111: Automatic Thoughts

Questions about the Video File:

1. What are automatic thoughts?
2. What is RRR?
3. How serious are ATs?
4. How many categories do ATs fall into? Give some examples.
5. How do we handle ATs?

General Questions:

1. Are you generally a positive person or a negative one?
2. What are some of the things that you find upsetting in your daily life?
3. Do you turn to someone at the time of problems or try to handle them yourself or simply give up to them?
4. Do you ever find yourself thinking without meaning to do so? What do you normally think about?
5. Are you able to help friends who have panicked or do you simply get panicked too? Can you think of some specific situations?
6. What personal methods have you developed to restrict your negative thoughts?

Related Quotes:

• “Rule your mind or it will rule you.” Buddha
• “What consumes your mind, consumes your life.” Buddha
• “Change your thoughts and you change your world.” Norman Vincent Peale
• “The truth is that there is no actual stress or anxiety in the world; it’s your thoughts that create these false beliefs. You can’t package stress, touch it or see it. There are only people engaged in stressful thinking.” Wayne Dyer

Related Idioms and Expressions:

• To be on the edge: to be nervous or anxious
  • You are a bit on the edge, what seems to be wrong?
• Get cut in something: get trapped into something and have no way out
  • I got cut in some weird stuff I couldn’t understand.
• Fall into categories: be classified into some groups
  • Metal music falls into various categories depending on the musical instruments.
• Take its toll (on): cause suffering, pain or damage
  • Extreme stress takes its toll on your mental health.
• Turn into: change, become
  • You can turn an upsetting event into rational one.
• Life changing event: an important happening in your life that changes the course of your life
  • Most people believe that marriage is a life turning event.
• To be conscious of something: to notice the presence of something
  • You have to be conscious of your fears and admit them.
• Train of thoughts: a set of thoughts that come to your mind one after the other like the rings of a chain
• As time goes on: while time passes
  • As time goes on you notice the importance of your decisions.
• Keep sb/sth from something: to prevent sb or sb from doing sth
  • Try to keep your mind from overgeneralizing.

Related Words and Phrases:

• Destructive (adj) causing damage
  • You need to control your destructive thoughts
• Pop up: to appear suddenly
  • When you are tired, many negative thoughts just pop up in your mind.
• Escalate (v) to become more severe or serious
  • Automatic thoughts can escalate easily, starting with a simple bad event ending in a disaster.
• Armageddon (n) a very destructive event
  • Don’t turn it into an Armageddon catastrophe.
• Catastrophe (n) a sudden event which is very destructive or is a big trouble
  • There will be more environmental catastrophes if we don’t try to be more green.
• Catastrophize (v) Turn something into a catastrophe or give too much weight to a negative happening
• Rationalize (v) To try to find rational reasons to explain why something has happened
• Self-critical (adj) If you are self-critical, you try to find wrong things with yourself.
• Insane (adj) crazy; mad; out of your mind
• Overgeneralize (v) to claim facts about a large group based on limited samples
  • She once got lost in New York and now she believes that everyone who’s new there will get lost. This is absolutly overgeneralization.
• Endanger (v) put in danger
  • Eating too much sugar will definitely endangers your health.
• Upsetting (adj) making you feel unhappy, anxious or worried
  • Any petty upsetting event can put her on edge.
• Excruciating (adj) extremely painful
  • Losing both parents can truly be an excruciating event.

Please leave a response to the following question as a comment: 

What personal methods have you developed to restrict your negative thoughts? Please elaborate.