But how can I know which negative thoughts are true and which false? For me, everything is a "true negative thought". I just don't know how to distinguish one from the other.
Here is a good read on common negative thinking patterns, taken from
Change your thinking with a Self Essentials Psychologist
Negative Thinking
Not all thoughts, beliefs, or attitudes that we hold are necessarily helpful or useful to us. For example, if you believed that you can fly, you may end up with some broken bones. If you tend to believe that you are not a worthwhile person, this may lead you to become depressed. Anxious people tend to think thoughts which increase their anxiety in everyday situations. Thoughts like these which tend to be unhelpful are known as 'negative thoughts'. Negative thoughts have the following characteristics:
* They are not realistic or logical
* They are thoughts which increase negative feelings such as anxiety, poor self esteem, or stress
* They are self-defeating
* They are entrenched and happen 'automatically' - without us noticing
Some common negative belief styles are listed below:
* "All-or-Nothing" Thinking - Things are viewed in black-and-white categories, with no shades of grey in between. If a situation does not go perfectly, you view it as a total failure. All-or-nothing thinking is thinking in extremes. For example, "Unless I perform perfectly in everything I do, I am a failure". Perfectionism is very related to this way of thinking. Perfectionists have unrealistically high expectations of themselves and other people.
* Overgeneralisation - A single negative event, such as a romantic rejection or a career setback, is viewed as a recurrent pattern of defeat. Words such as "always" or "never" tend to crop up here, for example, if a person is rejected by his girlfriend he may think "Just my luck! Women are always dumping me!"
* Mental Filter - A single negative aspect of an event or situation is picked out and dwelt upon, to the exclusion of all other aspects of the event or situation. For example: If you conduct a presentation to a group of people and receive positive feedback from 9 people, and a mildly critical comment from 1 person, you spend days obsessing about the negative comment and ignore the positive feedback.
* Discounting the Positive - You reject positive experiences by insisting that they 'don't count'. For example, if you are congratulated on your presentation you may insist that `anyone could have done that', or say to yourself that you could have done a much better job. Discounting the positives takes the joy out of life and makes you feel inadequate and unrewarded.
* Jumping to Conclusions - Interpreting things in a negative manner even though there is no evidence to support your conclusion. This may involve mind-reading, where, without checking out your facts, you conclude that you know what someone else is thinking about you ("She thinks I'm an idiot"), or fortune-telling, where you predict that things will turn out badly ("This presentation is going to be a disaster").
* Emotional Reasoning - You assume that because you feel bad, the situation must be negative. For example, "I'm really scared to get on a plane, so it must be very dangerous to fly". Or: "I feel guilty. That must mean I'm a rotten person". Or: "I feel inferior. That must mean I'm a second rate person".
* Absolutes, or "Shoulds, Shouldn'ts, Ought To's, & Must's" - You tell yourself that things should be the way you hoped or expected them to be. For example, a talented musician tells himself he shouldn't have made so many mistakes when playing a song on his guitar. He feels so disgusted in himself that he stops playing for several months. Musts, ought-to's, and have-to's are similar offenders. Such statements tend to lead to negative feelings. Many people try to motivate themselves using should statements ("I should go on a diet, or I shouldn't eat that"), but usually this doesn't work as you get the urge to be rebellious and may do the complete opposite!
* Labeling - This is an extreme form of all-or-nothing thinking. Instead of saying "I made a mistake", you say "I'm a complete loser". You may label yourself a fool, a failure, a no-hoper. Labeling is irrational, as you are not the same as what you do. Labeling can be applied to other people as well, which unfairly generalizes about the other person in a derogatory way. For example, "My boss is an idiot". These labels are just abstractions that make people feel bad about themselves or others.
* Personalisation and Blame - Personalisation happens when you hold yourself responsible for something that is not entirely under your control. When a father received a report card for his son which was critical of his progress, he told himself "This shows what a bad father I've been". A woman who is beaten by her husband may believe "If I was a better person he wouldn't hit me". People may also blame other people for their problems, for example "I beat my wife because she drives me to it". Blame does not work because it prevents you from taking responsibility for your life.
* Entitlement - When a person assumes that they have the right to have something, simply because they want it. For example, "If someone annoys me I'm entitled to lose my temper with them". Feeling entitled ignores the rights of the other person.
* "Awfulising", or Catastrophic Thinking - This is when people make out situations to be much worse than they actually are, and when they envision the absolute worst case scenario. For example, "It's awful that I have so much work to do, I'm sure that I'm going to do a terrible job and everyone will hate me for it".
