STINKING-THINKING

20+ CRAZY WAYS WE INTERPRET THINGS

Tommy ‘Top-Tips’ Tinklehausser is the Coddle-Popper who seems to have ‘been there/done that’ more times than any other Coddle-Popper I know! At a ripe old age of 973, if there was a hard way of doing things, he’s tried it (Not too dis-similar to some of us humans), with the wrinkles on his brow to prove it!

Tommy ‘Top-Tips’ Tinklehausser has compiled a compendium of instances where an easier way was found which he lovingly shares with us humans with his weekly tips, in order to ease the emotional roller-coaster that we’re on.

Yes sir, there’s well over twenty different ways that our thought process messes with our mind, and here’s a list of the who’s-who before we break them down and discuss them individually:

Blaming, all or nothing thinking, catastrophizing, overgeneralization, mental filtering, jumping to conclusions, emotional reasoning, labeling and mislabeling, personalization, discounting positives, fortune telling, mind reading, always being right, negative filter, selective attention, false consensus effect, comparisons, what if” thinking, unrealistic standards, black-and-white thinking, self-blame, filtering, magnification, minimization, the fallacies of heaven’s reward, change, fairness, control and should.

My goodness, that’s quite the list isn’t it, so lets walk through them one at a time, so that we know what we’re looking for, and can do something about it as soon as we recognize it. If we don’t, most of these will lead to unrealistic expectations/frustration/stress/disappointment and emotional distress… especially if we continue doing nothing about it.

BLAMING: Habitually placing responsibility/fault to others for our own problems/mistakes, or negative events/experiences/outcomes, without considering our own role/contributions to the situation, rather than taking responsibility ourselves, or considering the broader context.

ALL OR NOTHING THINKING: Looking at situations/events in extreme, polarized terms of only two categories, with no middle ground. Any shade of grey is ignored. Situations/events are seen as either completely good or completely bad, success or failure, perfect or a total disaster.

CATASTROPHIZING: Where we expect the worst possible outcome of a situation without any substantial evidence to support the extreme prediction. We blow the negative consequences of a situation out of all proportion, by imagining/dwelling on the worst possible scenario/outcome, and treating it as inevitable, even when it’s not!

OVERGENERALIZATION: Drawing biased, broad, & sweeping (usually negative) conclusions based on limited/isolated experiences about ourself/others/the world, based on a single event or a few specific instances that does not accurately reflect the overall reality.

MENTAL FILTERING: A distorted perception of reality, where we focus disproportionately on specific negative details/aspects of a situation while at the same time, we filter out/ignore/minimize the positive/neutral aspects along with any information that might contradict our negative beliefs or emotions.

JUMPING TO CONCLUSIONS: Making hasty negative decisions/ judgments/interpretations/assumptions/predictions about a situation/event/person without sufficient evidence (usually based on limited or incomplete information).

EMOTIONAL REASONING: Instead of using objective evidence, facts, or logical reasoning, we make conclusions/decisions based on our emotional state on our belief that, if we feel a certain way, then our feelings must be reflecting reality or the truth (even when there is no concrete evidence to support our feelings).

SHOULD STATEMENTS: Involve rigid and unrealistic expectations/demands that we place on ourselves/others/the world. usually characterized by words like ‘should,’ ‘must,’ ‘ought to,’ or ‘have to’ to express a sense of obligation, duty, or a set of rules for how things should be.

LABELING AND MISLABELING: Often associated with negative self-talk/judgment by assigning overly extreme sweeping, negative, generalized, labels to ourself or another’s character/identity based on specific behaviours/characteristics/isolated incidents.

PERSONALIZATION: When we tend to take responsibility for events/outcomes that are beyond our control. We attach external events (especially negative ones), to ourself, as if we were personally responsible for causing them.

MAGNIFICATION: When we exaggerate the importance/severity/negative consequences of events/situations, or our own mistakes. It involves blowing things out of proportion and viewing them as much worse than they actually are (catastrophizing).

MINIMIZATION: Our tendency to downplay or underestimate the significance of our achievements, positive qualities/aspects of a situation, while at the same time emphasizing/magnifying the negative aspects.

DISCOUNTING POSITIVES: Involves diminishing/ignoring/dismissing the significance of the positive aspects/experiences/feedback/accomplishment of a situation while focusing on the negative aspects of our own shortcomings.

MIND READING: Where we make irrational assumptions about what others are thinking or feeling without having concrete evidence to support our conclusions. It involves making wild guesses or interpretations about the thoughts/intentions/feelings/emotions of others based on limited or no information.

THE FALLACY OF FAIRNESS: Believing that life ‘should’ always be fair and that we are entitled to fair treatment in ALL situations. An unrealistic and rigid expectation that the world should conform to our own sense of what is fair, regardless of the complexities and uncertainties of reality. We become resentful/frustrated/angry with unrealistic expectations.

ALWAYS BEING RIGHT: When we have a difficulty accepting/acknowledging when we are wrong. It involves an inflexible/rigid mindset where we’re unwilling to consider alternative viewpoints or admit to making mistakes, even in the face of evidence to the contrary.

NEGATIVE FILTER: To exclusively focus on/magnify the negative aspects of a situation/experience while ignoring/discounting/downplaying any positive or neutral aspects/elements (selective abstraction).

SELECTIVE ATTENTION: Focusing our mental/perceptual resources on a specific aspect of our environment/stimulus while ignoring/filtering out other stimuli/information. It’s a natural/necessary cognitive function that allows us to prioritize/process our attention and information efficiently to interact with the world around us. However, selective attention can lead to cognitive biases and distortions when we excessively focus on certain aspects while we ignore/discount others.

FALSE CONSENSUS EFFECT: A biased thinking pattern where we over estimate the extent to which our own beliefs/preferences/attitudes/behaviours are shared by others. We assume that what we think, feel, or do, is typical (normal) and that a majority of others would agree or act in the same way.

COMPARISONS: A process where we evaluate similarities and differences between two or more things/ideas/people/situations. Making comparisons is a natural/useful way to make decisions, gain insights, and understand the world around us. The way comparisons are made can vary, and sometimes lead to cognitive biases or distortions.

‘WHAT IF’ THINKING: Where we imagine and dwell on worst-case scenarios/negative outcomes of situations (catastrophizing). This involves creating hypothetical scenarios where things go terribly wrong without concrete evidence to support our catastrophic possibilities.

UNREALISTIC STANDARDS: Setting excessively high/unattainable expectations for ourself/others in various aspects of life, such as work/relationships/appearance/personal achievements (perfectionism).

CONTROL FALLACIES: Two related (but opposite) cognitive biases: ‘Control’ and ‘Helplessness.’ These fallacies reflect distorted beliefs about our ability to control/influence/manipulate situations/outcomes. We believe that we have more control over external events/outcomes than we actually do.

BLACK-AND-WHITE THINKING: We perceive events/situations/ourselves in extreme and polarized terms, with no middle ground or shades of grey (all or nothing). We view things as either all good or all bad, without acknowledging the complexity or nuance that exists in reality.

SELF-BLAME: Where people have the tendency to hold oneself accountable/attribute responsibility/assign fault to themselves for negative events/outcomes/situations, even when not entirely or responsible at all.

FILTERING: Focusing exclusively on certain aspects of a situation/event/experience while ignoring/discounting other information. It involves selectively attending to negative/unfavourable details while filtering out positive or neutral elements.

DISCOUNTING POSITIVES: The downplaying/dismissal of positive experiences/feedback/accomplishments while placing disproportionate emphasis on the negative aspects or our shortcomings. We minimize/ignore the significance of positive events.

THE FALLACY OF CHANGE: Where we believe that external events or other people must change in order for us to be happy or for our problems to be resolved (If-Then Fallacy). It involves the belief that our well-being and satisfaction are dependent on circumstances/people beyond our control, rather than recognizing that change/improvement comes from within.

THE FALLACY OF HEAVEN’S REWARD: Believing that self-sacrifice, excessive selflessness, good deeds, and enduring suffering will/should always lead to a positive and just reward/outcome/recognition/fair treatment or a better life in the future (happiness/success/divine compensation). We believe that our sacrifices will guarantee a positive outcome in the end. Our expectation is that life or the universe operates like a just and moral system, rewarding individuals in proportion to their virtue or effort, regardless of the complexities and uncertainties of reality (Fallacy of Fairness and Justice).

CONCLUSION: For some strange reason, humans love labels, so it’s especially important to realize that everything is energy. We are each in our own hologram where everything happens FOR us in order to fulfill the agenda of our soul. There is no ‘good’ or ‘bad,’ everything just ‘IS.’ It is us who determine the label, and as a consequence the universe says: ‘Your wish is my command,’ and matches that label with a like for like attraction (What we think about, we bring about).

Every day we are faced with a choice of creation/empowerment or fear/victimhood. If we choose the former, having created it, we have the empowerment to uncreate it too, but the latter means that we have given away our power, and are now at the mercy of fate or external forces. The universe is constant change, it matters not the words that come out of our mouth as it responds to our vibration, so lets take a bit of time to raise our awareness and stop ourselves from our negative interpretations before we attract more of the same (when we change the way that we look at things, the things we look at change).

SPIRITUAL QUEST

If you wish to discover more about yourself and how life operates, please check out our Faery Wood Spiritual Quest. It’s a Spiritual Warriors handbook/Awakening Journal, complete with audio and exercises. A hard copy is also available. It walks us through our patterns, awareness, triggers, forgiveness, acceptance, intentions, purpose and many more areas of our life such as change.

You can find more details here: https://thefrequency.center/spiritual-quest/

IMPORTANT: Our mind is a magnet. When we think of blessings, we attract blessings. Likewise, when we think of problems we attract problems too. So we need to do our best to make sure to always have good thoughts and be positive.

MORE ABOUT TOMMY ‘TOP-TIPS’ TINKLEHAUSSER (EDITOR’S NOTES)

We are each a ‘Spirit’ (part of Source/Creator/God, insert your own Divinity here) having a ‘Human’ experience. Our life on Earth is an encyclopedia of experiences laid out FOR us (by prior agreement), in order for us to LEARN and GROW. Through ‘Natural Law’, no Coddle-Popper, Spirit Guide, Faery, nor Angel are allowed to intervene on our behalf unless specifically asked or invited by us, for fear of karmic intervention.

To work around this, Tommy ‘Top-Tips’ Tinklehausser is able to ‘suggest’ ideas through the power of meditation (as if it were our own thinking), so allow the suggestions to digest and percolate. It is intended as to tool to enhance our discernment skills. You’re welcome.

LEGAL DISCLAIMER

Coddle-Poppers and Fairies are not medical doctors, psychiatrists, psychologists, physiotherapists, naturalists, pessimists, legal or financial strategists, or even anything else that could possibly end in ‘ists.’ If you need help in any of those areas, please seek the help of a certified, pertinent, professional.

Even though Coddle-Poppers and Fairies give their services for free and with love, all of our wishes, intentions and healing are released to the ‘Higher Power’ for the greater good. It is for this reason that, sometimes when wishes, intentions and healing becomes manifested, they are not quite as humans expected, and also… it may take a little while before the enormity of the wonderful gift that has been bestowed is finally realized. Yes sir!

Coddle-Poppers and fairies can NOT be held responsible for anything that happens in YOUR life, including anything bad or good, with or without chocolate on, as a result of you making your wish or intention. The point being, that life is what YOU make of it.