“Change your thoughts and you change your world.” -Norman Vincent Peale
I found this quote the other day, and immediately fell in love with it because I believe it to be absolutely true! I recently posted the quote on our Facebook page, and here’s what one of our page’s members had to say:
“It doesn’t matter what thought you start with. As to how I challenge mine– for example, one thing I’m always having to challenge is the idea that if someone’s mad at me, it means they’re going to walk out of my life and that they don’t like me. So I challenge myself by reminding myself that this isn’t fact (even if it has been my experience in the past, it’s not a predetermined fact of what will happen in the future). And then, if I can, I find examples of people who’ve been mad at me before and are still in my life, or times I’ve been angry at someone I love (and haven’t left).”
After I found the quote, I knew that I wanted to write a blog post on the topic of changing your thoughts. As I was searching the internet for possible points to add, I found a good article by Steven Aitchison called “8 Destructive Thinking Patterns and How to Change Them.” In the article, he describes the eight limiting patterns of thinking, which are:
- “Life is shit” thinking pattern
- “Unsubstantiated conclusive” thinking pattern
- “Never to me” thinking pattern
- “The negative psychic” thinking pattern
- “Should, would, could” thinking pattern
- “Emotion based” thinking pattern
- “It’s all my fault” thinking pattern
- “They’re all wrong” thinking pattern
I won’t go into detail describing them here, so definitely check out the article to learn about them!
The article goes on to tell you the stages to change the destructive thinking patterns:
- Recognize the problem
- Be aware of when you are using destructive thinking patterns
- Replace the bad with the good
I highly recommend this article, so check it out! I know that changing the way that I thought helped me out a lot in life, and I hope it helps you, too!
Let’s Discuss:
How does the quote above pertain to your life? Have you changed any of your thoughts in a positive way? If so, how did you do it?
Filed under: Uncategorized | Tagged: borderline, borderline personality disorder, bpd, change, change your thoughts, destructive thinking patterns, mental health, mental illness, Norman Vincent Peale, positive thinking, quote, Steven Aitchison, thinking, thinking patterns, thoughts |
On The Borderline's Blog 
One way I have found is to challenge my belief systems. Once I find a root belief I try and dismantle it. Take for instance, I have a belief that friends are bothersome so much so that I didn’t give my phone number out or hang out with girl friends. I have allowed a couple people near to me. I have learned that with trustworthy people I am able to feel at ease with them enough to allow them to call me and even meet up with others in a group setting. For right now, I am still working on this belief system, but I have made some great pathways in overcoming faulty beliefs.
I totally agree that if you change your thinking you change your life.
One of the first homework assignments my counselor gave me when I began treatment for my depression, was to find three positive things in every situation. From there that exercise has evolved to where I always look for something positive in every situation.
Something I do on my blog continuously, is each week I take a letter the alphabet (going in alphabetical order) and find a positive word for that letter – or at least a word that I can find something positive about. I then describe why that word makes me happy or makes me feel positive.