Six Ways to be Negative
in Your Life.

By Pat Watts

You may fit several categories of negativity. Most of us do!

1. Reject the positives: You reject positive experiences  by insisting  they "don't count" for some reason or other. In  this way  you can maintain a negative belief that is contradicted  by your  everyday experiences. Your depressive thinking is  usually dominated by some version of, "I'm second-rate." You dwell on  a negative  experience and conclude that it proves  you're  second-rate.  When  you have a positive experience,  though,  you  tell yourself, "That was just a fluke. It doesn't count."

You have a dinner party. The conversation is stilted and never really gets off the ground. You think, "I just can't give a good party."

You have a dinner party. The conversation is stilted and never really gets off the ground. You think, "I just can't give a good party."

Or...

You have a great dinner party. You think, "This party was fine but it was the exception. It really doesn't count."

3. Black and white logic:  You  see  things  in  black-and-white categories. If your performance falls short of perfect, you  see yourself  as a total failure. Perfectionism causes you  never  to measure  up  to  your expectations and you fear any mistake or imperfection.

4. Dwell on negatives: You pick out a single negative detail and dwell on it  exclusively so that your vision of all reality becomes darkened,  like the drop of ink that discolors the entire  beaker  of water. When you are depressed, all that you allow to enter  your conscious  mind  is negative. Because you are  unaware  of  this "filtering  process," you conclude that everything  is  negative.

You had, from the standpoint of all guests, a fantastic dinner party. You did drop the rolls and have to heat more. That's all you can think about when you remember that party.

5. Believe your emotions:  You assume that  your  negative  emotions necessarily  reflect the way things really are: "I feel  like a flop,  therefore I must be a flop." "I don't feel like doing  anything, therefore I might as well stay in bed." Emotional reasoning  nearly  always plays a role in depression.  Because  things feel so negative, you assume they truly are. It doesn't occur to you  to challenge the validity of the thoughts that  create  your feelings. Another side effect of emotional reasoning is procrastination.  "This desk is so messy, I can never get it straight. I'll just leave it alone."

6. Personalize external events: You see yourself as the cause of some  negative external  event which in fact you were not primarily  responsible for.  This is the mother of guilt! You confuse  influence  with control. Your child brings home a negative note from the  teacher. You think, "This proves it. I'm a bad mother."

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