Stinking Thinking
Having thoughts/irrational thoughts based on assumptions and feelings instead of facts.
What are thinking errors or cognitive distortions?
These are errored thinking that can create more anxiety and worry as well as decrease our self-esteem and self-confidence or increase self-blame or scenario building. These kinds of thoughts can really affect our mental health.
What is challenging a thought?
When you focus on the facts and actively working through them, you can challenge a negative thought to decrease the effect it can have on you.
The practice of bringing yourself to the moment you are in to increase peace and joy.
What is Mindfulness?
Simply by using your senses and breath you can bring yourself to the moment you are instead of worrying about the past or the future.
Talking about how you feel to gain relief.
What is expressing your emotions and feelings?
Letting out your feelings and emotions can have an effect on your ability to calm yourself and cope with situations in a positive way.
Doing an enjoyable activity to help distract or work through something.
What is using a coping skill?
Using coping skills can be a very effective way to deal with triggers, stressors, feelings, or other things that make us "feel some kind of way".
These are people that can have thinking errors or cognitive distortions.
Who is anyone and everyone?
We all have thoughts based on assumptions or feelings at times, it is when they are constant or become bothersome that makes them have an effect on our mental health.
Distracting yourself with a healthy activity to get out of your thought pattern.
What is using a coping skill?
You can effectively distract yourself to help stop a thought pattern or to keep yourself from ruminating.
Seeing, hearing, touching, smelling and tasting.
What are the 5 senses that can be used for mindfulness?
All you need is your five senses to help you practice mindfulness.
Writing/journaling, talking, drawing, dancing, or acting out how you feel to help yourself.
Also known as catharsis.
What is anything?
Any activity can be used as a coping skill, even unhealthy activities. Using healthy activities as coping skills can increase your recovery and help maintain your wellbeing.
A mental loop that keeps replaying the same distressing thoughts, making it difficult to focus on other things. Dwelling in the past.
What are ruminating thoughts?
Ruminating is a repetitive, negative thought pattern where a person gets stuck dwelling on the same negative experiences, situations, or emotions over and over again, often without finding solutions or moving forward, which can significantly impact mood and wellbeing
Building at least 3 scenarios, the worst case, the best case, and the case in between.
What is the scenario building technique?
This technique will help you see that the worst case and best case scenarios can be unrealistic, and the middle case is usually closer to what could really happen. This will also allow you to begin problem solving the situation to take away distress.
Things that can be done mindfully.
What is anything?
Any activity can be done mindfully by simply using as many of your senses as you can for that activity.
What is an example of an "I" statement?
These types of statements can help you let people know and understand what you are feeling, and help open up solution focused conversations on how to improve the situation or help the same situation to not happen in the future.
Smoking, drinking, cutting, overeating, and shopping over your budget.
What are examples of unhealthy coping skills?
While these things may make you feel better in the moment, they have problematic consequences that can possibly cause you to have more issues later on.
Believing you know how a situation will turn out, and that it will be bad without any evidence.
What is fortune telling?
Part of the "jumping to conclusions" section of thinking errors, this is when you truly feel that something is going to turn out badly, and you may even build scenarios surrounding an upcoming situation.
A set of questions that can be used to rationalize through a thought to diffuse it and decrease stress/anxiety surrounding the thought.
What is Socratic questioning?
Socratic questioning can help you look at the facts instead of feelings of a specific thought and work through it on your own.
Looking at your food, smelling it, noticing the sounds it makes, really focusing on the flavor and what you can taste.
What is eating mindfully?
It has been shown in experiments that eating mindfully creates for satisfaction after eating, reduces overeating, and really helps you enjoy your meals.
"They know how I feel."
What is an assumption that others know what we are feeling?
If we do not speak up and tell people how things make us feel, we cannot possibly expect them to know. It is an unrealistic expectation that can bring out more big feelings instead of opening up communication about it.
Using your senses to come back to the moment you are in.
What is using mindfulness as a coping skill?
Mindfulness can be used as a very effective coping skill because it increases peace of mind.
The belief that because it happened a certain way one time, all similar situations will have that outcome.
What is overgeneralization?
These thoughts are relating all events or reactions on few events or a one-time event where something turned out a certain way or evoked a certain feeling.
Therapy that helps people change unhelpful thought patterns and behaviors.
What is Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT)?
CBT can help with mental health conditions like anxiety and depression, as well as physical conditions like chronic pain.
What is Mindfulness meditation?
This is the act of using visualization and all of your senses to meditate and help ride through life's ups and downs.
Ignoring, hiding or denying your feelings about things.
What is "emotional suppression"?
Also known as "stuffing". This behavior can lead to holding on to all of your feelings and emotions until you explode or have some other type of issue that is severe (like depression, suicidal ideations, isolation, etc.).
Listening to music, walking, nature, drawing, painting, working out, gardening, building something, or writing in a journal.
What are examples of healthy coping skills?
It is important to have a variety of coping skills that you know work as they do not always work in every situation, and you cannot always take part in all activities depending on your environment.