Balanced thinking allows us to focus on the world without many filters and with moderate distortion, with authenticity and without sinking into prejudice, without images moving much by cognitive distortions, taking and practicing this type of approach would allow us to set aside a wide range of negative elements: from anxiety to the spirals of discouragement that sometimes lurk in us.
When we hear the word?Balance ?, several ideas come to mind, one of them is, without a doubt, the classic image of those who advance through a rope suspended in the air, trying not to fall, advancing with difficulty but with skillful mastery, so as not to fall into the void. His balance, far from standing, is mainly in the mind. This image couldn’t be fairer.
“Happiness is not a matter of intensity, but of balance and order, rhythm and harmony. Thomas Merton?
In our day to day we often find ourselves in the same situation, our reality is sometimes chaotic, demanding, complex and even painful, life is the tightrope and it is the acrobats who must maintain our balance so as not to lose control. Balanced thinking is ideal to achieve this, because from there our emotions also find calm and our “feet”. direction to achieve a concrete goal.
However, it must be said that balance is not easy, our brains work mostly unconsciously and automatically, these mental shortcuts often stem from many prejudices, many limiting attitudes and rigid patterns that sometimes lead us to drift to extremes. take control and power itself, to regain the flexibility and magical balance that reorganizes (almost) everything.
A few years ago an interesting study was carried out at the University Medical Center in Hamburg-Eppendorf, which studied a group of patients with depression and another group of obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCO), who were included in a one-year metacognitive training program. The goal was concrete and also stimulating: to get these people to tolerate uncertainty, to reduce cognitive distortions, to reflect on their own thoughts and to improve their processes of rationalization.
The result of this study was very positive, so much so that in many cases it was possible to reduce the doses of drugs consumed. All this invites us to conclude with the classic phrase that “thinking well helps us live better. ” Therefore, thinking is a very useful way to invest in ourselves and a valuable help in dealing with many mental patterns that leave us trapped in black holes.
Anxiety, constant anxiety and fears act as negative anchors, do we apply them almost without realizing it, focusing on what’s going to happen, yesterday’s mistake, the bad things we think can happen?This cognitive model is often based on a very sophisticated and relentless type of mental engineering: distorted thoughts, among which we can find the following, which we usually apply most often in our daily lives:
Faced with these thought patterns, it is quite possible that more than one may wonder if to correct this, ideally it would be to “think positive”, to go in the opposite direction. Well, as curious as it may seem, that’s not the way it’s not about using extreme positivism either, of saying “everything will be fine. “
If we do, we would also be applying distorted thinking. So it’s not about going to extremes, just thinking about the good or the bad. Good? Tightrope walker? Take it easy, step by step, and take full responsibility for yourself, seeing everything around you with attention and objectivity.
Applying balanced thinking to our day-to-day life will not only reduce the risk of stress, anxiety or falling into the circle of depression, thinking in a balanced way also improves our coexistence because we avoid making use of prejudice, selfishness, bigotry?
Balanced thinking loosens and looses many of the inner pitfalls that prevent us from living fully, loving each other a little more and also respecting those around us, let us learn to use it.
“Life is like cycling; to maintain balance, we must keep moving forward. “Albert Einstein-
The first step is to apply calm. Sometimes we live in a hurry because we get used to living automatically, and this thus intensifies the appearance of an “unbalanced” thought, that is, one that does not rationalize, that lets go, that does not reflect. , you don’t see, do you? Slow down, allow yourself moments of silence and calm.
In conclusion, we are aware that balanced thinking is not so easy to apply on a day-to-day life, and this involves restructuring many shelves of our being, tearing down walls, correcting shoots and allowing us to be a little more “free”. Take this goal as a daily exercise, learn to develop a more peaceful, responsive and balanced concentration.