SUNDAY'S FOOD FOR THOUGHT- SELF ESTEEM

Hello Ladies and Gentlemen, welcome to Sunday’s Food for Thought. In today’s food for thought I will basically share on issues of the Self- Esteem. Friends, I believe at some point in life we have all experienced and felt that sense of unworthy due to some failures or just assumed we are not attractive, not liked, not special since we have paid attention, believed the inner critic and eventually damaged our self-confidence and erode our self-esteem. What I have found out is that some situations cannot be changed so we only need to change our thoughts and improve how we see ourselves. Today I will share the cognitive distortions and how they deplete our Self-esteem as explained in the book titled SELF- ESTEEM by Matthew Mckay, PH.D and Patrick Fanning. It is a proven program of cognitive techniques for assessing, improving and maintaining your self-esteem. Read and Learn.

COGNITIVE DISTORTIONS

Cognitive Distortions are the tools of the pathological critic, the means by which the critic operates, the weapons that the critic brings to bear against your self-esteem. If irrational beliefs can be said to be the pathological critic’s ideology, then the cognitive distortions can be considered the critic’s methodology. The critic uses distortions the way a terrorist uses bombs and guns.

Cognitive distortions are actually bad habits- habits of thought that you consistently use to interpret reality in an unreal way. For example, when a colleague declines to be on a committee you are chairing, you can take his refusal as the simple decision it is. Or you can employ your habit of thinking about any type of rejection as a personal insult, and thus take another swipe at your beleaguered self-esteem.

Distortions are a matter of style. They may be based on deeply held unrealistic beliefs, but the distortions are not beliefs themselves- they are habits of thinking that get you into trouble.

Distortions thinking styles are hard to diagnose and treat because they are bound up tightly with your way of perceiving reality. Even the sanest, most rational person on earth operates at some distance from reality. It’s unavoidable, given the built-in programming of the human mind and senses.

One way of thinking about this is to say that everyone looks at himself or herself through a telescope. If your telescope is right-way- round and in good repair, you see yourself looming relatively large and important in the universe, clearly focused, and with your various parts in correct proportion. Unfortunately, few people have perfect telescopes. The telescope can be wrong-way-round, so that they see themselves small and diminished. The lenses can be smudged, lop-sided, chipped, or out of focus. Obstructions in the tube can block your view of certain aspects of yourself. Some people have kaleidoscopes instead of telescopes. Others can’t see at all, because they’ve pasted pictures of a false self over the lens of their telescope.

Distorted thinking styles cut you off from reality in several ways. Distortions are judgmental; they automatically apply labels to people and events before you get a chance to evaluate them. Distortions also tend to be inaccurate and imprecise. They are invariably general in scope and application, failing to take special circumstances and characteristics into account. They allow you to see only one side of a question, giving an unbalanced view of the world. And finally, distortions are based on emotional rather than rational processes.

This post will discuss the nine most common cognitive distortions that affect self-esteem. It will teach you how to recognize them and develop effective rebuttal techniques to pierce through the veil of distortion and deal with reality in a more balanced, accurate, self- compassionate way.

 

THE DISTORTIONS

1.       OVERGENERALIZATION

Cognitive distortions change the very nature of the universe you live in. Overgeneralizations create a shrinking universe in which more and more absolute laws make life more confining. It is a universe in which the scientific method is turned upside down. Instead of observing all available data, formulating a law that explains all of the data, and then testing the law, you take one fact or event, make general rule out of it, and never test the rule.

For example, a chief accountant named George asked a book-keeper in his department to go to dinner with him. She declined, saying she never went out with the boss. George concluded that none of the women in his department would ever want to go out with him. From one rejection he overgeneralized and made it a rule never to ask again.

If you overgeneralize, one faux pas means that you’re social incompetent. One unsuccessful date with an older woman means that all older women will find you shallow and inexperienced. One wobbly table means that you’ll never master furniture making. One accidentally deleted file means that you’re a computer illiterate. And your habit of overgeneralizing doesn’t let you test these rules.

You can tell that you’re overgeneralizing when your pathological critic uses these key words; never, always, all, every, none, no one, nobody, everyone, everybody. The critic uses absolutes to close the doors of possibility, blocking your access to change and growth; “ I always screw up.”  “ I never get to work on time.”  “Nobody really cares for me. “  “Everybody thinks I’m awkward.”

2.       GLOBAL LABELING

Global labeling is the application of stereotyped labels to whole classes of people, things, behaviors, and experiences. People who practice global labeling live in a universe populated by stock characters who act out unrealistic melodramas. Global labelers with low self-esteem often cast themselves in the role of the villain or the simpleton.

This thinking style is closely allied with overgeneralization, but the distortion takes the form of a label instead of a rule. Global labeling is even more deadly in the way it creates stereotypes and cuts you off from the true variety of life. For example, an aspiring writer was working in a warehouse and writing at night. He had a touch of asthma and a slight limp. He had labels for everything. The warehouse owner was a Capitalistic Slime. Editors who rejected his short stories were part of the Literary Establishment. His job was a Treadmill. His writing was Neurotic Scribbling. He himself was a Wheezing Gimp. He thought he suffered from an Inferiority Complex. His favorite words were all pejorative ones. He had a million slogans, and they were all clichés of loss and dissatisfaction. With so many labels pasted on his life, he was too bound into the status quo to change any part of it.

You should suspect yourself of global labeling if the messages from your critic are pejorative clichés about your appearance, performance, intelligence, relationships, and so on. “My love affair is a hopeless tangle.”  “I’m just a failure.” “ My house is a pigsty.” “My degree is a worthless piece of paper.” “I’m neurotic” “I’m stupid.” “I’m a spineless jellyfish, a quitter.” “ All my efforts to improve are futile grasping at straws.”

3.       FILTERING

When you filter reality, you see your universe as through a glass darkly. You can see and hear only certain things. Like a voice- activated tape recorder, your attention is awakened only by particular kind of stimuli; examples of loss, rejection, unfairness, and so on. You selectively abstract certain facts from reality and pay attention to them, ignoring all the rest. You have blind spots that obscure evidence of your own worth. Filtering makes you a particularly bad reporter of your life experience. Your own accounts of your experience are as biased as political journalism in a banana republic. Filtering is as dangerous to your self-esteem as driving a car with all windows painted black would be to your physical well-being.

An example of filtering is Ray and Kay’s intimate dinner at home. Kay praises Ray’s choice of wine and the flowers he bought. She compliments him on grilling the steaks to perfection and for picking out the sweetest corn on the cob. Then she suggests that next time he might put a little less salt in the salad dressing. Ray suddenly feels let down and incompetent because Kay doesn’t like his salad dressing. He can’t console himself by recalling her several compliments because he literally didn’t hear them- he was too busy filtering the conversation for its critical content.

You should suspect filtering when your pathological critic returns again and again to certain themes or key words; loss, gone, burnt, dangerous, unfair, stupid. Examine your memories of social events or conversations to see whether you remember all of what happened or was said. If out of a three –hour dinner party you only clearly recall the fifteen minutes when you spilled your wine and felt mortified, then you are probably filtering your experiences for evidence of unworthy.

The negative things about yourself that you focus on become the leitmotifs in the symphony of your life. You listen for them so hard you lose track of the larger, more important melodies and movements. It’s like the piccolo player who never heard the cannons in the 1821 Overture.

4.       POLARIZED THINKING

If you habitually indulge in polarized thinking, you live in a black-and-white universe, with no colors or shades of gray. You divide all your actions and experiences into either /or dichotomies according to absolute standards. You judge yourself as either a saint or a sinner, a good guy or a bad guy, a success or a failure, a hero or a villain, a noble or a bastard.

For example Anne was clerk in a fabric store. She sometimes drank a little too much at parties. One Monday she stayed home from work with a hangover. She was severely depressed about this incident for a week because she tended to judge people as either sober citizens or alcoholics. By falling off the wagon once, she became, in her own eyes, a bottomed-out drunk.

The trouble with polarized thinking is that you inevitably end up on the negative side of the equation. No one can be perfect all the time, so at the first mistake, you must conclude that you are all bad. This “one strike and you’re out” style of thinking is death to self-esteem.

You can catch yourself doing polarized thinking by listening for “either/or” messages from your pathological critic. “I’m either going to win the scholarship or completely blow my future.” “If you can’t be funny and ‘on’ then you’re a bore.” “If I can’t be calm I’m hysterical.” Sometimes only one half of the dichotomy is stated, and the other half is implied; “There’s only one right way to live (and all the others are wrong).” “This is my big chance for a good relationship (and if I blow it, I’ll be alone).”

5.       SELF-BLAME

Self-blame is a distorted thinking style that has you blaming yourself for everything, whether you are actually at fault or not. In the self-blaming cosmos, you are at the center at a universe of bad things, and they’re all your fault.

You blame yourself for all your shortcomings, for being coarse, fat, lazy, scatterbrained, incompetent, or whatever. You blame yourself for things that are only marginally under your control, such as your bad health or how others react to you. If self-blame is a firmly ingrained habit, you may even find yourself feeling responsible for things that are obviously out of your control, like weather, plane schedules, or your spouse’s feelings. It’s good to take responsibility for your life, but in a case of serious self-blame, you see yourself as pathologically responsible.

The most common, observable symptom of self-blame is incessant apologizing. Your hostess burns the roast, and you apologize. Your spouse doesn’t want to see the movie you prefer, so you apologize. The clerk at the post office says you don’t have enough postage and you say, “God, I’m so stupid, I’m sorry.”

Self-blame blinds you to your good qualities and accomplishments. One man had three sons who grew up to become a dedicated social worker, a talented chemist, and a drug addict. The father poisoned the later years by brooding over the ways he had failed his third son. He discounted any influence he may have had over the lives of his other, more successful sons.

6.       PERSONALIZATION

In a personalized universe, you are the universe.   Every atom in it is somehow related to you. All events, properly decoded, seem to have something to do with you. Unfortunately, there is very little sense of power or of being in control of events. It feels more like you are under pressure, under siege, or under observation by everyone around you.

Personalization has a narcissistic component. You enter a crowded room and immediately begin comparing yourself to everybody else- who is smarter, better looking, more competent, more popular, and so on. Your roommate complains about how cramped the apartment is, and you immediately assume that she means that you have too much stuff. A friend says that he’s bored and you think he means that he’s bored with you.

The big drawback to personalization is that it makes you react inappropriately. You might start a fight with a roommate over a nonexistent issue. You may try to be less boring by cracking tasteless jokes, and thus becomes really boring. Inappropriate responses like these can alienate those around you. Their hostility or disapproval, imagined at first, can actually become real, fueling another round of distorted interactions.

It’s difficult to catch yourself indulging in personalization. One way is to pay close attention when someone is complaining to you. For example, if someone at work were complaining about people not returning tools and supplies to their proper place, what would your reaction be? Would you automatically assume that the person was complaining about you? Would you automatically assume that the person wanted you to do something about the problem? Then you might be personalizing. You might be automatically relating the complaint to yourself and never have it cross your mind that the person was just blowing off steam and it had nothing to do with you personally. Another way to catch yourself is trying to notice when you are comparing yourself negatively to others, concluding that you are less smart, attractive, competent, and so on.

7.       MIND READING

Mind reading is a distorted thinking style which assumes that everyone in the universe is just like you. This is an easy mistake to make, since it’s based on the phenomenon of projection- you assume that others feel the way you do, basing your assumption on a belief in a commonality of human nature and experience that may or may not actually exist.

Mind reading is fatal to self-esteem because you are especially liable to think that everyone agrees with your negative opinions of yourself: “I’m boring her. She can tell I’m really a dull guy trying to fake it.” “He is quiet because I was late and he’s angry about it.” “He is watching my every move for the slightest mistake. He wants to fire me.”

Mind reading leads to tragic miscalculations in your relationships. Harry was an electrician who often assumed that his wife, Marie, was angry with him when she bustled about the apartment with a frown on her face. He handled this supposed rejection by becoming very terse and withdrawn. In fact, Marie frowned when she was having menstrual cramps, when she was rushed, and when she felt worried about finances. But Harry’s withdrawal made it hard for her to tell Harry why she was frowning. She interpreted his withdrawal as lack of interest, and kept quiet. Harry’s initial mind reading destroyed the chance for any real communication.

When you’re mind reading, your perception seems right, so you proceed as if it were right. You don’t check out your interpretations with others because there seems to be no doubt.  You can tell you’re mind reading by listening closely to what you say when pressed, when asked why you made an assumption: “I just had a strong hunch.” “I can just tell.” “I just know.” “It’s my intuition.” “I’m sensitive to these things.” These kinds of statements show that you are leaping to conclusions without any real evidence.

8.       CONTROL FALLACIES

Control fallacies either put you in charge of the whole universe or put everyone but you in charge.

The distorted thinking style of overcontrol  gives you a false feeling of omnipotence. You struggle to control every aspect of every situation. You hold yourself responsible for the behavior of every guest at our party, for your child’s grades in school, for your paperboy’s punctuality, for your mother’s coping with menopause, and for the outcome of your United Way Campaign. When guests put their feet on furniture, when your child flunks algebra, when the newspaper is late, when your mother calls you up in tears, or when your motion is voted down at the committee meeting, you feel a loss of control. You may experience resentment, anger, and a keen sense of personal failure that erodes your self-esteem.

You should suspect your pathological critic of using the fallacy of overcontrol when you think things like “I’ve got to make them listen,” “She has to say yes,” “I’ll make sure he arrives on time” in situations when you are not really in control. You should suspect that overcontrol is the problem if you feel a keen sense of personal failure when someone close to you fails

The distorted thinking style of undercontrol takes control away from you. You put yourself on the fringes of every situation, unable to influence others. You feel that the outcomes of events are out of your hands most of the time. Molly was a receptionist for the phone company who frequently fell into this fallacy. Her habit of thinking that she could do nothing about her life usurped her power and cast her in the role of perennial victim. She was in trouble with her boss for coming in late too often, her bank account was overdrawn, and her boyfriend had stopped calling her. When she thought about her situation, she felt helpless. It seemed that her boss, the bank, and her boyfriend were all ganging up on her. Her pathological critic kept saying things like, “You’re weak, you’re helpless. There is nothing you can do.” She was literally unable to make plans for getting up earlier, refinancing her debts, or calling up and confronting her boyfriend.

Of the two control fallacies, undercontrol is the worst for your self-esteem. Abdication of power has its cost in a feeling of helplessness, a bleak sense of hopelessness, feeble resentment, and numbing depression.

9.       EMOTIONAL REASONING

An emotional universe is chaotic, governed by changeable feelings instead of rational laws. The distortion in this thinking style is to avoid or discount your thinking all together. You rely instead on emotions to interpret reality and direction action.

Susie was a fashion designer who lived on an emotional roller-coaster. She’d feel happy one day, so she figured her life was going well. The next day she might be sad, and if you asked her, she’d tell you how her life was a tragedy. Next week she’d be a bit nervous and be convinced that her life was dangerous in some way. The actual facts of her existence didn’t change much from day to day. Only her emotions changed.

The implication of self-esteem is disastrous. You feel useless, so you must be useless. You feel unworthy, so you must be unworthy. You feel ugly, so you are ugly. You are what you feel.

Here’s how the pathological critic uses emotions as weapons; He whispers in your mental ear, “Weak, spineless.” This faint thought triggers the emotion of depression. You feel helpless and stuck. Then the critic pipes up again with a devious piece of circular reasoning: “You are what you feel. You feel helpless, so you are helpless” By this time, you’ve forgotten that the critic started the whole vicious circle. You fall for a circular argument that you would dismiss out of hand if you read it in a book.

The real error in emotional reasoning lies in tuning out those first thoughts introduced by your pathological critic, the thoughts that cause your painful emotions in the first place. The way to correct the error is to tune back into your self-talk and notice how it distorts reality to trigger negative emotions. 

Ok, Ladies and Gentlemen hope that’s it for today. Join me next week where I will share with you on how you can combat the distortions. Remember, if you wish to guest-post and share with us constructive messages, motivational posts et cetera, you can inbox me via bashworker@gmail.com. ENJOY YOUR WEEKEND.