MoodGYM: Welcome. Feeling Good: The New Mood Therapy (9780380731763): David D. Burns. The Happiness Trap: How to Stop Struggling and Start Living: Russ Harris, Steven Hayes: 9781590305843: Amazon.com. Mindfulness: An Eight-Week Plan for Finding Peace in a Frantic World: Mark Williams, Danny Penman, Jon Kabat-Zinn: 9781609618957: Amazon.com. Zen Mind: How to Declutter. By Leo Babauta One of the things that gives me most peace is have a clean, simple home. When I wake up in the morning and walk out into a living room that has been decluttered, that has a minimalist look, and there isn’t junk lying around, there is a calm and joy that enters my heart.
When, on the other hand, I walk out into a living room cluttered with toys and books and extra things all over the place, it is chaos and my mind is frenetic. I’ve been a simplifier and a declutterer for years now (probably 8-9 years) and I’ve gotten pretty good at it, but I’ve found that you have to keep coming back to revisit your clutter every once in awhile. Here are my top decluttering tips: Do it in small chunks. Other posts about decluttering elsewhere: THIS WAY UP. 15 Common Cognitive Distortions. What’s a cognitive distortion and why do so many people have them? Cognitive distortions are simply ways that our mind convinces us of something that isn’t really true. These inaccurate thoughts are usually used to reinforce negative thinking or emotions — telling ourselves things that sound rational and accurate, but really only serve to keep us feeling bad about ourselves. For instance, a person might tell themselves, “I always fail when I try to do something new; I therefore fail at everything I try.”
This is an example of “black or white” (or polarized) thinking. The person is only seeing things in absolutes — that if they fail at one thing, they must fail at all things. Cognitive distortions are at the core of what many cognitive-behavioral and other kinds of therapists try and help a person learn to change in psychotherapy. Cognitive Distortions 1. We take the negative details and magnify them while filtering out all positive aspects of a situation. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10. 11.
Fixing Cognitive Distortions. Cognitive distortions have a way of playing havoc with our lives. If we let them. This kind of “stinkin’ thinkin’” can be “undone,” but it takes effort and lots of practice — every day. If you want to stop the irrational thinking, you can start by trying out the exercises below. 1. Identify Our Cognitive Distortion. We need to create a list of our troublesome thoughts and examine them later for matches with a list of cognitive distortions. 2. A thorough examination of an experience allows us to identify the basis for our distorted thoughts. 3.
An alternative to “self-talk” that is harsh and demeaning is to talk to ourselves in the same compassionate and caring way that we would talk with a friend in a similar situation. 4. Instead of thinking about our problem or predicament in an either-or polarity, evaluate things on a scale of 0-100. 5. We need to seek the opinions of others regarding whether our thoughts and attitudes are realistic. 6. 7. 8. Reference: Burns, D.D. (1989). Dr. Cognitive fun! Cognitive fun! Dual-n-back.