Breaking negative thought patterns, once you've gotten good at recognizing the thoughts that are tied
to negative emotions, it's time to take a closer look at those thoughts.
George is a graduate student in psychology.
He told his first class last semester and was very disappointed to read several negative comments about
his teaching and his course evaluations.
His impression after reading the evaluations was that most of them were critical.
However, when he looked through the evaluations a second time, he counted about a 10 to one ratio
of positive to negative comments.
He also realized that most of the negative comments were things he was already aware of and could work
to improve, like being a more dynamic a presenter.
Maybe there's still hope for my academic career, George thought to himself.
The main strategy to break negative thought patterns is to compare our thoughts to reality.
Are we telling ourselves something reasonable or are our thoughts a reflection of the actual situation?
Don't worry that you will have to put on rose colored glasses and fool yourself into believing things
are better than they are.
We are just going to see if our thoughts are aligned with the evidence.