The thoughts that we give our attention to are the ones that guide our feelings. That is, we often interpret our thoughts as truth because they are a reflection of our emotions, and vice versa.
I learned this the hard way while trying to unwind decades of depression which had twisted my perceptions of the world.
It was a vicious cycle. My negative thoughts would fuel my depression, and depression would fuel my negative thoughts.
It was only when I stopped treating my thoughts as the truth that I started to quieten my inner turmoil.
Let’s look at some ways to do that, which are backed by psychology as well as my own personal experience.
8 ways to convince yourself that a thought is just a thought, not a truth:
1. Look for objective evidence instead of trying to just “think positively.”
Ironically, my dismissiveness of the power of thought was a significant hurdle in changing the way I thought.
I’ve lived a challenging life, and it caused me to see the worst in everything. I couldn’t be positive because I knew how easy it was for things to go wrong. To me, it felt like any kind of positivity was just setting myself up to be disappointed.
What I didn’t understand is that I didn’t need to be positive; I just needed to not be negative.
I didn’t need to reassure myself that “everything will be okay” because sometimes it’s not. Instead, I just tried to not be negative. I focused on trying to see an objective, evidence-backed truth, something that’s backed up by psychology.
Let me give you an example.
Instead of thinking, “I’m going to screw this up” when trying something new or putting myself out there, I would acknowledge that yes, that is a possibility, but there is no actual evidence right now that I’m going to screw up. In fact, I could do exceptionally well and succeed beyond my wildest dreams.
However, I don’t need to spend time wondering which it will be. I just need to focus on what’s ahead of me, do the work required, and see the outcome. The same goes for you when you’re faced with a challenge.
2. Ask yourself, “Is this a fact or just an interpretation of the facts?”
I often found that I had conditioned myself into jumping to the worst-case scenario when dealing with uncertainty, and many people do the same. Psychology calls it catastrophizing.
A good example is when you message someone, and they don’t respond. You might think, “Oh, they must be mad at me.” But instead, you want to ask yourself, “Is this a fact or an assumption?”
Unless that person has outright said they are angry at you, there’s no reason to assume that they are.
Catastrophizing is a type of cognitive distortion. That is, a default way of thinking that’s usually negative or doesn’t accurately reflect reality.
In this case, catastrophizing is going hand in hand with another cognitive distortion, mind-reading, because you are assuming the person is angry with you for no reason.
It could just as easily be that they got busy at work, someone came to the door, or some other thing took them away from their phone for a little while.
Understanding the many cognitive distortions that our mind defaults to is crucial in helping you realize that your thoughts are just thoughts, and not reality.
3. Look for absolute language to contest the thought.
Using absolute language is a sure sign of thinking tainted by a cognitive distortion known as all-or-nothing thinking.
“I always mess things up.” “Nothing ever goes right for me.” “Everyone hates me.”
These are all examples of absolute thoughts because they use language like always, nothing ever, and everyone.
The problem is that absolutism is quite rare. There are probably things you haven’t messed up and that went right for you. There are undoubtedly people that don’t hate you.
In fact, how would you even know that everyone hated you or that everything will always go wrong for you? It’s just more mind-reading.
Even if things don’t go right this time doesn’t mean that’s the way it will always be. Just because you’re lonely now doesn’t mean that people don’t value you. Maybe it’ll get better with some time and effort. Maybe you just haven’t found the right opportunities or circle of friends yet.
When you start to notice this absolutism in your speech and thoughts, you can start to interrupt it.
4. Use the “maybe” technique to introduce some uncertainty to your thoughts.
When you’re struggling with the absolutism of your negative thoughts, it’s helpful to introduce a little uncertainty.
The maybe technique can be one way to try to steer your thoughts, rather than trying to fight them altogether. You may think something like, “No one will ever want me,” to which you would then challenge that thought with, “Maybe, or maybe not.”
As minor as this sounds, you’re actually doing an important part of controlling your thoughts here. You’re breaking up the absolute thought and interrupting a spiral before it has a chance to take off. Because “No one will ever want me” is not usually just a standalone thought. What would normally follow is some kind of thought spiral that will only lead to sadness and self-loathing.
By focusing on “maybe,” you’re able to disrupt the spiral more easily by bringing in a little uncertainty, rather than trying to convince yourself of the opposite.
5. Incorporate “I don’t know” into your thoughts.
This is another way to add a bit of uncertainty to your absolute thoughts, because as we’ve established, absolute thinking rarely reflects reality correctly.
The problem is that some people try to counter their negative thoughts with positive ones, and that doesn’t always work, because constantly looking for the silver lining in bad situations may not accurately reflect reality either. It just becomes toxic positivity.
A better option is to embrace uncertainty and counter the absolute thoughts in real time with “I don’t know” or “I don’t know that.”
By doing that, you’re disrupting the spiral of unhealthy, unhelpful thoughts.
For example, you may instinctively have a thought like, “No one likes me,” that is thrust into your brain from your subconscious. You would then consciously counter that thought with, “I don’t know that.”
We can’t always control what emerges from our subconscious, but we can control how we respond to it. Plus, the more you do it, the easier it gets. I know this from experience. After a while of doing it, I found that many of those absolute thoughts just stopped happening.
6. Ask, “Would I say this to a loved one?”
It may be hard for you to be kind or understanding to yourself. That’s common. However, most people wouldn’t be nearly as harsh with the people they love and care about.
As such, if you’re thinking it to yourself, take a moment to consider whether or not you’d say it to a loved one. What would you say to a friend if they were feeling or thinking what you are? Would you tell someone you cared about that they were unlovable or a failure?
Probably not.
So why do you deserve such harshness?
The way you speak to yourself is a reflection of your emotions, habits, and past conditioning, not the truth. And research into self-compassion shows that offering kindness to yourself is one of the most important things you can do.
After all, you’re going to spend the rest of your life with yourself. Learning to speak kindly to yourself in the hard times makes them much easier to get through.
7. Make the negative thought sound ridiculous.
One way that can help you convince yourself that your thoughts are not actually reality is to make them ridiculous in some way.
For example, you may reframe a thought like “No one likes me” to something like “OH GOOD, HERE COMES MY BRAIN TO TELL ME THAT NO ONE LIKES ME AGAIN! WOO!”
The idea is to take the edge off the thought to realize that it’s not actually the truth.
Another good way to reframe your thoughts is to change the voice that is speaking to you.
For example, imagine that it’s someone you don’t like or who you find ridiculous saying the thing to you instead. Imagine someone like an old boss or a ridiculous public figure. It becomes much easier to say, “Shut up, Dave! I have no time for your nonsense. NO TIME AT ALL.”
8. Remember that thoughts can sometimes be symptoms of mental illness.
As a person with severe bipolar depression, one of the most important lessons I’ve learned in managing my thoughts is that they don’t necessarily reflect reality.
Sometimes, my brain will just be a jerk because I’m experiencing symptoms of my mental illness. I find that if my brain is drifting into absolute thinking and I’m being more and more unkind to myself, then my mental illness is often acting up.
In scenarios like that, I acknowledge the thoughts, but I don’t dwell on them. I know that they will change, sooner or later.
Maybe I missed a dose of my medication, my meds need to be adjusted, or stress is just making my symptoms worse than they normally are.
Sometimes, I just need to acknowledge it for what it is and let the thoughts come and go while pressing on.
Final thoughts…
These techniques take time and regular application to work. I cannot stress this enough.
The more you do it, the easier it should get, but if you’ve been living with uncontrolled or unexamined thoughts for a long time, it’s going to be hard to disrupt and break that habit.
Instead, you learn to steer it. Once you learn to steer it, these thoughts become much easier to spot and stop before they really take hold.
Don’t be frustrated if you still have these thoughts despite doing the work. Instead, acknowledge them, counter them, and move on. At a minimum, you’ll at least disrupt destructive thought spirals before they get out of control.
