Seeing and Stopping Automatic Negative Thoughts

Automated negative thoughts (ANTs) are a key concept in cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT), especially to treat depression, and to a large degree other mental disorders as well. Through self-awareness exercises, including meditation, journaling, and tallying or counting, we can become more conscious of these thoughts, thus paving the road for overcoming them.
In this video I combine ideas from therapy (CBT), self-help books (esp. "Feeling Good" by David Burns), and my personal experiences, and I give some examples of how and when these thoughts come up, and talk about some of the techniques for becoming more aware of them.
Realizing that you are having these thoughts in the first place is often the hardest step, so that's what this video focuses on, but there's a lot more here and I hope to make more on this topic in the future!

[@ettinakitten5047]

Here's what happens when I try to change my thought process: "They probably hate me." "No, they don't hate me." "Yes, they do." "No, they don't." "Yes, they do." And it goes on and on. For me, instead, I find it more useful to go "well, I sure am thinking that", and then either get tangible contradictory evidence ("they hate me" -> "I asked them to hug me and they did" -> "they don't hate me"), distract myself, or change my physiological state (heart pounding and breathing fast -> "they hate me" -> take slow deep breaths and count my breaths -> heart rate slows and breathing slows, and the negative thoughts don't feel as big).

[@AlexZorach]

This fits with my experience too. So, I didn't go into this in much detail in the video (because it was mostly focused on the earlier stage of identifying or recognizing the negative thoughts), but there are a whole series of methods and systems for changing your thoughts. Merely arguing back and forth in my head is NOT how I approach it...nor is that how I approach it in interpersonal situations, like when trying to be supportive of a friend or someone else close to me, nor is it the way I have found the most effective therapists to work with me. The method you gave of looking for contradictory evidence can be a pretty effective one, at least in some situations. Other methods I've found very effective are getting familiar with common cognitive distortions, and practicing / developing skill at identifying them, and then recognizing these in my thought process. I often use journaling to rewrite more rational, truthful, and empowering interpretations of things, and I've found that over time, as I do this with journaling, it starts my brain in the pattern of thinking this way and I start thinking more of these thoughts in the moment. Examining beliefs (not just specific thoughts in the moment, but long-term beliefs I hold in a more stable sense) and their relationships to these thoughts can also be critically important. I've found that many of my negative thoughts actually come from distorted or inaccurate beliefs about myself, about other people, or about how the world works. Another method I find helpful is varying the degree of strength in a statement. For example, "They probably hate me." could vary between "They definitely hate me." and "There's a small chance that they hate me." and "They probably dislike me." and "They may slightly dislike me." and "They may dislike some things about me some of the time." and so on. And when I examine them, I often realize that the most realistic / accurate statement is something like "They dislike some things about me some of the time." (especially when I combine that with examining the evidence.) and then I remind myself (here is where the beliefs come in) that it's normal for even people you love dearly to find you annoying from time to time (this would be a belief) so even if the person actually does slightly dislike me sometimes, that's totally okay and it doesn't mean anything bad about me or about the relationship. If you're interested in more on this topic, I hope to make more videos on this in the future!