Dysfunctional Thinking

The human brain cannot stop thinking in its wakeful state. We think, think and think. From which the stream of consciousness concept has originated.

When it is such an unstoppable activity of the brain, why don’t we humans be better than what we are? That’s the mystery.

Some probable reasons

• Most of our thoughts are random, carry no useful information or ideas about anything at all
• Some of them relate to everyday tasks
• A few maybe relate to interesting ideas on which we can work further and bring out useful changes in life
• A miniscule number could be dangerous thoughts!
• Many of them are dysfunctional thought, affecting our peace of mind and happiness

Dysfunctional thoughts are the ones that mess up with our lives; we humans have a tendency to aggravate situations and think the worst will happen, not realising that we can actually change the way our life moves by thinking differently.

Examples are many

• If a young person keeps thinking of failing examination constantly, he is likely to fail
• If a young woman keeps thinking she will never get a suitable job, it may end up being so
• If spouses keep thinking they will never be able to settle their differences, it is not likely to happen
• If we think we can never face that bully in our life, we will never even try
• If we think we cannot retaliate when cornered, we will remain submissive all our lives

Prolonged dysfunctional thoughts can lead to dangerous ones

• I will be thrown out of college
• I will lose my job
• This marriage will break
• I can’t go on living like this

Our situation gets worse

• We lose our self esteem
• We lose our friends
• We harm our relationships irrevocably
• We get stuck in poor jobs
• We keep being bad at most tasks that we can actually master
• We feel hopeless, unwanted and ill-used all the time
• We can end up harming ourselves or others

What can be done? Here are some suggestions

• Trusting yourself to overcome negative, dysfunctional thoughts; if you don’t trust yourself, the thoughts can never be challenged or changed
• Looking for support among the close knit group of people; this is important since, our well-wishers are our close knit group. One or two among them must be co-opted to help us get out of depressing and dysfunctional thoughts.
• Trusting others to be helpful. Many times, we don’t think others can help us. That is why we do not seek help.
• Reading literature on this aspect if you can; it has the advantage of keeping your problem to yourself as well as seeking the expertise of the experts
• Change your routine; diverting from routine activities and doing something different and interesting is important early change you can make in your life.
• Stop blaming others, other things such as people, place of work or living for your problems; these only add to the misery but are never the most important reasons.
• Do not wallow in self-pity and refuse nice gestures from others. If this is done repeatedly, there will come a time when others will not offer to do anything for you!
• Seeking help of counsellors at the right time; on our own we cannot and should not think we can change our ways of thinking. Here again, we worry about sharing with the counsellor our problems, we have trust issues. We must realise that mental health professionals are doctors who specialise in the field and do know better than us what can be done for us.
• Stop getting vicarious pleasure in wallowing in sadness and depression! That is the last thing one must do. If you are in some way enjoying being depressed and unhappy, ruminating about your situation, no one can save you.
• On the other hand, do not indulge in the over confidence or arrogance that you can get over it on your own. You simply cannot.
• Do not think everything will get okay after some time too is not going to help. Dysfunctional thinking will not disappear on its own, we need to work on it.
• And remember, since we have two important brains, the rational brain and the emotional brain, we must learn to balance both of them. Never allow one of them to dominate the other.

For all those who would like to work on their thoughts, good luck and God Speed – Tips for being positive.