The rational approach to happiness

Hello everyone!
Welcome back to my personal growth journey.
In the past few months, I attempted a form of self psychanalysis. Similar to literary analysis, it is the dissection of narrative speech to extract subconscious meaning from the recurring themes, the nuances in vocabulary, the different perspectives on the same event, etc. I used this method with the help of a psychologist to analyze my thought patterns and recognize, avoid, and replace those that were unhealthy. Here’s how you can train your brain to be happy.

Step 1: Become conscious of your own thoughts
When you go down the toxic road, stop yourself and take a moment to fully realise that it happened. If you notice that you are more negative than you thought, don’t be too hard on yourself. Opening your eyes on this issue is already a great step forward.

Step 2: Identify the triggering event
When do you have these thoughts? Triggers are very variable. They can be a toxic person, a place, a certain time of the day, a noise, an image, a smell… Avoid unnecessary triggers until you are ready for gradual exposure.

Step 3: Put a word on your feelings
You noticed a negative thought and identified the cause, now acknowledge the consequence. Your thought patterns do have an impact on your mood. Recognizing your emotional state will help you ground yourself, which is essential to distance yourself from the thoughts you want to analyse.

Step 4: Recognize the patterns
Which traps do you most often fall into? You can do this exercise mentally or by keeping a journal .
• Dramatization
Expecting a catastrophe if things don’t go as planned.
E.g. If I’m late, they’ll be mad at me and kick me out.
• Emotional thinking
Taking your emotions for facts.
E.g. I’m feeling scared, so this must be a dangerous situation.
• Mind reading
Thinking you know people’s thoughts and motives.
E.g. He clearly thinks I’m ridiculous.
• Divination
Predicting the future as if it were certain.
E.g. I know I’ll make a fool of myself.
• Extreme language
Using words like always, never, should, can’t…
E.g. I’ll never be good enough.
• Labeling
Posing a judgment on yourself or others.
E.g. I’m such a wreck.
• Taking things personal & making accusations
Assuming full responsibility or blaming someone for events that are out of a single person’s control.
E.g. He got angry. It’s obviously because of something I did.
• Negative filtering
Seeing only the negative ang ignoring the positive.
E.g. They said I was talented, so what? I’m still dumb.
• Generalizing
Assuming because it happened a few times that it will always happen.
E.g. I always get panic attacks in crowded spaces. I can never put myself in this situation again.

Step 5: Reformulating the false or otherwise incorrect thought
Finally, trick your brain into being positive. Replace negative thoughts by positive ones, even if you don’t believe them just yet. Tell yourself that you are worthy of love, that you deserve that promotion, that you won’t mess up your presentation…

Step 6: Be kind with yourself
Training your brain will take time, and progress is not linear. Some days will be better, some will be worst. Also, being angry or sad can be a normal reaction to an event, in which case it is not an error but entirely legitimate.

Quick tip: if you choose to keep a journal to document your progress, keep it in a place that's easily accessible, where you won't forget about it. Mine is in the living room, next to my plants.