Feelings Are Not Facts series “Disqualifying the Positive”

Disqualifying the positive is the fourth topic in our Feelings Aren’t Facts series. This series of blog posts will highlight ten common cognitive distortions, or ways that your automatic thoughts can cause problems.

Disqualifying the positive happens when we experience something that is good, or even neutral, and we convince ourselves that it is not actually positive. We find ways to reject these experiences, insisting that they don’t “count.” This often looks like turning compliments or words of praise from others into negatives.

For example, Marcus just finished a presentation for his co-workers. He typically does not like to speak in front of others and felt nervous during his presentation. Overall, Marcus did very well and there were no major issues. After the presentation, his one of his co-workers came up to tell him how well he did. Marcus immediately responded by saying, “Oh, no. I was so nervous. Didn’t you see me pacing up there? I stumbled over my words a lot.” He thought to himself that the co-worker was only saying this to make him feel better and that it was not a genuine compliment.

None of this was true. Marcus did very well during his speech. His co-worker noticed and complimented him. Unfortunately, Marcus’s automatic negative thoughts convinced him that any positives were untrue. Disqualifying positive experiences only reinforced his negative view of himself and the world.

We can think about our life as taking a long journey with a backpack. As we live our lives, we choose what experiences we pick up and put in our backpack to bring along with us. If the backpack ends up being filled with only negative experiences and thoughts, we feel more negative - which makes it easier to claim that any positives don’t “count.” Sometimes we pick up a positive, look at it and determine that we don’t believe it or that it isn’t genuine. We put it back down to be forgotten behind us on the path. Imagine how much better we would feel if our backpacks were filled with positives? If we heard compliments and responded with, “Thank you!,” instead of explaining to ourselves and others why such a thing could never be true.

This can be a hard habit to break, especially if our self-esteem is not as high as we would like. However, the more that we pay attention to the positives - and add them to our backpack - the better we will start to feel.