This week's question reminds us to pay attention to our thoughts and self talk. We talked about self talk last month and some of the language that is hindering. This week, we explore some of the more popular cognitive distortions that would negatively impact us living whole lives after experiencing trauma.
Personalization. Do you find that you feel responsible for every single thing that happens to you? That's called personalization and it is unhealthy. The reality is, is that will never be true and certainly isn't true for whatever happened to you.
Emotional Reasoning. This occurs when you view your circumstances through the lens of your feelings. This is very easy to happen because feelings are pretty powerful. So if I feel worthless, then it must mean that I am worthless.
Shoulds. On the other hand, are you the person who beats yourself up because of "shoulds". You know, I SHOULD be past this by now. I SHOULD no longer be triggered. side note: Your journey is special and unique and you do yourself a disservice by putting arbitrary markers on it. Talk with your therapist about what are healthy goals and timeline that you can set for yourself.
Overgeneralization. Taking an isolated situation or situations and interpreting life based on the outcome or conditions of this situation. e.g. my friend betrayed my trust, therefore no one is trustworthy.
Labeling. The situation that occurs where we see or define ourselves based on a single characteristic. Something bad happened to me so I AM bad.
These are just some of the distortions that feed our self talk. It is important to identify them and next week, we will talk about specific ways to combat this. #drgiasays #Jesusplustherapy #digdeeper #lifeaftertrauma #cbt