Twisted Thinking

 Does anyone else have the problem where their brain turns and turns with overthinking the most ridiculous things?? Well if not consider yourself blessed!

In today's world, people are becoming more aware of mental thoughts and the effects they can have on our health. This is a good thing but like everything in this world... all things in moderation.

The biggest thing to remember when it comes to things mentally is to remember that we have control over our thoughts, emotions, and actions. Some people find this very hard to believe. They think their life is bad because of other people and the way they have been treated. News Flash! Life isn't rainbows and unicorns! We are going to deal with people who hurt us and cause pain. However, we do not need to dwell on the pain. We need to work through it and then remember what is in the past is in the past. There is no going back to try and fix it or change the outcome. We can learn from the past and choose to live our lives in a higher way.

This higher way can be tricky because it is so easy to get caught up in worldly things. It's so easy to search for the problem versus searching for the good. This is a common thing that happens to me. I am an overthinker. Especially when I am stressed or tired. So I often think about what is the worst thing that can happen or I analyze every situation to death. The truth of it is that I just don't want anything to go wrong and I want to live the best life possible.

In a way, this literally eats away at me until I get a little shock of reality. Usually implying that everything is going to be okay. I know this might sound a little bit weird but I have to mentally talk to myself and deny these bad thoughts. One day a couple of years ago I came across a paper that had 10 forms of twisted thinking written on it. As I read each of the phrases I could see just how bad my thinking patterns had become. Our brain is smart and it essentially trains itself to do things. Well for a long period in my life I had trained it to worry and overthink in the worst ways possible.

Since that day I found that paper I have been trying off and on to retrain my brain. To one see the good in the world and in my life. Two, to have a better mental outlook. I wouldn't say I'm great at it but I have made progress.

In case you were wondering what some of the forms of overthinking were... here are some of the biggest ones that were impacting me:

The first one was magnification. I tend to make things bigger than they need to be. Involving so many emotions into something so simple. I would think that changing a particular part of the plan was devastating to our whole day. When in reality it was just an extra 15 minutes and we would be completely fine.

Another one was jumping to conclusions. I still do this a lot but in a different form than what most people think. I jump to the conclusion of what other people think of me. I know super toxic right?? This one is not good because in reality what we think will happen does not actually happen. It's like when we worry about something. In all honestly what are the odds it can actually happen? Usually fairly slim (depending on the situation).

There are many other forms of twisted thinking and if this interests you go check out the page here:

http://bayareahealthpsychology.com/forms/10FormsOfTwistedThinking.pdf