July e-news
Creating flourishing lives

Dr Suzy Green

Welcome to the new financial year! This is a reminder to set some new financial goals. This includes revisiting your “fuzzy vision” and then setting some shorter-term goals that link to that vision. Perhaps set some financial goals to be attained prior to the end of the year – such as saving a certain amount for Christmas itself, to attend a swish New Years’ Eve party at the Opera House or a well-earned summer holiday to Byron Bay!

Last month I continued my discussion on the benefits of positive thinking. Hopefully you will have found yourself being much more optimistic than in the past and perhaps even challenging your friends and family when you have noticed them engaging in negative or unhelpful thinking! Many people also emailed me for a Thought Record to start to monitor and change their thinking. This month I would like to continue with a few more tips for really embracing positive thinking!

Month 6 – Positive Thinking - Part 3 – Being Mindful of the ANTS!

You have now started to become more aware of your “trigger situations” or “button pushers”. Being mindful of how powerful those ANTS (automatic negative thoughts) are in these situations, and challenging them can take quite a bit of practice before you become “unconsciously competent” at this skill; – and YES it is a skill! This means practice, practice, practice!

Through years of psychological research, certain types of ANTS or “thinking errors” have been identified that commonly occur. There are also different types of thoughts that lead to different types of emotional states too. For example, in depression, people usually have thoughts around everything being hopeless, and that things will never improve. When we get angry, we often have a lot of “shoulds” eg “He shouldn't have done that! How rude!”. When we are fearful, we often have a lot of “what ifs” eg “What if I embarrass myself in front of my whole team?”. As discussed last month, these thoughts are often irrational and at the very least unhelpful! Here are a few more examples (email me for a full listing if you wish):

  1. All or nothing thinking: There are no shades of gray. If your performance is not perfect, you view yourself as a complete failure.
  2. Overgeneralization: One single, negative event is viewed as an endless pattern of defeat.
  3. Disqualifying the positive: You discount all positive experiences.
  4. Jumping to conclusions: You make negative interpretations that are not supported by evidence. You feel that you know what other people think of you (mind reading). You make negative predictions and you are certain that they must come true (fortuneteller error).
  5. Magnification or minimization: You may exaggerate the importance of an error or someone else's achievements. You may underrate your own strengths or someone else's weaknesses.
  6. Emotional Reasoning: You believe that your emotions mirror reality (I feel it, so it must be true).
  7. Labeling and mislabeling: You label yourself inappropriately (e.g. "I'm a loser"). You label others wrongly (eg "He's a stupid idiot").
  8. Personalization: You blame yourself for a negative external event, for which you were not primarily responsible. (e.g. a friend that you have a date with becomes sick and calls you to cancel. You blame yourself for the cancellation.)

This Month’s Action Plan – Watch your ANTS!

Start to identify any common thinking errors you regularly engage in. Most people will find they engage in one or two of the common thinking errors more than the others. I also have clients that once that start to monitor ANTS complain that they are having more than ever!! This is not actually the case, it is just that you are now more aware of them.

At this stage, just being aware of the ANTS and the powerful impact they can have on your mood and consequent behaviours is a good start! Whilst techniques such as CBT or REBT require you to challenge and replace these ANTS, a new approach gaining much evidence is ACT (acceptance and commitment therapy) (Hayes et al). ACT suggests being “mindful” of the ANTS without buying into the evaluative and judgmental language. This could involve practicing being an “observer” of your ANTS, watching one's thoughts like leaves floating along a stream or packages along a conveyer belt.

Jack Kornfield (psychologist & Buddhist monk) in his book “A Path with Heart” suggests an activity called “name your demons” where you simply name the emotion, over and over again (eg anger, anger, anger) until it loses its power and impact and passes.

Next month...

I will continue on with the discussion on positive thinking with further strategies from both CBT and ACT.

‘You can't stop the waves, but you can learn to surf.”
Jack Kornfield
  - A Path with Heart


Dr Suzy Green

Visit Dr Suzy

You are receiving this email because you have consented to subscribe to Dr Suzy Green & Associates' e-newsletter. If you do not wish to receive these e-newsletters anymore, send a blank e-mail with 'UNSUBSCRIBE' as the subject to info@drsuzy.com.au. To re-subscribe, visit www.drsuzy.com.au.