How you feel can influence your thinking and behavior
Our thoughts, values and beliefs all affect how we interpret our emotions
For example, if you are starting a new job, you are likely to get butterflies in your tummy, feel shaky and start sweating. If you struggle with your self-esteem you might think this means that you are feeling nervous because you are not going to do well, and you will have to talk to new people which you find really hard. These thoughts will then heighten those emotions and increase the nerves. However, if you see these nerves as something positive you might think this is due to your excitement at who you might meet and getting to do something new. We are now going to explore how positive and negative thinking can help with managing emotions.
This includes how you feel about yourself-(your self-esteem); how you feel about your situation and your feelings towards other people. For example an individual who feels powerless may lose motivation and believe that there is no point in trying, as he will not succeed. He may withdraw and isolate himself. Similarly an individual who ruminates on problems and focuses on negatives is unlikely to see the positives in other people or situations and this can increase his feelings of isolation.
The effect of positive and negative thinking on emotions?
If you are unsure of negative and positive thinking (otherwise known as self-talk) then please work through our self-talk section.
Negative thinking tends to led to negative feelings such as stress, worry, anxiety and frustration.
Positive thinking encourages more positive feelings and behaviour.
Exercise 2 – Your negative thoughts
Start keeping a list of situations where you notice negative thoughts.
With each of these, identify the associated feelings and behaviours.
Here is an example:
Situation – Saying hello to a colleague who doesn’t respond
Thought- ‘they hate me’
Feeling – rejection
Behaviour – stop talking to them
Then start thinking of other reasons:
- They didn’t hear me
- They were busy and preoccupied
- They were upset and didn’t want to talk to anyone
Start to see if you notice any difference in your feelings once you think of alternative reasons. You will probably notice the feelings are more positive.
Now think about your sexual thoughts and behaviour. Can you identify any feelings and negative thoughts that might contribute to sexual offending?
An example of this might be:
Situation: At home alone, wanting to start online dating.
Thought – I never know what to say to women in chat rooms
Feeling – frustration/loneliness
Behaviour – chatting with children online
Negative thinking is often triggered by thinking errors which fall into three main categories:
- Catastrophising – making things seem worse that they really are, getting things out of proportion
- Generalising – taking one occurrence and thinking it will always apply e.g. believing you will never pass your driving test because you failed the first time
- Negative focus – always focusing on the negative aspects of a situation rather than looking at the positives e.g. rather than be pleased about passing an exam, being upset that you did not get a higher grade.
Spend some time reflecting on your thinking errors. If you need additional information on what these are then there is a downloadable sheet which has been created by Psychology Tools (psychologytools.org).
