Why I No Longer Believe There’s Something Wrong with Me

a post by Zachary Goodson for the Tiny Buddha blog


“Our thoughts create our beliefs, meaning if you think about yourself a certain way for a long enough period of time you will ultimately believe it.” ~Anonymous

You’re ugly. You’re stupid. You’re a loser.

Imagine thinking this way about yourself every day. No exaggeration. That was me.

When a girl didn’t want to go on a second date with me, I told myself I was ugly. When I didn’t know what someone was talking about, I told myself I was stupid. When my Instagram post only received two likes, I told myself I was loser.

I spoon-fed myself toxic thoughts like these on a daily basis for years. And what’s worse is I believed them.

But why? Where do these toxic thoughts and beliefs even come from? Well, for most of us they come from our childhoods, and they are largely based on experiences with our caregivers.

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Drowning in Toxic Thoughts? Is Your Mind a Master or a Servant?

a post by Yana Hoffman for the World of Psychology blog



Mindfulness. Most people have heard of it. But what exactly is it and why would you ever want it?

The image people usually associate with mindfulness is someone sitting off by themselves, shut off to the world, blissfully enjoying a mind devoid of thoughts. Not only is that not true, but it’s actually impossible.

Our minds are “thought” generating machines. You can’t shut them down. But you can develop a practice of “not believing everything you think” and put your mind it in “its place” as servant, not master.

Occasionally our thoughts are original and generated from our own thinking. However, many thoughts tend to be sound bites we’ve overheard or had drummed into us as kids. They get adopted by default. Ever get upset and found yourself on auto pilot reciting verbatim what was said in your family when you were a child? Parents experience this when they hear their parent’s words coming out of their mouths, even after they’ve vowed to never do that to their own kids. Autopilot.

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