Is that a helpful title?
Since I try to be a helpful psychotherapist, I help people identify automatic and unhelpful thoughts, also known as cognitive distortions. If you think it would be helpful to see a list of those unhelpful thoughts, I can help — click this helpful link.
Because unhelpful thoughts — including catastrophizing, personalizing, blaming, mind-reading, shoulds, and labeling — feel like “the truth,” it’s helpful to identify and challenge them. I try to help people do that with cognitive distortion “antidotes” (which I’ve helpfully listed here).
However, no matter what the unhelpful thought, there’s an all-purpose, one-size-fits-all way to help yourself challenge it: the helpful title of today’s helpful post.
So, if you notice yourself feeling worse because of a thought you’ve just had, please help yourself by asking this question:
Is that a helpful thought?
If the answer to that helpful question is “no,” then help yourself by dismissing that thought, however you can.
Here’s a short list of unhelpful thoughts I’ve encountered recently:
- I don’t know what I’m doing.
- Other people don’t know what they’re doing.
- Nobody cares about me.
- This is going to kill me.
- I am not worthy of love.
- People don’t like me.
- I am clumsy.
- Life will never get better.
Is that a helpful list?
Is that a helpful photo? Yesterday,in therapy, when somebody had the unhelpful thought “It’s all my fault,” I helped them replace that unhelpful thought with the more helpful thought of “I tried.”
Are any of these helpful thoughts?
Is it helpful that WordPress just published this post before I was ready?
It’s not all sweetness and understanding. Sometimes you have to kick ass with some helpful music.
Is it a helpful thought to thank everybody who helped me create today’s post? Is it a helpful thought to appreciate you for reading it? I think “YES!”
