Rumination
Rumination is a repetitive negative thinking state that is triggered by pervasive negative beliefs. It is a sticky thinking pattern that shows up habitually when triggered by certain environmental or internal states.
Identify your symptoms of depression
What does your depression sound and feel like? It’s important to hold onto the fact that depression isn’t the real you and it won’t last forever. If you’ve felt very depressed for a long time, it can be hard to access the real you.
Plan for mood symptoms
Depression is an illness. It’s the combination of biological sensitivities plus psychological and social factors that reinforce those sensitivities. It is treatable and you can recover. Identify the symptoms of your depression, plan for it, and act efficaciously despite how you feel.
Helpfulness vs. helplessness
Efficacy, mastery, and control over the environment are all markers of wellbeing in adults.
Worthiness vs. worthlessness
If you feel worthless, consider that it might not be the truth about you.
Identifying core beliefs
We all have beliefs about how we think and feel, why we think and feel, and what we should think and feel.
An introduction to pervasive negative beliefs
Second fear turns an anxiety state into an anxiety disorder because the fear of the fear creates resistance that creates more fear (and more resistance and more fear). Negative core beliefs turn a feeling into a depressive state because the interpretation of that feeling is that it means the person is helpless, hopeless, or worthless.
Two other types of inflated responsibility
To overcome your positive outlook about responsibility of thoughts focus on choice and values.
Inflated responsibility about the past
Our minds can have thoughts that we don’t act on and those thoughts don’t mean anything about our character.
Inflated responsibility in the present
When you are experiencing an inflated responsibility in the present moment consider if it is thought-action fusion and what your conscientious model would do.
Real responsibility compared to inflated responsibility
May I have the serenity to accept what I cannot control,
The courage to change what I can change,
And the wisdom to know the difference.
Understanding inflated responsibility
An excessive or inflated sense of responsibility occurs when you interpret your thoughts in terms of whether they can cause distress or harm to yourself or others. That is, having the thought in and of itself gives you a sense of guilt or responsibility.
Emotional perfectionism
The right way to approach exposure to anxiety is with curiosity, compassion, and patience. Trying to be perfectly curious and compassionate is the opposite of curiosity and compassion. Getting back to the basics of developing a curious and compassionate attitude, your path is through observing what’s happening.
Self-talk for perfectionists to practice
Productive work sounds like, “I’m going to prioritize based on my values and accept that I have limitations. Just because my mind thinks I can do something better doesn’t mean I have to do it. In fact, it definitely doesn’t mean I have to do it. If my perfectionism makes it hard for me to know when to stop, I’m going to use a conscientious model, which is a person who I respect doing the same type of task. I’m going to use what I know about how they behave as an example for deciding when it’s okay for me to stop. I’m willing to experiment and take risks knowing that I have to accept where I am to get where I’m going next. Rather than avoiding or bracing against feedback, I want collaboration so that I can grow.”
Fears that drive perfectionism
We are challenging the strategies you use to strive for excellence. We are not challenging the idea that you should strive for excellence.
Acting good enough will lead to feeling good enough
Sometimes clinical perfectionism will drive you to avoid and sometimes it will drive you to over-compensate and work too hard. Your all-or-nothing thinking drives all-or-nothing behavior. If you have a habit of all-or-nothing thinking and behaving, you might not trust when to do what. You might be looking for a set strategy where you can feel in control of your clinical perfectionism. The reality is that responding well to the thinking patterns and behavioral urges that clinical perfectionism triggers requires that you are flexible and your responses are dynamic.
The relationship between dread and confidence
Like learning anything else, your body won’t give you the feelings of confidence until you’ve practiced the actions of confidence.
Self-compassion precedes self-confidence
In the past, you have minimized, disregarded, and avoided your anxious thoughts, sensations, and feelings. Now, you’ll be identifying, labeling, inviting, and even provoking more anxious thoughts, sensations, and feelings. This identifying and labeling process is like learning the alphabet of anxiety. Per the metaphor, you won’t be able to read — that is, do what you care about in the presence of anxiety with skill and grace — until you’ve practiced the basics over and over.
Fear of negative evaluation and imposter syndrome
How well any of us manage the pressure to fit in depends a lot on biological vulnerabilities and strengths as well as the demands of the environment at that time.
Fear of positive evaluation and imposter syndrome
If you don’t fear a lapse in performance and embrace wherever you are on any given day, your performance in the long-run will be more consistent and more effective.