About thoughts

Because our thoughts and in particular the presence of negative thoughts have a huge impact on our happiness, I want to know more about this topic.

What are thoughts? And in particular negative thoughts?

Thoughts are words, images, stories that are created by our minds. They are not necessarily true.

Negative thoughts in particular are thoughts about self, others or the world in general that are associated with negative emotions.

Let’s say that someone imagines the worst possible outcome about a situation and continue to rethink about that. For example, if this person makes a small mistake at work, he might think: “I’m terrible at this, and I’ll never improve. I’m worthless”. This is an example of negative thought.

Why do we have thoughts? And in particular negative thoughts?

• We have thoughts because it is the way our brain uses to solve the problems we encounter in life, learning from the past and evaluating possible outcomes of various behaviours.
• Negative thoughts are a way our brain uses to evaluate risks of various behaviours and protect ourselves from possible negative outcomes.
• If negative thoughts don’t lead to actions, then negative thoughts paralyse us and lead only to suffering, to feel negative emotions and they are not useful.

In the previous example, if the person continues to think about the negative thought without taking action, this is a useless negative thought. Instead if the person says: “Ok, I have done a mistake, now I am not good at it, so I need to improve”. And he starts to study and learn how to improve at work. This is an example of negative thought that lead to action and therefore is useful.

How thoughts work?

Thoughts are strongly related to emotions. The relation is bidirectional, therefore thoughts generate emotions, but also emotions influence thoughts.

Then emotions contribute to define behaviours and therefore our actions.

We typically have a desired outcome we want to get. This outcome is mainly defined by our values and beliefs. When we live a situation, our brain uses thoughts to define possible actions and their likelihood of achieving the desired outcome. These evaluations contribute to define our emotions that help us to decide our behaviour. If we experience positive emotions, it is likely that we take that action. If we experience negative emotion, this is a signal that an action may not lead to the desired outcome and therefore should be reconsidered or avoided.

About thoughts

• We have negative thoughts when we think about something that happened in the past or in the future. Seldom we have negative thoughts if we concentrate on the present moment and on what we are feeling with our body in the present moment.
• Negative thoughts about the past are for example regrets about something we have not done and criticism about something we have done wrong.
• Negative thoughts about the future are for example fears and worries about something that may happen in the future.
• If we exclude physical pain caused by diseases or injuries or cases of mental illness, because:
  • we suffer when we feel negative emotions
  • negative emotions are caused by negative thoughts and in particular by negative thoughts that do not lead to action
  • negative thoughts do not lead to action if:
    • we do not know what action to do because
      • we have poor problem solving skill or
      • we have low competence about the related subject.
    • we have a limiting belief that no action would allow us to satisfy our needs. Therefore:
  • Limiting beliefs, poor problem solving and low competence are ones of the causes of psychological suffering.

What is coherence and why is it important?

Coherence may be considered as the alignment between values, thoughts, words and actions. When thoughts are aligned with values, the words we say are aligned with our thoughts and the actions we take are aligned with what we say, we are coherent.

This concept is similar to the concept of integrity explored in the Values post and I think that the same considerations are valid.

How are self-esteem and thoughts related?

Self-esteem is what you think about yourself. Therefore self-esteem and thoughts are obviously related. In particular:

• when we have negative thoughts and continue to think about that without taking actions, we do not reach our goals
• If we do not reach our goals, it is likely to have a bad opinion of ourselves and therefore a low self-esteem. Therefore it is likely that having negative thoughts and continue to think about that without taking action lead to a low self-esteem. See more on Self-esteem.

What is cognitive defusion?

Defusion is when you do not fuse with your thoughts and you are able to observe them, let them go away without considering them always true and therefore reducing the influence they have on your behaviour.

Fusion, that is the contrary of defusion, is when you fuse with your thoughts and consider them true continuing to ruminate on them and therefore allowing them to define your behaviour.

Let’s say that a person have a thought like: “I am not good to do anything”. Let’s say this person starts to notice that he is having this thought and starts saying: “I’m noticing that I’m having this thought”, observing why he is having this thought and then letting it to goes away focusing on the present moment, and on what to do to reach his goals. This is an example of defusion.

Instead let’s say that another person have the same thought. Let’s say this person continue to think about this thought starting to believing that it is true and stopping to do anything because it would be useless because at the end “I’m not good to do anything”. This is an example of fusion.

Why is defusion important?

Being able to not fuse with our thoughts, in particular the negative ones, allow us to reduce the impact of negative thoughts and therefore is likely to decrease sufferings.

How to avoid having paralysing negative thoughts?

• Negative thoughts are related to past or future and seldom to present moment.
• Therefore, if we concentrate on the present and on what we feel at the present moment, we don’t let negative thoughts to paralyse us.
• Using techniques like defusion, can help us to avoid paralysing negative thoughts. See Acceptance and Commitment Therapy.
• It is better to learn to listen what negative thoughts want tell us and use them to act towards our goals. In particular:
  • learn from negative past experience to learn from past errors and do not repeat the same errors.
  • evaluate thoughts about the future to reduce risks.
• It is better to accept negative thoughts without suppressing them, because they will come back stronger than before.
• Questioning negative thoughts by asking ourselves what is the likelihood that what we thoughts would really happen.

How to listen our thoughts

1. Ask yourself:
   1. What am I thinking?
   2. Why am I having this thought?
   3. What are my goals related to this thought?
2. If it is a negative thought, then concentrate on the present moment. When the negative emotions are went away, ask yourself:
   1. If it is a negative thought about the past, what can I learn from this experience? What can I do in the future to reach my goals?
   2. If it is a negative thought about the future, what can I do to reduce the risk of this possible bad outcome?

How to change your thoughts?

Because the thoughts are mainly defined by beliefs and values, changing beliefs change thoughts. See Beliefs.

Why understanding how thoughts work is important?

• Thoughts can cause emotions, so also negative emotions.
• Negative emotions cause suffering.
• Therefore thoughts can cause suffering.
• For human beings is important to avoid suffering.
• Therefore understanding how thoughts work is important.

My current Conclusions about Thoughts

• Learning to listen our thoughts is important because they define our behaviour.
• We have to learn to use our thoughts to reach our goals and be happy.
• It is not the negative thoughts that are bad, it is the negative thoughts that don’t lead to actions. Action is the key.
• Some ways to avoid having paralysing negative thoughts is through mindfulness techniques and through rationality.

References

• The Happiness Trap | 2020 | Russ Harris
• Rethinking Rumination, Susan Nolen-Hoeksema, Blair E. Wisco, and Sonja Lyubomirsky, 2008.
• The Telomere Effect | 2020 | Elizabeth Blackburn, Elissa Epel