1. All-or-Nothing Thinking (aka.
Black-and-White Thinking)
In a nutshell:
This thinking trap is about seeing
things in an extreme and polarized way. They are either good
or bad, friends or enemies.
I am either right or wrong, nice or mean,
successful or a failure.
How it silences your Soul's truth:
Your
Soul is a creature of the
realm of "both/and" rather than the territory of
"either/or." This thinking trap forces you and others
into one little box that distorts your ability to honor
nuance.
Instead of seeing that you can be both a
good person and make a mistake, you see yourself as being
bad, full stop.
2. Overgeneralization
In a nutshell:
This is about seeing a single negative
experience as a sign that all future experiences of the same
nature will be negative.
For example, if you mess up in a
conversation with someone, you assume that you will mess up
in all future conversations with them.
How it silences your Soul's truth:
On a Soul level, you know that each
moment is new and precious. Yet this mental distortion
causes you to believe that one bad experience will repeat
endlessly into your future.
It kills your ability to respond to
people and situations with fresh eyes and a receptive heart.
3. Negative Mental Filter
In a nutshell:
This cognitive distortion involves
picking one single negative detail within yourself, another,
or a situation, and focusing on it to the exclusion of
everything else.
No positive input or evidence can come
in.
How it silences your Soul's truth:
It's a way your ego self-sabotages you,
making you believe that the one negative comment you got
only matters.
It dulls your capacity to experience joy
and gratitude, and limits your ability to see the whole
picture.
4. Discounting the Positive
In a nutshell:
This trap is similar to the
previous one, but with a slight shift. Instead of focusing
only on the negative, this distortion causes you to refuse
any positive experiences, telling you that "they don't
count."
It's often sourced from low self-worth.
How it silences your Soul's truth:
When you get a compliment, this thinking
trap shouts, "They're just being polite" or "I just
got lucky." Your Soul knows that you are worthy of kindness
and success.
But this trap limits your ability
to accept your own inherent value.
5. Mind Reading
In a nutshell:
This thinking trap occurs when you
assume you know what another person is thinking with little
or no evidence.
Usually, this is done in a negative
context, as in, "I know that they cut me off in traffic
because they think I drive like a grandma."
How it silences your Soul's truth:
Often, this thinking trap is
confused with intuition, when really it's just a false
projection of the mind.
It clouds your ability to see different
perspectives or angles, replacing it with a story you've
invented about someone's reality.
6. Fortune-Telling
In a nutshell:
Similar to mind reading but different.
This thinking trap is about making
assumptions, but in a future context. It's about predicting
that something negative will happen, and believing that as a
fact, based on little evidence.
How it silences your Soul's truth:
Your Soul honors your self-sovereignty
and agency to create your own future. It knows that nothing
is written in stone.
But this thinking trap makes you
believe that suffering or failure is inevitable, creating
feelings of hopelessness and anxiety.
7. Catastrophizing
In a nutshell:
This thinking trap is all about
overly emphasizing and exaggerating the importance of a
problem. It turns something negative, like a setback, into a
life-ending catastrophe.
How it silences your Soul's truth:
Your Soul is wise and knows that most
failures or setbacks aren't the end of the world and that
"this too shall pass."
This mental distortion takes situations
and spins them into horror scenarios, flooding your system
with panic and silencing your more centered inner voice.
8. Minimization
In a nutshell:
As the opposite of catastrophizing,
minimization is about shrinking the value of your positive
experiences, qualities, or achievements.
How it silences your Soul's truth:
Often, this thinking trap is
confused as being humble - but it's false humility. It
obscures the truth that the good things which happen to you,
your gifts, and blessings, are all real and valuable.
Your Soul understands this, but
minimization tells you that they don't matter. It keeps you
small.
9. Emotional Reasoning
In a nutshell:
This cognitive distortion is all about
assuming that your feelings reflect facts or the absolute
reality. It blocks the ability to use logic or see from
different and more truthful perspectives.
How it silences your Soul's truth:
Feelings aren't always the truth.
Often, they're signals, not facts. While
your Soul says, "I notice that this feeling is coming up,"
emotional reasoning says, "This bad feeling means I'm a bad
person."
It transforms a temporary emotion into
more of a rigid identity.
10. "Should" Statements
In a nutshell:
This is when you enforce rules about how
you or another "should" behave or feel. It's a cage
that the mind creates, creating a sense of resentment,
judgment, and anxiety.
How it silences your Soul's truth:
Your deeper Self has a flexible,
compassionate, and respectful approach towards yourself and
others.
"Should" statements, on the other
hand, are a form of tyranny, imposing a preordained
worldview that must strictly be adhered to.
It creates an imaginary rulebook that
limits intuition and fluidity.
11. Labeling
In a nutshell:
Based on one negative experience, this
thinking trap immediately jumps to assigning a label
to yourself or others.
For instance, if you didn't get that
promotion, you're "a failure," or if your favorite public
figure doesn't conform to your belief system, they're "a
fraud."
Labeling is an extreme form of
overgeneralization. Instead of "I made a mistake," you say,
"I am a mistake," or "I am a failure."
How it silences your Soul's truth:
A label is a one-dimensional prison that
doesn't allow for growth. It says, "You're a mistake"
instead of seeing the Soul's truth that "you made a
mistake."
It suppresses the positive parts of your
character and reduces you to a static idea.
12. Personalization
In a nutshell:
This thinking trap is about taking
things personally and blaming yourself for circumstances
outside of your control.
For example, if someone doesn't respond
to your text message, you might think, "It's because they
don't like me and are avoiding me."
How it silences your Soul's truth:
Personalization takes you away from your
inner groundedness by making other people's actions always
about you.
It burdens you with guilt, shame, and
anxiety.
13. Blaming
In a nutshell:
The opposite of personalization, this
distortion causes you to believe that others are always
responsible for your pain and choices.
It feeds a victim identity.
How it silences your Soul's truth:
Your Soul honors personal power and
responsibility.
But this thinking trap turns you
into a helpless victim. It causes you to give your power
away to others, limiting your ability to make active change.
