It is understandable for us to feel bad about having “bad habits”. It is also unavoidable for us to dislike being negative and preoccupied with “negative thoughts” all the time. In fact, many “treatments” focus on getting rid of all these negative parts of ourselves. For instance, psychological treatment for poor self-image may aim at totally eliminate one’s negative thoughts about oneself. For examples, “I am such as bad person”, “I am a lousy student”. Is it really something wrong with us if we have these thoughts?
Of course, being preoccupied with these negative thoughts all the time is detrimental to one’s mental health. It is important for therapists to conduct psychological treatment to help those with frequent ruminations to manage those tendency. Apart from this, as a human being, it is normal for us to have negative thoughts or even bad habits sometimes. I think no one would say they never have a moment of jealousy when they realized their good friends or siblings made a significant achievement in their career, but they are only mediocre office staff. If we tend to have difficulty in accepting that we all have negative thoughts, we may feel we are defective. In a downward spiral, we may even criticize ourselves more because of this unacceptance of our human nature.
In Acceptance and Commitment Therapy, there is a concept that people will fall into emotional distress when they “fuse” with their cognitions. This means that they think these thinkings are absolute truth. They also interpret that having these negative thoughts is a threat to their mental health or identity. For example, if someone cannot accept herself feeling jealous of her sibling for having high career achievement, she may think she is a “bad person” or even think she is very inadequate compare with this sibling. Furthermore, these people will also perceive that having these negative thoughts is a very important issue that need immediate attention. They may immediately try to use some strategies to think more positively or to stop those negative thinking. However, no matter how hard they try, these negative thoughts did not go away.
If you are also having such a black-and-white thinking regarding one’s negative thoughts or “bad habits”, you may try to cultivate flexibility in your way of dealing with these thoughts. That is, we can choose to respond to these thoughts with flexibility. We do not have to reduce the creditability of these negative thoughts or devalue our “bad habits” to a high extent. We also do not have to make them go away. We only need to see our thoughts as a stream of words or images, changing constantly and coming and going continuously. We do not need to agree with them or to confront them. In different situations, we can choose how we respond to them.
For example, when a person felt jealous of his good friends having great career achievement, instead of criticizing oneself for being jealous, he can accept his jealous as a sign of his nature telling him there is some unsatisfied needs inside him in his career. Another approach may be to accept jealousy is normal in this situation and let these feelings and negative thoughts come and go. Sometimes, if this person finds he was not working hard enough to stive for career achievement he aspires, this jealousy can also motivate him to work harder in his career.
Human beings are complex and the different contexts in which we have our negative thoughts, or “bad habits” are also complex. To live our life in this world with peace and resilience, we need to cultivate more flexibility in responding to our thoughts and in interpreting our “bad habits”.
