Cognitive Reframing Examples: Reframing Negative Thoughts

Negative thoughts can drain our energy and that of others, and limit our ability to actually live and enjoy life. Use cognitive reframing to take control back from negative thoughts.

Photo by Medhat Ayad

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When we are stressed, in pain, anxious, scared, angry, we can easily fall prey to the habit of framing what happens to us in life in a negative, worsening-case outlook. If not interrupted, this negative framing can spark a negative feedback loop that becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. The more negatively we see things, the more we believe our world is negative; in this cycle, we can unconsciously find ourselves slipping more and more into negative thinking, which not only drains our own energy, but those of people around us, which can lead to isolation and withdrawal, and an acceleration of the negative, downward mental spiral.

Cognitive reframing (which is a part of the Cognitive Behavioral Therapy [CBT] toolkit) is a very powerful and easy-to-learn tool that we can enable us to interrupt a negative thought feedback loop.

Cognitive reframing is the act of consciously changing the way we automatically perceive events or situations as negative. Practicing cognitive reframing doesn’t mean we have to invent or make up positive facts that aren’t actually present, but rather to open up our perspective by:

• Focusing on the facts at hand

• Refraining from obsessing about worst-case scenarios and discounting how we cannot predict the future

• Realizing when we are drawing conclusions or filling in the blanks for facts we don’t have or can’t confirm

• Generally being more conscious (here and now thinking, rather than mentally residing in the past or future)

The steps in cognitive reframing include:

1. Become aware of an automatic, negative thought

2. Once we are aware of an automatic, negative thought, explore it

3. Examine the cost or harm of the negative thought

4. Look for the fact-based, intelligent reframing opportunity in the situation

Continue reading and see 2 examples of cognitive reframing at GabeKwakyi.com

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