We all have a specific, unique way of viewing ourselves, others, and the world around us based on our biology and life experiences. If you’ve dealt with anxiety or depression, your thought patterns probably have some level of distortion. Often the thoughts you have discourage you from completing daily tasks that seemed so simple before depression or anxiety hit. Emotions arise from the thoughts you have about events, as different interpretations of an event can lead to vastly different emotional responses.
It’s easier to notice symptoms of overwhelming emotions, lack of motivation, and changes to behavior than it is to notice the thoughts driving them. But key to experiencing relief from anxiety and depression is to recognize your thought patterns behind those emotional and behavioral shifts.
Recognizing Distorted Thought Patterns
If you’ve been having destructive thinking patterns, you may not know it. Have you ever been to a circus or carnival where there was a fun house with oddly shaped mirrors? Looking at yourself in one of those mirrors makes your body look tall and thin, short and stout, or perhaps even swirled. Now imagine if those were the only mirrors you had in your home, and one day you visited a friend who had a plain, flat mirror. Looking into that mirror, you would likely think, “What’s wrong with this mirror? Why is it showing me like that?” You’ve never realized that the mirrors you’ve been looking at your whole life haven’t shown you reality.
When we have negative beliefs about ourself, others, or the world, they form a lens (much like this distorted, fun house mirror) through which we interpret everything. We skew whatever circumstance we’re in, interaction we have, or problem we face as directly related to this destructive thought. There are several categories of these destructive thought patterns.
Also, these thoughts are usually several layers deep. Let’s say you see a friend while you’re out for a walk and she doesn’t acknowledge you. Your first, automatic thought might be something like, “Is she mad at me?” This is quickly followed by a chorus of other thoughts (“I wonder if I’ve offended her somehow. Is she upset I didn’t invite her to that get-together last week? I haven’t been calling her often enough.”) which ends in a deeper, core belief (“I’m a bad friend”).
As you reflect on this thought pattern, you may also have a negative thought pattern about these thoughts. When you notice yourself thinking about yourself negatively or interpreting situations in negative ways, you might think, “Why do I always do this? I get myself so worked up over little things and then it ruins my whole day. I’m such an idiot.”
Questioning Your Thoughts
Once you’re aware of these thoughts and can recognize how they’re hurting you more than they’re helping you, you have the opportunity to shift the narrative. Consider the questions below as tools to help you change the way you think about yourself, others, or the world.
How true is this thought?
Often our thoughts have some grain of truth in them, even if we’ve blown it out of proportion to the stressor. However, destructive thought patterns often are more negative than accurate.
For example, take the thought “I’m a bad person” that comes because you raised your voice at your children in the heat of an angry moment. It is true that you raised your voice, and that isn’t in alignment with your values of parenting. But magnifying this one mistake to pass judgment on who you are as a whole is intensifying the thought beyond what is true.
What evidence supports this thought? What evidence goes against this thought?
This question builds off the previous one to offer evidence to support (or deny) the “truth” of your thought in the context of the situation. Consider this as putting your thoughts on trial. You’re parsing out the evidence you have in front of you objectively, taking emotions or bias out of the picture. This often influences what you see as reality in the situation.
Is this thought helping me or hurting me?
When you have this thought, how does it make you feel? What does it make you want to do? Ruminating or focusing all your attention on negative thought patterns is destructive to your mental health. If you notice your thought patterns lead you to retreat from relationships, feel exhausted or overwhelmed, engage in self-destructive behaviors, feed into addiction, overeat or oversleep, or cope in ways that ultimately hurt you, this might be a thought pattern worth changing.
While sometimes it may feel as though you don’t have control over your thinking patterns, using these questions is a great way to shift those thoughts. Consider: how is this thought affecting me negatively? How might shifting my perspective on this situation affect me differently?
What would I say to my best friend if they told me they were having this thought?
We are our own worst critics. In most cases, we would never speak to our friends the way that we speak to ourselves. Use this question to evaluate whether you’re being too harsh on yourself or whether your limited perspective on the situation might be influencing your reaction.
Think of an encouraging mentor or friend in your life. What would they say to you about this thought?
Picture sitting across from this person and imagine their face as they hear you share those thoughts with them. How would they look at you? Would there be judgment or compassion in their eyes? How might they respond? Similar to the last question, imagining speaking these thoughts aloud with others changes the way you hear them.
If you are a Christian, you might also ask yourself: what would God say to you? Use Scripture like 1 Corinthians 13:4-7 to connect to the love and compassion He has for you, and identify Bible verses that respond to the concern you’re feeling. Connect to your identity in Christ as a source of hope and reassurance against negative beliefs about yourself.
Where is this thought coming from?
As mentioned earlier, we learned our unique ways of interpreting events from our life experiences. See if you can pinpoint where this negative message or thought pattern was hammered home for you. Were they words communicated to you by someone from your past who has hurt you? Even if the words were never communicated directly in this way, are they influenced by messages you’ve indirectly received about yourself or your worth?
How might my current circumstances be affecting my thoughts?
When we’re feeling hungry, angry, lonely, tired, bored, or a number of other distressing feelings, those can intensify our reaction to life events. When our basic needs for relationship, nourishment, safety, and rest aren’t being met, we can become worn down and more susceptible to negative interpretations. Have there been triggers in other areas of your life that might be intensifying these thoughts? How has your self-care been – sleep, eating, social time, leisure time, work, etc.? Are there stressors in your life that might be compounding your negative thought patterns?
What is the least pathological explanation for what happened? What is most realistic?
If you’ve ever dealt with depression, you know that depression can convince you to be absolutely certain about the truth of your negative interpretation of events. In anxiety, worst case scenarios often feel like the only possible outcome. Consider what alternative explanations might exist for the situation in which you find yourself and identify if those might be valid in any way.
As an extension of this question, it may be helpful to ask yourself what the worst-case scenario is (probably what you’re already thinking), what the best-case scenario is, and what is most realistic. What is most likely to happen is often the most realistic possibility, and it often exists between the two extremes of best-case and worst-case.
Through what core belief “lens” might I be viewing this thought?
In the film the Wizard of Oz, Dorothy and her friends visit the Emerald City and are asked to put on glasses before they enter. With those glasses on, everything they see is in various shades of green! But if they were to remove those green-tinted glasses, they would see the true colors of their surroundings for what they are.
Our core beliefs function in much the same way. When we believe something at the core about who we are, we interpret all events that happen to us and around us through that lens. If I believe I’m unloveable, I will interpret my spouse’s delay in responding to my text as evidence that they don’t love me. Notice if any of your thoughts are colored by these core beliefs, and imagine what it might look like if you took those tinted glasses off.