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If you constantly see the world in terms good and bad and no in between, you might be doing something called polarized thinking.

And if you're wondering what polarized thinking is…

It's one of the 12 cognitive distortions that I'm about to tell you about.

Cognitive distortions are irrational or negative thought patterns that make you see reality incorrectly.

And, they can cause tremendous damage your relationships and overall well being.

So if you struggle with any of that, make sure you stick around to the end, because if you don't, you might keep having cognitive distortions that you didn’t even know existed.

1. Polarized Thinking

Polarized thinking is thinking in terms of black and white.

For example, let's say you been trying to lose weight.

If you're thinking in terms of black and white, then you might think that all the exercise you’ve been doing is either working or it's not working.

So if you step on the scale after a week and you see that you haven't lost any weight, you might feel like it's no point in continuing to workout, because the exercise is not working.

That's polarized thinking.

The problem with polarized thinking (sticking with weight loss as an example) is that when you think in terms of black and white, you don’t see all the other possibilities that could explain why you ain’t losing weight, and you don’t see all the other benefits of continuing to workout.

So the solution to polarized thinking is to spend more time looking at the gray area.

If you look close enough, you might just find a lot of positive details that you’ve been missing.

1. Overgeneralization

The next cognitive distortion that can be causing you unnecessary stress and anxiety is overgeneralization.

Overgeneralization is when you make very broad conclusions from one individual incident, and expect it to keep happening over and over again.

How many times have yall heard a woman say all men are the same?

Or, how many times have you heard a man say these females ain't loyal?

That's overgeneralization.

You might have had one bad experience with one person, or it might have even happened multiple times, but that still doesn't mean it applies to every person.

Now the problem with that is that when you do actually meet a good person, you might trick yourself out of a good thing, just because you made a general assumption about that person based on other people you dealt with in the past.

And that's where the next cognitive distortion comes in at.

1. Catastrophizing

Catastrophizing is when you only see the worst possible outcomes in a situation, or when you take a very minor negative thing and make it seem like the worst thing in the world.

Now this can be something like thinking you’ll get fired from your job if you make one mistake, or having your whole day messed up because somebody cut in front of you in traffic.

Even though they ain’t cause an accident, and you ain’t get hurt, and you barely even had to slow down, for some reason you just let it kill your whole vibe.

Basically, you made it seem like it was a catastrophe.

1. Personalization

Another cognitive distortion, that’s just as much of an overreaction as catastrophizing, is personalization.

Personalization is holding yourself accountable for stuff you can't control.

This is very common in relationships.

For example, you might notice that your significant other has an attitude.

And your first thought might be "What I do?"

That's personalization.

Cause without having any information to go off of, you automatically assume responsibility, as if your significant others mental well being is up to you to manage.

And don't get me wrong I ain't tryna say that you shouldn't be there for your significant other or try to create a positive space for them.

But you still gotta realize that you can't assume that it's your fault every time something is wrong.

Because just like all the rest of these cognitive distortions, when you think like that, you stress yourself out for no reason.

Now so far we have talked about a few cognitive distortions.

And for the most part, being able to look at the positive side of things can help you overcome those.

But, what if you just can’t get yourself to think positive?

In that case, you might be doing this next thing, which is called negative filtering.

1. Negative Filtering

Negative filtering is when you ignore all the positive aspects, and only focus on the negative ones.

So basically you are filtering out anything good.

One of the most common examples of negative filtering is constantly talking about the things you don’t like about another person, and completely forgetting about all the good things they do.

If you wanna stop negative filtering, you gotta take time to look at the positive side of things.

Another cognitive distortion that you might experience a lot is called mind reading.

1. Mind Reading

You can probably guess that mind reading means jumping to conclusions without having enough evidence to support that conclusion.

A very common example of mind reading is feeling like somebody is judging you.

The problem with it is that you don't have any proof to tell you whether you're wrong or right.

So the only thing you really can do is wonder, which as you probably can guess, makes you feel unnecessary negative emotions.

The simple solution to fixing this is just to try not to assume you know what somebody else is thinking.

1. Emotional Reasoning

Emotional reasoning is another cognitive distortion that causes you way more harm than good.

Emotional reasoning is when you think that if you feel a certain way about someone or something, then it must be true.

The problem with emotional reasoning is that emotions come and go, and they are not always logical.

Sometimes your feelings can be way outta touch with reality.

Which means you will be outta touch with reality, if you let your feelings dictate all of your thoughts and opinions.

Real quick if you’re still watching, consider smashing that like button for ya boy. Preciate you.

8. Labeling

The next cognitive distortion that might be causing you unnecessary stress and anxiety is called labeling.

Labeling is when you take one negative attribute about yourself or somebody else and use it to define their whole personality.

For example, you might call your uncle your "drunk uncle", because he loves him some Apple E&J.

Meanwhile, he might also be a contractor, a caretaker, a philosopher, a visionary, a stand up guy.

But you just see him as your drunk uncle.

Now where that becomes a problem is that sometimes when you put a label on somebody that you see as a bad thing, it’ll start to show up in the way you talk about and interact with them.

And ultimately that same energy that you give out can be reflected back to you.

And you indirectly bring trouble to yourself just because of the way you think about somebody else.

And then it's just a negative cycle.

But you can avoid that by not putting a label on people in the first place

9. "Should" Statements

Now this next cognitive distortion is very common with strong minded people, and it's call "should" statements.

You can probably tell by the name that should statements are when you think that someone or something "should" always be a certain way, and you ain't willing to accept anything else.

Now this can be anything from how you think people should act in public, to the way you think somebody’s house should be decorated, and anything else.

And don't get me wrong, I ain't saying that you shouldn't have values or like things a certain way.

But when you get so caught up in how you think stuff should be, you can place a lot of unnecessary pressure on yourself and on other people to fit into that mold.

And then when things don't go your way, you'll be very frustrated.

A good way to stop doing this is just to worry about controlling what you can control, and accepting what you can't.

10. Control Fallacy

And that leads into the next cognitive distortion which is control fallacy.

As the name suggests, this is when you think you can control things that you can't, including other people's feelings and behavior.

Just like with should statements, this can make you very frustrated when things don't go your way.

But the opposite side of it is that sometimes you might think you have no control over something at all, when you really do.

One of the most common examples of this is the economy.

We can't control the economy. We can't control whether we get hired or fired from a job. We can't control a lot of stuff.

But we can control our actions on a daily basis.

We can control whether we spend our free time scrolling on social media, or learning new skills that'll help us pay the bills in the future, and not have to worry about the economy.

And whether you are trying to have too much control over something you can't control, or feeling like you can't control something you can control, either way you put too much stress on yourself.

11. Fairness Fallacy

Another cognitive distortion that kind of involves being upset about things you can't control is the fairness fallacy.

And basically all that means is you think everything in life should be fair.

And whether that's right or wrong, it still can't change the fact that life ain’t fair.

So you can either cry about it not being fair, and put the power in somebody else's hands to do something about it, or you can decide to control what you can control and do something about it yourself, whether it's fair or not.

One of those options will take your power away and have you stressed and depressed.

And the other one will give you more power over your own situation, and improve your overall wellbeing.

12. Change Fallacy

Another cognitive distortions that also builds on trying to control things you can’t control is the change fallacy.

The change fallacy is very toxic and damaging in relationships, and really any area of life.

The change fallacy is when you expect other people to change their behavior to make you happy, even if that change completely goes against who they are as a person.

And the reason it's so destructive is that you genuinely think people can and will change if you put enough pressure on them to do so.

So, you keep applying pressure and causing more and more damage to the relationship.

And then if they don't change, you end up even more anxious and depressed because in your mind, you can't be happy if they don't do it.

And even if they do change for you, they end up unhappy.

So either way it's a lose lose situation.

How to Deal With Cognitive Distortions

There are a few things you can do to deal with cognitive distortions.

1. Slow down and THINK.

The thing about cognitive distortions is that they usually happen automatically.

But if you take a second to slow down and think, you might quickly realize that the way you’ve been thinking doesn't make sense.

Ask yourself, are you thinking in terms of black and white?

Are you labeling anybody or anything?

Are you too focused on what you think "should" be, or trying to control something you can't?

Try to look at the situation from every perspective.

2. Journal about it.

This is really the same thing as number one. Because writing IS thinking.

But this time instead of doing it all in your head, you're writing it down on paper (or typing it on a device).

And the benefit of that is that you can SEE how much sense your thoughts don't make.

Once you read them back to yourself, it probably won't be too hard to spot the cognitive distortions.

3. Reframe your negative thoughts as p0sitive thoughts.

I actually have a journaling template that helps a lot with that.

And if you struggle with cognitive distortions, you should definitely check it out.

But the benefit of reframing your negative thoughts as positive thoughts is that eventually those positive thoughts will become your real thoughts.

And the more you can see things in a positive way, the less you’ll have these negative cognitive distortions.

Which means less anxiety and depression for you.