeling is where we assign labels to ourselves, or other people.
“I’m a loser”
“I’m useless”
“They’re so stupid”
“She’s perfect”
Labels are just one thing. We focus on one thing and it can also create a huge sense of hopelessness. Try defining the terms. When we label ourselves ‘inferior’, ‘stupid’, ‘loser’ let’s try asking ourselves “What is the definition of…”
Example:
‘I’m clumsy’ vs. ‘These shoes are hard to walk in’
or
‘I’m clumsy’ vs. ‘that was clumsy’
Have you heard of self-compassion (another upcoming post). One of the foundations of self-compassion is common humanity. And attacking our labels with self compassion and common humanity will do wonders. Common humanity is paying attention to what we share with others. Take the clumsiness example, for example. We are likely not the only person who has tripped, fallen, or walked into something. When we recognise that it happens to other people too that is common humanity. That is self-compassion. And that helps take the unhelpful labels off of ourselves and others.

The 10th (and final) Thinking Trap is Personalization.
“This is (all) my fault”
Blaming yourself or taking responsibility for something that wasn’t completely your fault.
Or,
blaming other people for something that was your fault.
Guys- I do this all the fucking time.
I do it because it protects me.
If everything that goes wrong is my fault, then it can’t be someone elses and therefore my world is still safe. I can fix the problem if it was all my fault. If it’s my fault then this person I really care about, or this person who is supposed to love and protect me didn’t let me down and if this person didn’t let me down then I am safe.
Instead of automatically assuming that we are ‘bad’ or that it is our fault and blaming ourselves entirely for a problem try something called Re-attribution. Think about the MANY factors that may have contributed to what went wrong. Focus on solving the problem instead of using up all your energy blaming yourself and feeling guilty.