Happy New Year!  Yeah!  That’s what December Haley said with sheer excitement for the advantageously prosperous 2015 around the bend.  I was like, “2015, you gone learn today,” in my very best Kevin Hart impression.  My internal monologue was rife with positivity and thoughts of serendipity and even so far as to think, “You've worked hard Haley, this is your year for success”.  I was daydreaming success in the form of catapulting career opportunities, successful interpersonal relationships, even down to dreamy, cupcake-smiling kids.  And then the New Year hit, but there was no explosion of joy, no catapulting career success, and no Tim Burton’s Big Eye-esque smiling kiddos.  There was just a vacant feeling, emptiness.

Then the cold blew in like the frozen wench that she is and I thought to myself, “You can do this Haley.  It’s just a little rough weather.”  Then I lost a very important relationship, one I poured myself into.  Then I learned of a new circumstance that made me question how my kiddos might be affected, moreover I got to learn of it secondhand.  And at long last up unto this point, I learned a past failure would never be a personal success for me.  It simply couldn't happen.  And my heart felt like it broke into a million tiny pieces. 

You might say, well it’s only the first week of January, things have to look up and up until a few moments ago I would have disagreed with you.  In fact, I may well have argued that these last few days must have been some type of penance for something I had previously mishandled.  Often times when things in my life go in an opposing direction I internalize and self-blame.  I have a high internal locus of control, says the psychologist in me.  The laymen in me says, I should be able to control these things and they are not panning out as I expected, so clearly I did something wrong here.

So with the first week looking as austere as it had, I very well could have tucked my tiny self into a million pillows on my king-size bed, but I've resolved to always be outside in Indiana (no matter the temperature) if there is a Sun to be seen.  So I got up and did the daily shuffle and happened upon a bouquet of roses at the grocery store.  I thought pale pink to be the most befitting of colors per my environment, my current circumstance, and my mood.  As I drove home I intentionally slid my truck around in the snow and then I giggled.  It might have been my first laugh all day and then I heard a quiet voice in my spirit say, “be the grace you so freely receive.”  My eyes filled up with tears and my heart felt heavy.

As I turned inward to understand that message I remembered the losses I had recently endured and I feared I hadn't behaved gracefully, cue internal locus.  Although with each recollection, my Teacher showed me; I, in fact had demonstrated grace even when my heart broke into a million pieces right in front on me.  As I brought the groceries in began prepping the roses for their vase, I trimmed the stems such that they could absorb the nutrients and plucked the leaves that were browning.  I then realized much like those roses I needed to be pruned.  Not because I’m not beautiful or they’re not beautiful or we all aren't beautiful, but because we need to absorb the good content even in the face of death.  None of these lessons should be lost on us as things don’t pan out exactly the way we anticipate they will.

So with this New Year in mind, resolve to remember that success doesn't happen in a week’s time, there are going to be times that a variety of “deaths” are at your doorstep no matter how hard you've tried, and  blaming yourself steals your ability to learn.  Resolve to remind yourself that without the bad you would not know good and without the proverbially deaths, your life cannot bloom.  Resolve to go easy on yourself as you move toward success and in every situation, and moreover resolve to be the grace you so freely receive every day.   

Negative thought cycles are not always indicative of a pessimistic person or a mental health issue.  Surprisingly in most cases all human behavior is ubiquitous among humanity!  Crazy, right?  In this I hope to acknowledge that we have common behavioral and cognitive bonds that stay hidden in our closet of skeletons as to not alert the friends, family, and community of potentially alarming thoughts or behavior. Let ‘em out!  You are not the only one walking around thinking the thoughts, having the hard time, and mentally beating yourself up!  Stop shoving dirty tissues in your pocket or purse for later use.  EWW!  Truth is we all have negative thought cycles and garbage we've picked up along the bumpy road of life that cause us to use mental filters to interpret and to communicate situations and emotions.

What we should do is discuss these thought processes!  In this case the isolation factor diminishes and in the light we can see!  Often time in the more severe cases of depression and anxiety communication is a literal life saver. If you are not the only one feeling the overwhelming feelings, thinking the dark thoughts then why hide them?  And although this post is light-hearted and self-help-y never bypass thoughts of suicide personally or reported by loved ones; in this case seek professional help immediately.  Now back to ebullient interpersonal nature of this post!  Ready to free your mind?!  

During my bachelor’s education I realized how flawed and ineffective my perfectionism was as I learned more from failure than perfection.  I eventually changed my personal mantra from “never try, never fail” to “you have to lose, to learn”.  Aaron Beck founded cognitive distortion theory as Dr. David Burn expounded upon this such that individuals were able to understand self-sabotaging thoughts.  I found these self-defeating cognitive processes to be eerily familiar and through that awareness have shifted my thinking.  However, like anyone from time to time, I falter.  My hope is to spread the awareness love such that other’s reading this can let themselves off their own cognitive hook.  Just keep swimming!  While there are several cognitive distortions I will touch on the few I found most poignant in my life and provide references for those of you reference geeks to get all the goods!

Cognitive Distortions: Change Your Mind

Overgeneralization- Mental or actual usages of words like “always” and “never”; truth is human behavior in and of itself is more random.  Eliminating these words from your thought cycles and from your accusations of others behaviors will alleviate you and your relationships from untruths.

Black and White Thinking-  All or nothing, right?  This thought cycle tells a person that anything short of perfection is entirely wrong.  As extreme as that sounds question yourself as to how many times you've shown yourself compassion when you've fallen short of your goal?  ROYGBIV your thought cycles, friends.   

Mental Filter-  When something goes wrong all events are colored with that perspective including positive events.  My professor provided the analogous visual reference to a drop of ink in a glass of water.  Once the water is murky and contaminated by the ink peering through that darkness stains our perspective.  If we allow one bad apple (or thought) to reside in our orchard we will lose the entire orchard.  Rid your mental orchard of rotting thoughts (or fruit).

Magnification- Enter stage left!  It is PERFORMANCE time!  Drama. Drama. Drama.  This thought cycle exaggerates the importance of problems and highlights personal inadequacies.  “Today IS the darkest day, your boss IS brooding and sarcastic, and your deadline was YESTERDAY!”  Stage right: cue self-sabotage thought cycle by now magnifying all you are not and everything you have EVER failed at!  I choose to think of these cognitive processes as dark hyperbole.  Remind your thoughts they aren’t very good actors and to keep their day job.    

Emotional Reasoning-  Saving the best for last, Vanessa Williams style.  I am a “feeler” I use my senses like antennas to maneuver through this existence.  In fact, I use the vernacular as if thinking is a synonym for feeling.  “I don’t feel like algebraic equations make sense though”.  What?!  Who cares how you FEEL about it, Haley!  It’s math, there’s only one right answer!  Emotions are fickle, they are fleeting and they are NOT indicative of the way things actually are.  This thought cycle tints reality through the medium of emotion.  Thoughts like, “I feel insecure so clearly everyone hates me and must be trying to ruin my life”.  The spectrum of emotions is broad thus it can provide very creative forms of emotional reasoning.  So be aware of whether you’re being emotional or rational.

The above are just a few cognitive distortions to be aware of while maintaining mental well-being.  I have found that if you are aware of your thought cycles you can counteract the bad and re-condition yourself for the better.  I believe wholly that our thoughts become our mantras, our biology, our health and well-being during our existence here.  Why not make the best of it? 

Light, Love, and Blessings-

Haley Hallock


Relationships are our most prized resource in life. 
Treat them with divine care; as your footprint on 
someone's life will transcend through generations. -H.L.H.