Keeping Mentally Well By Jan Underwood Pinborough
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Principle No. 4: Changing thoughts can change feelings.
Some of our emotional distress originates in negative thinking habits. “For as he thinketh in his heart, so is he.” (Prov. 23:7.) Larry Crenshaw, manager of special services for LDS Social Services at Church headquarters, explains: “If we are thinking unwholesome or negative thoughts, it’s going to show up in our emotions and eventually in our behavior.” Negative thinking patterns cause negative emotions; they can even trigger depression. And medical researchers are finding that some kinds of negative thinking can also make us more vulnerable to physical illnesses, including heart disease. (See Redford Williams, The Trusting Heart: Great News about Type A Behavior, New York City: Random House, 1989.)
Dr. Ken Tuttle, chairman of the department of psychiatry at Utah Valley Hospital, explains that having a negative style of perceiving reality is “like trying to watch general conference on a television set that has a fuzzy picture. The good is there, but we can’t perceive it very well.”
Negative thinking comes in many forms. We may magnify the negative aspects of a situation and minimize the positive. We may see every negative event as proving our unworthiness. We may think only in black-and-white extremes. Or we may use the words always and never in evaluating our failures and successes.
The first step in changing our negative thought patterns is monitoring our thoughts. “When I began to listen to my thoughts, I realized that I was often thinking illogically,” said one man. “If someone cut in front of me on the freeway, I would think, ‘That stupid teenager. He just has to show how smart he is by cutting me off.’ When I heard such thinking, I would remind myself, ‘That teenager wasn’t trying to cut me off—he was probably in a hurry and didn’t realize how close his turn was.’”
Because negative thoughts “feel” so right to the person who is thinking them, they can be difficult to turn off. Some therapists recommend mentally yelling “Stop!” to banish a negative thought and then applying reason to reevaluate the situation. One doctor suggests lifting the emotions by completing the sentence “I am thankful for …” with as many answers as possible.
This does not mean that we refuse to allow negative emotions or experiences. But it does mean that we do not ruminate about them and draw negative conclusions about our own worth. The rewards for redirecting thoughts in a more positive direction are great. Depression can subside, anxiety can diminish, and physical health can improve.
Self-help books can help us learn to change negative thinking patterns, as can therapists specializing in cognitive therapy.
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