Throughout an individual’s life there will be some obstacles in their path. Some obstacles may take years to get over, but some may only take days to months to get over. Some people experience themselves worrying about making everyone in this world like them, or always wanting to keep the peace between everyone. Stress is one of the biggest obstacles individual’s faces in their everyday lives. A relaxing way to deal with stress is to imagine a soothing environment. Also, people use defense mechanisms to push themselves away from disagreeable behaviors and emotions.
Throughout my life, I have a specific thought that has occurred repeatedly as I have grown older. This irrational belief is I must keep the peace between everyone, so there will not be any conflict between family and friends. This irrational belief has hung around my life since I was in middle school. In middle school one of my cousins, named Andrea, lived with us, my mother and cousin would fight over them helping around the house. Although, I understand where my mother was coming from because if she was living there for free, the least she could have done was help around the house.
However, I would try to help as much as I could around the house, so there would not be any arguing, and everyone would be happy. Making a rational belief helps shed some weight from individuals shoulders. We are not perfect, so we will fail and come short. However, making a rational belief makes life easier by giving an easier way to take on irrational beliefs. This is my rational belief, I can try to keep the peace, but if I cannot then | am not a failure. My rational belief helps me see that I cannot always keep the peace between everyone. No one is able to keep the peace between all of their friends and family, all they can do is try.
There are many common cognitive distortions individuals use in their lives. The ones I mainly use is personalization and poisoning the positive. When I see someone who has perfect skin, perfect hair, and perfect friends, I use personalization because I compare myself to that individual. I need to keep reminding myself that God may me who I am, and I do not need to change. When my boyfriend, friends, or family gives me a compliment I usually do not accept it because I feel like I looked horrible that day. Therefore, I was using a cognitive distortion called poisoning the positive.
However, it is a person’s nature to use some sort of cognitive distortion once in a while. Using the cognitive restructuring process can be difficult for a lot of individuals because they rather avoid recognizing the non- affirming thought, apologizing to themselves, questioning the thoughts they have, and removing the hurtful thought with an affirmation. However, this restructuring process has helped me change my horrible thoughts about myself. I realized that the negative thoughts I have towards myself are not true, and a lot of individuals criticize themselves.
Then I began to apologize for things I have said about myself. After apologizing, I began to question the truthfulness of the thought: if there is anything that makes these statements true. I realized that yes, I fail but this does not make me a horrible person because nobody is perfect. Finally, I replaced my horrible thoughts with an affirmation, which was I am learning to accept the fact you cannot change the unchangeable. All individuals come across the word stress multiple times in their lives. What is stress, you may ask? Stress is when something stands in the way of an individual’s happiness.
A lot of things trigger stress: school, work, family issues, relationships, and much more. My body begins to react in a way that can be harmful or beneficial. The harmful effect is that I could overly eat, not eat enough, become emotionally distraught, or sleeping too much. However, the positive effect is that stress can keep me alert and ready to fight any type of obstacle that comes into my path. Personally when stressed I physically feel drained by all the emotions and obstacles that keeps me from living an enjoyable life. Some negative consequences on my life could be affected by stress.
I could shut people out completely if they are the main reason I am stressed. When stressed I began to not eat as much as I should which affects my health greatly. Also, I sleep too much causing me to miss classes and assignments that are due that day. These negative consequences sometimes affect my life tremendously. However, stress will not over power me because I have found a way to cope with stress. Coping with stress can be difficult for some people. My way of coping with stress is writing all the things I am stressing about that day or week.
Then I usually turn on some soothing music. After turning on the music, I begin to think positively about each thing that is stressing me. A lot of people imagine a relaxing environment to help them relax in stressful situations. The most relaxing environment for me is the beach. I see the sun hitting the earth, and the waves crashing against the light sand. I feel the warm sand touching my feet, I feel the warm sun beaming against my skin, and I feel the cool breeze blowing through my hair. I taste the salty air when I breathe deeply.
Also, I smell the aroma of tanning lotion throughout the breezy air. This is the environment I keep going to when I am seeking a relaxing atmosphere because when seeking a promotive relaxing environment I think about going to the beach which takes all my worries around me away. The way you breathe affects the way you relax greatly. If you breathe deeply it helps you zone all the stressful things, and helps you prevent anxiety. Also taking a few minutes out of your day to breathe deeply helps increase the blood flow that goes throughout your brain.
Breathing slowly helps bring your inner peace out, this is why yoga uses breathing techniques. Yoga helps you enter a state where you are in a peaceful atmosphere. So, breathing deeply helps your ability to relax, which helps with stress and anxiety a lot easier. A few situations have occurred in my life that I believe relaxation will help. When there was an argument between my friends and me instead of yelling we all should have walked away, breathed deeply, and then talk about the situation. This situation will help prevent us from being mad at each other to a point where we lose each other’s friendship.
Another situation that relaxation will help, is when I am severely stressed about an exam. Thinking about the relaxing environment and breathing techniques could help me keep calm and do well on my exam. These situations can be solved by performing a few relaxation skills. There are two defense mechanisms I have used a few times throughout my life. The first mechanism is Intellectualization, when I found out my grandmother passed away: I kept saying she was in good health, she was not sick, she could get around, and she did not act differently when I left for school that morning.
I would not take into consideration that she was actually gone and was not here anymore. The second defense mechanism is Compensation, I usually tend to do this when I am asked to drive a manual vehicle. One scenario I have used is I may not know how to drive a manual, but I can defiantly drive an automatic. The strengths of these mechanisms helps me defend my emotions in a way that helps me cope with each situation I face. The weakness of these mechanisms is that I try to cover up my emotions with these defenses. When entering this class I did not realize that I have been using defense mechanisms.
In conclusion, having a cognitive distortion, stress, or defense mechanism does not always make an individual unable to live an enjoyable life. These situations just put a damper on someone’s life, which can be resolved by using cognitive restructuring process, imagining a relaxing environment, and using breathing techniques. Many people cope with different situations in different ways. No one is perfect because we are only humans. Trying to overcome obstacles can be very difficult at times, we can push through it, and overcome those difficult times.