15 Cognitive Distortions

This podcast for everyone and anyone! Why? Because everyone needs to be able to identify the 15 common cognitive distortions that they may be struggling with or others are struggling with in their lives.

The topic of cognitive distortions is for everyone. Pastor Brad identifies 15 common cogitative distortions. These distortions are widespread. These distortions are not necessarily connected to mental illness or mental disorders, but certainly, these distortions can easily exasperate a mental illness or mental disorder.

Aaron Beck first purposed the theory behind cognitive distortions, and it was David Burns who was responsible for popularizing them with common names and examples of these distortions which is what Brad covers in this Part 1 of a two part edition of Fresh Hope for Mental Health: “Cogitative Distortions and How to Overcome Them.”

Here are the 15 cognitive distortions that Pastor Brad discusses in this podcast:

Filtering
Polarized thinking/black or white thinking
Overgeneralization
Jumping to conclusions
Catastrophizing
Personalization
Control fallacies
Fallacy of fairness
Blaming
Shoulds
Emotional reasoning
Fallacy of change
Global labeling
Always being right
Heaven’s reward fallacy

After listening to this podcast, we encourage you to email us at info@FreshHope.us with a comment or question that we will share on our next podcast.

If you are listening to this podcast on iTunes, we encourage you to leave a comment regarding the podcast. Or you can leave a voice message for us on the site: www.FreshHope4MentalHealth.com

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Pastor Brad Hoefs, the host of Fresh Hope for Mental Health, is the founder of Fresh Hope Ministries, a network of Christian mental health support groups for those who have a diagnosis and their loved ones. In other words, Fresh Hope is a Christian mental health support group.

Brad was diagnosed with bipolar disorder in 1995. He is a weekly blogger for www.bphope.com (Bipolar Magazine). He is also a certified peer specialist and has been doing pastoral counseling since 1985. Brad is also the author of Fresh Hope: Living Well in Spite of a Mental Health Diagnosis, which is available on Amazon or at http://www.FreshHopeBook.com

If you are interested in more information about Fresh Hope go to http://www.FreshHope.us or email info@FreshHope.us or call 402.932.3089.

To donate to Fresh Hope go to http://freshhope.us/donate/

For a complete list of where Fresh Hope groups are presently meeting, go to www.FreshHope.us and click on “find a group.” Or you may attain an online group of meetings of Fresh Hope by going to www.FreshHopeMeeting.com

If you are interested in starting a Fresh Hope group within your faith community, contact Julie at Julie@FreshHope.us

Fresh Hope for Mental Health is a production of Fresh Hope Ministries.

Fresh Hope Ministries is a non-profit ministry.

The copyrights of this program belong to Fresh Hope Ministries and may not be duplicated without written permission.

A Conversation with Rev. Jermine Alberty

On this episode of Fresh Hope for Mental Health, Pastor Brad Hoefs talks with Reverend Jermine Alberty, Executive Director of a Ministry called Pathways in the St. Louis area. Join them as they discuss how having faith in God helps people on their journey to recovery from suffering from mental illness, why it’s important for Pastors to tell people in their congregation who have a mental illness to take their medicine, and how to help a person that is in distress.

You will also hear how Jermine Alberty dealt with his son’s suicide attempt. They also cover how to get trained in Mental Health First Aide at mentalhealthfirstaide.org, and why it’s important to overcome trauma you experienced in your life in order to recover from a mental illness. You can check out Jermine Alberty’s website at JermineAlberty.org and his ministry at pathways2promise.org. For another resource for maintaining wellness in Mental Health visit companionshipmovement.org.

To listen to the episode click here!

We encourage you to share this podcast with your friends via your social media connections.

After listening to this podcast, we encourage you to email us at info@FreshHope.us with a comment or question that we will share on our next podcast.

Fresh Hope is a faith-based non-profit that empowers people to live well in spite of their mental health challenge.

YOUR gift will provide a person with God’s Fresh HOPE for daily living. Click here to donate, today.

Shame-Based Families Versus Grace-Based Families

When raised in a shame-based family one can easily find life to be fraught with emotional landmines. Relationships can be difficult because of shame-based thinking. Shame can lock you into cognitive distortions that cause difficulties in marriage, parenting, work relationships and friendships. Shame itself can make it way into your soul, warping how you see everything in life. Grace, on the other hand, frees one to be in relationships with others and to enjoy those relationships even when there is conflict!

In this podcast, Pastor Brad compares the difference between a shame-based family and a grace-based family.

Simply put, this is a must listen to podcast for everyone! Whether you have a mental health challenge or not, you will want to hear this podcast. This program will be of benefit to you.

We encourage you to share this podcast with your friends via your social media connections. To listen to the podcast, click here or click on the icon below:

After listening to this podcast, we encourage you to email us at info@FreshHope.us with a comment or question that we will share on our next podcast.

If you are listening to this podcast on iTunes, we encourage you to leave a comment regarding the podcast. Or you can leave a voice message for us on the site: www.FreshHope4MentalHealth.com

If you are interested in more information about Fresh Hope, go to http://www.FreshHope.us or email info@FreshHope.us or call 402.932.3089.

To donate to Fresh Hope go to http://freshhope.us/donate/

If you are interested in starting a Fresh Hope group within your faith community, contact Julie at Julie@FreshHope.us

Fresh Hope for Mental Health is a production of Fresh Hope Ministries.

Fresh Hope Ministries is a non-profit ministry.

The copyrights of this program belong to Fresh Hope Ministries and may not be duplicated without written permission.

All of the podcasts of Fresh Hope Today, as well as numerous other videos, are all available on our YouTube channel: Fresh Hope Network

Fresh Hope for Mental Health is on Facebook at www.Facebook.com/FreshHopeforMentalHealth

“Don’t Ever Give Up Hope,” interview with Keith O’Neil, Former NFL Player

Keith O’Neil is a former NFL football player. Keith played for the Dallas Cowboys, Indianapolis Colts and New York Giants. During his professional career he served as team captain and was a member of the Colts Super Bowl XLI Championship team. Keith is an international speaker and speaks to audiences in the sports, faith and mental health communities. He is also the President and Founder of the 4th and Forever Foundation which brings awareness to mental health and funds research for mental illness. Keith also recently wrote a memoir, Under My Helmet – A Football Players Lifelong Battle With Bipolar Disorder.

Click HERE to check out this interview!

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Keith played in the NFL with an undiagnosed mental illness, bipolar disorder and is extremely passionate about helping others who suffer with mental health issues. He is devoted to erasing the stigma of mental illness in our society. He is utilizing his book along with motivational speaking engagements to create awareness of mental illness.

The reason Keith is going public about his experiences is that he wants to inspire those with similar challenges. He believes, “with the proper diagnosis, medical attention and determination, anyone can achieve anything. If I can make it in the high stress environment of playing in the NFL with bipolar disorder, anything is possible!”

We encourage you to share this podcast with your friends via your social media connections.

Fresh Hope is a faith-based non-profit that empowers people to live well in spite of their mental health challenge.

YOUR gift will provide a person with God’s Fresh HOPE for daily living. Click here to donate, today.

Give Yourself Permission

By Fresh Hope Blogger: Kathy Turney

Doesn’t that seem like a strange thing to say; give yourself permission?

When we were children, we had to ask our parents for permission to do something or go somewhere. As adults, we don’t usually have to ask for permission unless it’s time off from our job or from some responsibility. In general, however, we can eat when we want, stay up as long as we want, etc.

I remember when my kids were in school. They worked really hard at homework, school projects, and other activities. They had this tendency, even at a young age, to pile on things. We do this as adults all the time. I told my kids when they needed a break just to let me know and they had my permission to take a day off from school. I wanted to remind them it was okay to take a break sometimes.

As adults. we have a huge load of responsibility. We work, go to school, we are married, we volunteer, we go to our children’s functions and help them with homework. We also have to pay bills, go grocery shopping, and clothes shopping for ourselves and our family. We go to church or other groups we are involved in. We have to take care of the house and/or the lawn. The list never stops.

Have you ever given yourself permission to sit and read a book? How about permission to skip mowing the lawn until tomorrow night? Will the world come to an end if we don’t get it done? We need rest to be the best we can be.

What about permission for other things like being sad, happy, silly, or feeling lonely? It’s okay to have these feelings as well. As adults, I believe we push those things aside because we don’t think they are important or we feel we are being selfish. These things are just as important as the physical things we need to do. One of the things my counselor told me was to say, “Sandy, you have my permission to be mad”. “Sandy, you have my permission to take a 30-minute nap”. Saying things out loud seems to be more effective. It’s amazing what this can do for your well-being. You are giving yourself a gift when you give permission to have or do something you need, and I believe this will help you be a better you!!!

Fresh Hope is a faith-based non-profit that empowers people to live well in spite of their mental health challenge.

YOUR gift will provide a person with God’s Fresh HOPE for daily living. Click here to donate, today.

When Living Well is in Jeopardy

In the last 14 years, I have had no major mood swings, episodes nor interruptions to my life due to having bipolar disorder. Yes, I do have bipolar disorder. Four of us in my family have bipolar, and my mother-in-law died from suicide due to bipolar. And I understand that you might assume that I don’t have too severe of a case of bipolar since I’ve not had any major bipolar episodes in my life for the past 14 years. But, I do have it. I not only bipolar but when I relapsed 14 years I very sick.

I find it curious that I have to defend the fact that I have bipolar disorder. But, in the past when I’ve written about living well for this length of time I’ve received comments from various readers that I must NOT have bipolar. One reader accused me of pretending to have bipolar disorder so I could make money by blogging about it. I could only wish that was true! (By the way, those of us who blog for bphope.com are not paid to blog.)

The truth is, I’ve been able to live well in spite of bipolar disorder for the past 14 years, but NOT without a LOT of work and self-care. Daily I do everything within my power to keep myself stable and living well in spite of the bipolar disorder. And I happen to believe that many of you who have bipolar disorder can, in fact, live well (stable) too. That is, to live without bipolar causing major interruptions to your daily living. You can take back your life from the monster of bipolar.

And no, that does mean that you can be “healed” from bipolar that you can get “over it.” It simply means that through hard work you can learn how to keep the bipolar monster from ruling your life.

I know that there is a mindset out “there” that we are simply victims of bipolar disorder. I don’t see it that way. The only way I end up being a victim is if I do nothing regarding managing my disorder or if I simply use it as my excuse in life.

One of the most important things I do each and every day besides taking my medicine and getting enough sleep is what I call a “self-check-in” (mindfulness). For me, it is imperative to stay self-aware of how I’m emotionally doing at all times. So, routinely I ask myself “how am I doing today?” I check in with me. See, if I don’t stay “on top” of managing the disorder, it way too fast and too easily begins to control me instead!

So, I do this every day. If my ability to live well in spite of having bipolar disorder feels at jeopardy and I feel as though I’m not doing emotionally well (stable), I ask myself the following questions which help me answer why I’m not doing well.

What exactly am I feeling?
a. How is my clarity of thinking?
b. How is my mood? Have I experienced
Did I take my medicine?
Have I been getting enough sleep?
Am I too stressed due to work or schedule?
Did something or someone upset in the recent past that I have not worked through yet?
Is this a life situational issue (something normal that happens to most- i.e. feeling frustrated, angry or anxious about a typical life situation or is it a bipolar issue (i.e. in spite of everything going well in life, feeling depressed and not able to function, etc.) Or is this a life situational issue that must be worked through or I will end up experiencing issues with my bipolar disorder because I’ve not worked through the situation?
Is this something that I need to contact my doctor about?

Once I figure out what exactly is the issue I then attempt to figure out what exactly I need to do to hold off a major mood issue or episode. And I do it no matter what.

How about you? What do you do to live well? What do you do to avoid major episodes; questions that you ask yourself?

Fresh Hope is a faith-based non-profit that empowers people to live well in spite of their mental health challenge.

YOUR gift will provide a person with God’s Fresh HOPE for daily living. Click here to donate, today.

15 Cognitive Distortions

Here are the 15 cognitive distortions that Pastor Brad discusses in this podcast:

Filtering
Polarized thinking/black or white thinking
Overgeneralization
Jumping to conclusions
Catastrophizing
Personalization
Control fallacies
Fallacy of fairness
Blaming
Shoulds
Emotional reasoning
Fallacy of change
Global labeling
Always being right
Heaven’s reward fallacy

After listening to this podcast, we encourage you to email us at info@FreshHope.us with a comment or question that we will share on our next podcast.

If you are listening to this podcast on iTunes, we encourage you to leave a comment regarding the podcast. Or you can leave a voice message for us on the site: www.FreshHope4MentalHealth.com

Click on this icon to listen to the podcast:

If you are interested in more information about Fresh Hope go to http://www.FreshHope.us or email info@FreshHope.us or call 402.932.3089.

To donate to Fresh Hope go to http://freshhope.us/donate/

If you are interested in starting a Fresh Hope group within your faith community, contact Julie at Julie@FreshHope.us

Fresh Hope for Mental Health is a production of Fresh Hope Ministries.

Fresh Hope Ministries is a non-profit ministry.

The copyrights of this program belong to Fresh Hope Ministries and may not be duplicated without written permission.

All of the podcasts of Fresh Hope Today, as well as numerous other videos, are all available on our YouTube channel: Fresh Hope Network

Fresh Hope for Mental Health is on Facebook at www.Facebook.com/FreshHopeforMentalHealth

Check out this episode!

Our FREE Fresh Hope App

Fresh Hope is thrilled to announce that we have a Fresh Hope app for both Apple and Android mobile devices. The app allows you to have all of our online resources (blogs, videos, podcasts, newsletter, recovery principles, etc.) all at your finger tips in one place. Download and let us know what you think!

Click on your store’s icon, and it will take you directly to the download:

Real Hope Has Gotten Me Through My Hopelessness

Life can be difficult. No one makes it through life without painful trials and tribulations. And there is no doubt that having bipolar disorder on top of all of the typical trials and tribulations can make life even more challenging. There’s just no sugar-coating it. Hopelessness happens all too easily. But life can also be beautiful. The truth is, no one makes it through life without experiencing joy-filled events and blessings. But having hope and being hope-filled takes effort, unlike hopelessness.

Probably one of the most peculiar things about hope and hopelessness is that they can co-exist in life. When I reflect on the greatest difficulties and deepest depression that caused extreme despair in my life, it was hope that got me through the hopelessness. But it was not the “wishful-thinking” kind of hope that life would get better that got me through the hopelessness. That kind of “hope” is nothing more than wishful thinking that things may or may not get better. And that kind of hope was not enough for me. Hoping that things might get better could not even bring about the smallest of cracks within my despair.

So what is this “real” hope that got me through and continues to get me through living life with bipolar disorder? It’s the Real Hope that was born and died on the cross and His promise. In particular, it is the promise of Romans 8:28 that has gotten me through the many incredibly painful events that could have easily led to the bottomless pit of hopelessness. In Romans 8:28 the apostle Paul tells us that the Lord will work all things together for our good. As a person of faith, I believe this. Knowing and believing this real hope does not mean that I stuff my feelings. Rather, it means that as I feel my feelings I’m able to work through them and deal with them because I know that He will take even the worst of life’s trials and tribulations and make them work together for me for my good. That’s hope. That’s real.

See, I’ve come to understand how my faith has been instrumental in my living well. I don’t do wishful thinking kind of hope. Instead, I do Romans 8:28 hope. In other words, as I go through difficulties (and there are plenty of them) I recognize them, feel the feelings because I know that the Lord will take all of the pain and make it work for my good. It doesn’t mean that all of a sudden things become easy. But I’m able to move through the pain, knowing how it will end.

The Lord is the real hope. The Father sent His Son into our messy world to redeem us. Born right in the midst of the stench of that stable,He came. And on that cross, He died for you and me. Out of what appeared to be a hopeless beginning and an even more hopeless death on the cross, He rose as proof that He is indeed our sure and certain hope.

There is no way that I would be living well, much less living, without Him as my hope. Romans 8:28 has gotten me through the hopelessness. Grab ahold of that hope my friend. Whatever difficulties you are going through this day, He can and will make though things work together for your good. No, he doesn’t promise a painless life. In fact, He says that in this life you and I will have difficulties. Instead, He promises to never leave you, and to take those problems and work them together for your good. And in knowing this, you and I can move forward in spite of our present circumstances.

On this day, my prayer is that you will grab ahold of the real and certain hope we have that He will take all of your difficulties, pain, and problems, and work them together for your good. Keeping moving forward: moving one step at a time. He loves you. He is with you. He is for you. And Heis at work; making all things work out together for your good!

Blessings my friend,

Brad

Our Fresh Hope podcast has been nominated for Wego Health’s Best in Show Podcast award!We encourage you to endorse the nomination by going to:https://awards.wegohealth.com/nominees/13355

Fresh Hope is a faith-based non-profit that empowers people to live well in spite of their mental health challenge.

YOUR gift will provide a person with God’s Fresh HOPE for daily living. Click here to donate, today.

Think About What You Think About

By Sandy Turney

Think about what you think about. Weird suggestion, huh? But….have you ever done it? Have you ever paid attention to what goes through your head? Have you ever stopped and listened to yourself?

For some reason, I woke up one morning with that question on my mind. I laid in bed thinking about the question and trying to answer it. These were my thoughts: ‘Why do I want to even get up today? I don’t have anything to contribute. I’m not happy about the way I look. I’m fat and nothing I put on makes me look decent. I try to be a good person and positive, but I fail 15 minutes after I get to work. No one can see God in me. How can they? My mouth opens up and before I know it my thoughts are out in the open and I can’t take them back.’ The thoughts running through my head alone could depress me enough on a good day. And that is interesting, because I think these thoughts often, whether I’m in a depressed state or not.

My pastor once said in a sermon that we have 50,000 thoughts per day, and 85% of them are negative. I have also heard for every negative comment you say or hear it takes 7 positive ones to cancel that one out.

So now, think about what I said. I counted them and there were 8 negative things I thought before I even got out of bed in less than a 5 minute period. So it would take 56 positive thoughts just to cancel out those 8 negative thoughts from those first 5 minutes of the morning. Now, how many of us really tell ourselves positive things? Do you answer yourself with something positive when you say or think something negative? I tried it one morning. It was pretty difficult!

It took me years of therapy to be able to hear positive things from people. It took more time to be able to say something nice about myself. But you know what? God doesn’t make junk!!!! We all are ‘beautifully and wonderfully made’ (Psalm 139:14 NIV). There are qualities about each of us no one else has. If this is something difficult for you to do, I understand. But I challenge you to look in the mirror each morning and say at least one positive thing about yourself. But you have to say it out loud. Then when a negative thought comes across your mind, repeat the positive thing you said to yourself earlier in the day. Start small. Start simple. For example, ‘I have pretty eyes’; ‘my hair looks good today’; ‘I am a kind person’……

Each of us is important and is worth positive thoughts and words!!!!!

Fresh Hope is a faith-based non-profit that empowers people to live well in spite of their mental health challenge.

YOUR gift will provide a person with God’s Fresh HOPE for daily living. Click here to donate, today.

Pastor Brad Hoefs

Pastor | Author | Speaker | Hope Coach | Mental Health Advocate

Category: Fresh Hope Podcasts

15 Cognitive Distortions

Click on this icon to listen to the podcast:

A Conversation with Rev. Jermine Alberty

To listen to the episode click here!

Shame-Based Families Versus Grace-Based Families

“Don’t Ever Give Up Hope,” interview with Keith O’Neil, Former NFL Player

Give Yourself Permission

By Fresh Hope Blogger: Kathy Turney

When Living Well is in Jeopardy

15 Cognitive Distortions

Click on this icon to listen to the podcast:

Our FREE Fresh Hope App

Click on your store’s icon, and it will take you directly to the download:

Real Hope Has Gotten Me Through My Hopelessness

Think About What You Think About

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Pastor | Author | Speaker | Hope Coach | Mental Health Advocate

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By Fresh Hope Blogger: Kathy Turney

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