Separate Feelings and Thoughts to Take Things Less Personally

Do you habitually blame yourself for things or assume others think badly of you? Or, do you know someone who does? Rather than blaming ourselves, psychologist Joel Minden suggests we might blame two negative thinking patterns that we can actively work to change. The first is personalization – believing you are more central to others’ decisions and behaviors than is true. The second is mind reading, or believing someone is judging you, despite no direct feedback.

“If you accept these thoughts as facts, it can be hard to see past giving up, avoiding or lashing out. In short, these tendencies to take things too personally restrict your emotional and behavioural options and increase the likelihood that you’ll struggle with distress or dysfunction,” writes Minden.

He continues, “To help you understand and separate the connections between feelings and thoughts, practise labelling them whenever you have the opportunity. For example, if during a dinner, your guest suddenly got quiet and you thought: ‘He doesn’t like talking with me,’ acknowledge that you’re working with a thought that may or may not be true, and then consider the feeling that came with that thought. An example of a more accurate way to describe what happened is: ‘When he got silent during dinner, I felt sad because I thought he didn’t like talking with me.’ Remember that feelings are not debatable – you just feel how you feel, even when you wish you didn’t. Your thoughts, on the other hand, can be challenged, revised or replaced with more realistic and useful ones.

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