One of the most helpful things you can do is to give all of your negative thoughts a reality check. For instance, if your partner has just ended a romantic relationship and you think that you will never be loved again, you can ask yourself, “What evidence do I have that I will never be loved again?” Since you’ve been in romantic relationships before this one, there should be no reason why you won’t find another partner who will love you when you are ready. In addition, you can think of all the friends and family members who still love you. In this way you can realize that you are committing the cognitive distortion of over-generalization because you are taking one event and magnifying it to apply to all situations.
Another way to battle cognitive distortions is to engage in reframing an event. Perhaps something negative happened to you, but you must ask yourself if anything positive came out of it. In the case of the end of a romantic relationship, you can tell yourself that you learned many new things from your ex-partner that have made you a much more interesting and well-rounded person and that you can bring this to your next relationship. If you can think along these lines, you might not feel as though you are at a dead end, but at the precipice of a new beginning.
Training your mind to challenge irrational thoughts and replace them with more accurate thinking is extremely difficult, particularly for people who suffer from depression. But the reward justifies the effort you will have to put into it. Instead of walking around feeling unhappy and that the world is out to get you, you’ll have a different outlook on life—one that will fill you with enthusiasm for the day at hand and not affect your mood when things don’t go exactly your way.
