Do any on the list look familiar to you? I'll admit they look painfully familiar to me and parts of my life during my journey.
One of the hardest steps to living with and accepting a chronic illness...is our own personal thoughts and beliefs.
"Cognitive Distortions" is a common problem for many people even those without a chronic illness. It's a human thing really.
We're human and our thoughts aren't always healthy or helpful, and we can get distorted by our life's experiences, past and the opinions of others.
Often our own distorted thoughts are negative thoughts rehashed based on some one else's opinions and we take them on owning them...spinning them into our lives giving them more thought and credit than they deserve...distorted thinking.
Take a look at the examples. I mean really look at them. What thoughts do you hold that could be considered "distorted"?
One of the first steps to changing this in your life is to be able to recognize when your thoughts have become "distorted". Now this step may be very difficult as your thoughts have been with you for a long time and being able to recognize them for the distortions they truly are...as you're in the midst of it...isn't always easy ...but it can be done and our thoughts can be changed.
When you're able to recognize a thought and can see the "distortion"...replace the thought with what you know to be the true positive of yourself, the situation, and the options you have available to overcome whatever life may throw at you. Consider too how you "label" a situation, yourself or those around you.
One mistake doesn't make you a failure. In fact...mistakes are how we learn and how we grow. Lessons can be learnt in even our biggest mistakes if we are able to look beyond the mistake to the lesson. Don't beat yourself up with negative thoughts and blame...self forgiveness is hard I know but it is possible and you do deserve it. Being human means you will make mistakes...we all will...and we need to learn to forgive ourselves and others when it happens. Forgiveness doesn't mean the damage or mistake didn't happen...it just means that we no longer choose to allow it to dictate our lives moving forward.
Often how we talk to ourselves and the thoughts we carry, can be our own biggest barrier to living with our pain and/or illness. How we perceive our realities has a large impact on our healing abilities. Giving the above information some thought, do you have "distorted" thoughts too? If you're able to say yes...my question now is...will you make the effort moving forward to change that?
Our pain and illness may not be in our control...but the thoughts we hold in our minds are in our control.
Take good care of you okay?
Tammy
the accompanying picture is not mine and was found online..sorry but I failed to write down where I found it but the picture is copyrighted with it's author all rights and ownership belongs to the writer
When you're able to recognize a thought and can see the "distortion"...replace the thought with what you know to be the true positive of yourself, the situation, and the options you have available to overcome whatever life may throw at you. Consider too how you "label" a situation, yourself or those around you.
One mistake doesn't make you a failure. In fact...mistakes are how we learn and how we grow. Lessons can be learnt in even our biggest mistakes if we are able to look beyond the mistake to the lesson. Don't beat yourself up with negative thoughts and blame...self forgiveness is hard I know but it is possible and you do deserve it. Being human means you will make mistakes...we all will...and we need to learn to forgive ourselves and others when it happens. Forgiveness doesn't mean the damage or mistake didn't happen...it just means that we no longer choose to allow it to dictate our lives moving forward.
Often how we talk to ourselves and the thoughts we carry, can be our own biggest barrier to living with our pain and/or illness. How we perceive our realities has a large impact on our healing abilities. Giving the above information some thought, do you have "distorted" thoughts too? If you're able to say yes...my question now is...will you make the effort moving forward to change that?
Our pain and illness may not be in our control...but the thoughts we hold in our minds are in our control.
Take good care of you okay?
Tammy
the accompanying picture is not mine and was found online..sorry but I failed to write down where I found it but the picture is copyrighted with it's author all rights and ownership belongs to the writer
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