Who ARE You? - Part 4

The thoughts we have about our life circumstances are often based on our perceptions or interpretations rather than on any factual reality. Cognitive therapy teaches us how to test our beliefs. What is true? Are there other ways of thinking about something that can make us feel better about an event?

Imagine walking down the street. You see a friend approaching and say hello. Your friend does not reply, and does not even acknowledge your presence. You immediately feel anger, perhaps, thinking your friend is snubbing you. Who does she think she is? Too good to say hello! Well, she’ll learn. We’ll just never say hello to her again!

Or perhaps you feel embarrassed. You might think that you had over-estimated your friendship with that person. Perhaps she does not really want to be your friend. Perhaps you never made it onto her radar at all.

Or it could be that you feel worried when she does not say hello to you. Maybe you think that somehow you have offended her. What did you do? You think back to the last conversation you had, and replay every remembered word. What clue might there be to explain her cold behaviour today?

Cognitive therapy would allow you to look at each of these feelings, and search for evidence that supports your beliefs about the event, as well as evidence that your beliefs may be faulty. Last time you spoke, she smiled, and said how good it was to see you, asking how things were going. Nothing seemed out of the ordinary that day.

Cognitive therapy also gets you to look for other possibilities, other explanations, of what happened, beyond your first angry, embarrassed, or anxious beliefs. Perhaps she is not feeling well. Perhaps the sun was in her eyes, and she did not even see you. Perhaps the noise of traffic drowned out your greeting. Perhaps she has something on her mind, and was not even really present in that moment. If any of these things might be true, do you feel any different?

Finally, cognitive therapy asks you to identify how your thoughts might be distorted. Just like the House of Mirrors at an amusement park distorts how we appear, our thoughts can distort our view of reality. Here is a list of Cognitive Distortions:

• All-or-Nothing Thinking- "Any friend who will not say hello on the street is not really my friend."

• Overgeneralization - "What is the sense of saying hello to anyone? After all, they ALL ignore me anyway."

• Mental Filter - "What a miserable day I am having!"

• Disqualifying the Positive - "If she does not say hello to me today, then our pleasant conversation the other day must not mean much."

• Jumping to Conclusions - "It is my fault that she is not talking to me. What did I do?"

• Magnification and Minimization - "No one ever pays attention to me. I am worthless."

• Emotional Reasoning - "I am feeling so guilty and worried. There has to be something that I did. What did I do?"

• Should Statements - "People should speak when they are spoken to. She should be saying hello when she sees me."

• Labeling and Mislabeling - "What a rude person!"

• Personalization - "It is all my fault."

Test your beliefs about what is happening in your life. Look at things differently. Play a different movie in your mind, and see what happens. Just because we think something is true, does not make it true. Feeling guilty does not mean we are actually guilty of some wrong doing. Feeling afraid does not mean there is real danger lurking.