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Clare
29-08-06, 23:46
THOUGHT PATTERNS

By Dr. Annette Colby, RD

Let's say you're ready to change some aspect of your life -- perhaps
the way you eat or how much you weigh. If you've ever decided to
create a permanent change in your life before, you know it's going to
take a lot more than simply acting (i.e. eating or dieting)
differently. What's required for permanent change is a shift in your
old limiting self-talk and lots of positive energy.

To achieve permanent transformation, you're going to have to tap into
your own inner power. And this is where the energy of your words and
thoughts comes in. Success is built on a solid foundation of positive
thoughts and feeling good. Your words, thoughts, ideas and belief
systems are the key players in building such a strong and solid
foundation. They set the stage for the way you experience everything
in your life.

Negative thinking habits, on the other hand, can have a devastating
effect on your outcome. Negative thoughts continually create bad
feelings and cause misery or upset over life circumstances. Here's
where the vicious cycle continues. You have negative thoughts, you
feel bad, you find some way to feel better (eat, binge, anorexia,
purge, drugs, alcohol, sex, drugs, shopping, etc.). The truth is,
we're designed to feel good. That's our natural state and what we are
always trying to come back to. Your overeating may in part be an
attempt to feel better. There's lots of ways to feel better. But if
you can learn to speak gently to yourself in the first place, you can
save yourself from feeling bad!

Negative thinking patterns are learned ways of thinking. The
following lists some of the most common types of destructive thinking
patterns that occur:


ALL OR NOTHING THINKING
Sometimes referred to as black and white thinking, or absolute
thinking. This is the type of thinking that states, "I've already
blown it. I might as well give up on the rest of the day." If a
situation falls short of 100% perfection, you see it as a total
failure. For example, if you've binged for one meal, or didn't
exactly follow your plan for the day, you think you've blown it
completely. This train of thought is easy to get caught up in and it
can be very damaging to your success.

OVER-GENERALIZATION
You see a single negative event as a never-ending pattern of defeat.
This type of thinking uses words such as "always" and "never". Though
these two words seem harmless, they can distort your view of reality.
If one negative event occurs, you might think, "It's just my luck.
Nothing good ever happens to me." While this statement might be true
some of the time, chances are there has been at least one exception to
it. Holding onto this "always" and "never" attitude simply keeps you
from seeing the truth as it really is. It's negative and
self-defeating.

CATASTROPHIZING AND MINIMIZING
This type of thinking does two things: It sees the positive results
of your actions as smaller than they really are, and exaggerates the
negative results of your actions. This thinking may also
inappropriately shrink your achievements down until they seem
insignificant, while you obsessively dwell on what is 'wrong' with
you. Sometimes this is referred to as "making a mountain out of a
mole hill."

DISQUALIFYING THE POSITIVE
This is an extreme form of all-or-nothing thinking without the "all"!
All the positive messages and actions are deleted or rejected. The
positive experiences just "don't count" and we only attend to the
negative. You pick out a single negative detail and dwell on it --
discounting any other evidence to the contrary. This negative thought
darkens everything else that has preceded. For example, you lost 30
pounds. But for some reason gained back five of those pounds.
Negative thinking dwells entirely on the five gained back, darkening
the entire situation. Discounting the positive takes the joy out of
life and makes you feel inadequate and unrewarded.

EMOTIONAL REASONING
You