On the 12th day of Christmas my brain health tip for me is one B12 booster, iPhone 11 connection check, 10 minutes of meditation, and 9 ANTs to squash…
Automatic Negative Thoughts (ANTs) don’t take a holiday at Christmas, in fact, they can over populate our heads this time of year. What to do?! Find them and squash them! Of the many varieties of ANTs, the ones that might ruin your Christmas and New Year’s parties are these:
1) The CAN’T ANT – this is a thought (can also be an ingrained limiting belief) that derails you before you ever do anything. Focus on what you can do, and bury the CAN’T ANT.
2) Always/Never – this ANT shows up in thoughts that get spoken aloud as “We always get into fights at family gatherings” or, “Aunt Eunice never has anything nice to say.” Find the exception to the always.never thought, like the time Aunt Eunice complimented you on your ugly Christmas sweater.
3) Personalization of Blame – assuming the responsibility for things that aren’t your fault (and may not be anyone’s fault at all).Assuming responsibility for another’s bad behavior isn’t helpful for either one of you, and labeling yourself based on what someone else did is unhealthy too.
4) Mind reading – this ANT assumes that you know what others are thinking…it doesn’t require much imagination to see how much trouble that can get you into. Squash this ANT by reminding yourself that you can’t read minds…even your own sometimes.
5) Minimizing – this ANT underestimates your contributions to a given situation – a little self-reflection and honesty are all that’s need to squash this pesky little ANT.
6) Maximizing – this ANT makes mountains out of molehills, blowing things way out of proportion. This ANT likes to show up whenever we are already on edge or looking for someone to hurt our feelings. Squash this ANT by not wearing your heart on your sleeve or by allowing little things to pile up.
7) Fortune-telling – this ANT, like mind reading – calls for super human powers that…wait for it…you don’t have! No, you didn’t get a crystal ball for Christmas so disabuse yourself of the notion that you can see into the future. This doesn’t mean that some things are reasonably foreseeable – like having that 6th slice of pie or third glass of Uncle Willie’s eggnog isn’t going to come back to bite you later. But we aren’t that good at predicting the future – remember how many people thought the Cowboys were going to the Super Bowl this year? I rest my case.
8) Guilt beatings – this is a family of ANTs that have “should,” “ought,” or “must” in them. “I should’ve known…” or, “I ought to have done…” These ANTs are kin to the Personalization of Blame and Fortune telling ANTs and generally disempower you from contributing to a solution to the issue at hand.
9) Catastrophizing – these ANTs are a species that like to come in waves, one right after another, to ruin your day. When spoken aloud they sound like this, “If I don’t get that new iPhone 11, I’ll be stuck with this old iPhone X, all the cool people will think I’m a loser, my boyfriend/girlfriend won’t want to be with such a loser, so I’ll be alone for New Years and get stuck watching the ball drop on TV on my parent’s couch all by myself.” Seriously? Yes. Thoughts are powerful and we can think ourselves into living under an overpass in a cardboard box in a heartbeat. STOP IT! Sometimes stopping the thought as soon as you catch yourself going down the rabbit hole is the best way to pull out of a thought spiral.
This Christmas, do yourself (and your family, friends, and coworkers) a favor and quash those ANTs! If you need some help with this – give us a call at 817-295-8708 and we’ll be glad to help you keep those ANTs out of your thought life.
Merry Christmas!