Thinking traps are overly rigid patterns in thinking. When you enter a new situation and your thinking is almost on autopilot. Your habits of thinking are driving the way you're interpreting this current situation. And whether it's explanatory style, or errors in logic, or cognitive distortions, all of these overly rigid patterns in thinking can make it much harder for us to see our current situation accurately. Those habits of thinking can get in the way of problem solving because we're not seeing the situation as it is. We're bringing to the situation our old habits of thinking, and they can undercut our ability to bounce back.
There are five common thinking traps that hinder our growth and inner peace:
- mind reading trap-is assuming you know what another person is thinking. Or expecting that other person to know what you are thinking. Often when you're assuming what the other person is thinking, it's that you're assuming they're thinking something ill of you, negative of you. Rarely when we mind read are we assuming that someone else is thinking great things about us. Mind reading makes us want to have distance, shutting out other people. It blocks communication and has really negative effects on relationships. I found myself in this trap deeply and cannot get over it without dedicated effort. I always assumed that my adopted father has a secret wish on my dooms and I imagined vavidly that he was so happy to hear that I had diagnosed with cancer and told everyone about it with tears in his eyes and smile in his heart. So everyone will have more empathy on him and curse me for my distance from him and left him alone. So I'm not willing to contact him in any way and I isolated myself from all my relatives and friends. I'm afraid that they will tell him my situation and he can take advatage of my misery to its full extent.
- me trap-you believe that you are the sole cause of every setback and problem, that's a me trap. The thought it's all my fault, is likely going to lead to feeling guilt and some disappointment and feeling down and kind of isolating yourself. when people fall into the me trap, people tend to experience a lot of guilt and a lot of sadness. I don't have this thinking trap. At the most, I will say:"I'm responsible for my life."
- them trap-in the them trap, you believe that other people or circumstance, is the sole cause of your setbacks and problems. So in the me trap it's all your fault, in them trap, every problem, every setback is caused by other people or circumstance. . And so what we tend to see when someone habitually falls into that trap of them, blaming other people, blaming the world, blaming circumstance, blaming the weather, blaming politics, blaming whatever for the problems that you're confronting is that it leads to a lot of anger and aggression. I stayed in them trap for at least a decade. Especially at working place, I felt everyone outthere to get me and take advantage me. They are all stumbling stones on my way of self-actualization. I feel I'm a phenix among sparrows, an eagle among ducks, a peacock among hens. Anger, frustration and hatress are my emotional state during these years. It took a long long time to get out of the blame game and see the true picture.
- Catastrophizing is the thinking trap in which you're wasting critical energy ruminating on the rational worst case outcomes of a situation. So you're ruminating on all of those irrational worst case outcomes, and all of that energy and rumination is blocking you from actually taking any action. And so in catastrophizing, there's what we would describe as sort of an imbalance between your assessment of the threat. The threat becomes huge, you see threats as looming and much bigger than they probably actually are. So you overestimate the threat and you're simultaneously underestimating your own resources to cope, so catastrophizing. It leads to agitation, anxiety and not really engaging in any productive way?. I occasionally fall into this trap and feel scared and insecure. Now I say to myself:" this shall pass as well. If I'm in the valley, I will climb up to the peak sooner or later."
- Helplessness-trap is when you believe that the negative event, whatever it is is going to impact all areas of your life and that you have no control. it starts to generate a feeling of hopelessness and helplessness. You feel depleted, withdrawing and just giving up. When I'm in this trap, I talk to myself something like this:"I have to ... but I can't..."
Knowing is the start-point of a battle or change. If you have negative emotions or feel bad, try to go through this list to see whether your rigid thinking patterns playing tricks on you.
