Avoiding ANTs - Automatic negative thoughts

We often do not realize, but every time that we complain or say negative things about anything, we are having an ANT - a automatic negative thought. Leading self class topic was to help us know between negative thoughts and positive thoughts in order to help us have a more thoughtful, positive and active mindset to take action whenever there is a problem.

Therefore, we had the activity of journaling whenever we have negative thoughts.

Our ANTS are categorized into many different groups

- always thinking

- assuming

- negativity

- never/always thought

- mind-reading

- personalizing

- focus on the negativity

By identifying what type of ANT our thought was, we were better able to know which area we should improve on and therefore improve our skills and thoughts in this area.

I personally feel that this practice is very helpful because I become more aware of my feelings and how I am behaving. If this practice is not carried out often enough, we might as well switch back to our usual habit, so this is a practice that I will try my best to keep on through time.