if you can follow this one rule you'll probably decrease your emotional reactivity by half and
this rule isn't about willpower it isn't about doing something that takes a ton
of energy or effort it's a rule about being really freaking honest with yourself [Music]
when it comes to emotional reactivity emotions are the match the initial source of ignition our
habits and our self-care and our problem solving skills might be the wood or what maintains the
fire but how we think is like gasoline and there's a certain type of thinking that's
especially explosive when it comes to emotional reactivity and that's black and white thinking
now black and white thinking is when you take a situation and you think about it in
an extreme way you push out all of the nuance and you turn it into something as intense as
possible now you can usually recognize it when you use words like always never perfect terrible
or like every Everything everyone nothing nobody worst or best right The arbinger Institute calls
these horribleizations you take something and you horribalize it now notice how in these situations
black and white thinking exaggerates the situation so for example a husband says to his wife you
never do the dishes I always have to clean up after you or a depressed young adult everything
is awful the world is a a terrible Place climate change is hopeless I'll never be able to succeed
I'm no good at math or some at work right they might think my boss is the worst Communicator or
a young mother might say I'm just a terrible person she has it all together she's such a
saint right each time the person takes a difficult situation and they make it horrible they use the
most extreme word never always everything hopeless terrible so the more extreme you're thinking the
more intense your emotions will be and the more likely you are to be depressed or anxious but
black and white thinking also makes you helpless to escape that depression or anxiety and it's a
lie when you use black and white thinking you are usually distorting nuanced Reality by ignoring the
good and exaggerating the bad you're lying so if it's so awful why do we do it you subconsciously
like black and white thinking because it serves a function in the short term and like a drug it
makes you suffer in the long term so what function does it serve number one it justifies you so if
your wife does the dishes sometimes but not often why would you want to phrase that in the worst
possible way my wife never does the dishes the reason you want to phrase it that way is to make
yourself feel like the good guy and put her down you're making yourself feel better by making the
situation worse in the long run so if your boss has some skills some strength some talents but
struggles to communicate in a few areas why would you want to say that they're terrible in every way
because then you don't have to put in the effort to be assertive and communicate your needs and
listen to theirs believing that your boss is terrible is a mental Habit to excuse yourself
from work so if math is hard for you let me give you one more example if math is hard for
you why would you want to believe that it's impossible for you why would you want to lie
to make a sincerely difficult situation harder because then you're excused from trying from
putting an effort from the difficulty of hours of studying or the painful emotions of failing a test
black and white thinking is an old habit that protects you from painful emotions like
uncertainty and disappointment when we exaggerate how bad things are it excuses us from action it
creates the idea that we're helpless and therefore we do not need to act it helps us feel powerless
and thereby protects ourselves from feeling guilty or accountable so be honest with yourself like
it kind of feels good when you can call up your bestie and tell them that you've had the worst day
in the whole entire world and then they say oh you poor thing but the thing is most of the time we
don't even make that call we just have that little internal dialogue with ourselves you poor thing we
say to ourselves and we kind of like it like that Vindication feels good now on a side note there is
a reason your brain made this fun little backdoor excuse and it's connected to fear and the fight
plate freeze response when we're in Danger let's say our ancestors were at war with another tribe
the fight flight freeze response shuts down nuance and options in the brain we see the attacking
tribe as being sub-human as being terrible as being awful human beings black and white
thinking makes it simpler to fight back to kill them because we're not thinking of them as humans
with wives and children and parents with dreams and loves and hurts right they're just simply the
bad guys in life-threatening situations black and white thinking may help us make quick and decisive
decisions Simplicity is easier than dealing with the nuanced complexity of reality and it might
help us us survive but since the vast majority of our day-to-day decisions aren't life-threatening
black and white thinking interferes with our emotional stability the rest of the time
so if we want to be less emotionally reactive we need to replace black and white thinking
with something more helpful and more honest so what do we do about it the first thing is
this rule honesty you have to be willing to admit that black and white thinking is a lie
and that you're lying to yourself to excuse yourself from something if you're willing to
be more honest about that then you can move on to the next step so notice that you're doing it
notice your trigger words so 99 of the time words like always or never are not accurate
do you have other words that you use when you're justifying yourself just start to catch yourself
doing it write a big Post-It note somewhere that you can see that has a list of the words
that are warning signs that you're slipping into black and white thinking and emotional reactivity
then take a deep breath slow yourself down [Applause] next name and emotion the emotion
might be real but the thoughts aren't so say something like I feel followed by an emotion word
I feel angry you are not allowed to say I feel like you're making me angry I feel like you always
attack me I feel like you never take out the trash I'm sorry those are lies and they're also thoughts
they're not feelings they're lies because they're exaggerated but that's not a feeling statement
right three words only I feel emotionward I feel angry that's honest right okay next reframe the
situation speak in the gray there might be a real problem that needs to be solved the emotion can
motivate you to take action but Extreme thinking like black and white thinking will most likely
interfere with your ability to solve the problem so we're gonna look for the gray here's how use
both and instead of extreme thinking now this is an annoying purpose skill that's actually super
effective right you can feel two emotions at the same time you can have two nuanced truths that
seem contradictory at the same time so for example when your boss miscommunicates a deadline to you
instead of thinking he's a terrible Communicator you could say my boss didn't communicate well and
he's also trying really hard to help our team succeed or if you messed up right instead of
me either being a complete idiot or a perfect worker you could say something like oh I'm I'm
basically intelligent and valuable at times I make mistakes too both of these can be true
or if if a loved one passes away you could say something like oh I feel so sad about the death of
my mother and I feel relieved that I don't have to be her caretaker anymore anymore or um you know it
could be true that your wife might be insensitive to you sometimes and she also loves you a lot
right so that's the skill of both and you look for two parts or lots of parts of these situations
okay next look for exceptions look for counter examples so if I have this thought oh my wife
never does the dishes you look for a time that she did or some other way that she contributes
right look for an exception to this extreme way of thinking or be specific speak about one single
situation so use a less extreme word so instead of saying my boss is a terrible Communicator you
say my boss wasn't clear about her expectations for the timeline for this assignment be really
specific right so instead of everything is awful describe what specifically is awful
so say oh she didn't tell me the time frame so when we get specific then we can actually do
something about a problem so like uh you could say something like oh hey boss next time I need more
clarity about deadlines okay and then last make sure to check for your own accountability in the
majority of situations we are playing a role in the cycle if there's a communication problem at
work perhaps we need to work on using clarifying statements or being more assertive if there's a
problem with chores in the marriage we may need to consider how we're contributing or clarifying
household tasks or we need to manage our stress levels better or you know not be so busy all the
time right there's probably something we can do to contribute to the solution here now remember
one of the main reasons that people get depressed or anxious is how they perceive reality when we're
able to be more flexible and intentional and truthful in our Perceptions in our words we're
often able to escape the extreme emotions and depression and anxiety can can lift right now
when you've been thinking in extremes for much of your life it can be really hard to catch yourself
doing it so working with a therapist can really help you notice and replace this type of thinking
with something that's way more emotionally stable when it comes down to it you can change
your brain you can improve your mood you can get better at feeling so I hope this helps thank you
for watching and take care hey this video is sponsored by betterhelp betterhelp has licensed
professional therapists in your area and you can reach them from the Comforts of your own
home they make it really easy to find a therapist who you can start working with very quick quickly
they also make therapy more affordable and more accessible so if you're interested in learning
more please click the link in the description and you can get 10 off your first month
[Music]