Are RATs sinking your relationships?
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Are RATs sinking your relationships?
I’m not talking about the furry, scampering creatures that strike fear into the hearts of most women…although Ratatouille almost changed my view of rats…almost. No, I’m talking about Really Awful Thoughts–RATs.
Has one of your family members ever been late coming home and you immediately had thoughts of a twelve car pileup on the highway? Or, how about you see your friend down the hall at church and she doesn’t wave at you…”What did I do? Why is she mad at me?”
Those are forms of RATs. RATs–Really Awful Thoughts–are extreme negative thought patterns.
These patterns lead our emotions on a downward spiral and affect the quality of our relationships. They highlight crooked thinking patterns and terrorize our relationships.
RATs stand out more than other negative thoughts. If thoughts were a sport, RATs would be the X-Games.
Here are RATs that can sink your relationships:
Amplifiers: Use words like always, never and every time.
In reality, most of life doesn’t fall in these extremes.
Feelers: Feelers accept negative emotions as true without examining them.
Feelings are important, but they are not substitutes for the truth.
Guessers: Guessers pretend they know what others are thinking and assume the worst.
We might see a friend down the hall, but they don’t respond when we wave at them.
A guesser might think, “why are they mad at me?” When in reality, that friend may not have even seen us because they were in their own thought world at the time. We don’t really know, but Guessers assume they do know.
Exaggerators: Exaggerators transform molehills into mountains.
They use trigger words like horrible, worst, ruined shocked, devastated, etc
“Oh, this is the worst day ever!” Is it really the worst day ever?
Awfulizing: The drama queen syndrome.
Awfulizing is taking any situation and making it out to be a bigger deal than it really is.
Identifiers: Identifiers inject harmless events with personal meaning.
They take things too personally and interpret negative events as personal attacks.
For example, someone gets cut off in traffic and spill their coffee because of it. An identifier might blame the driver as if they planned to do that on purpose.
Forecasters: Forecasters predict the worst case scenario.
They usually do this out loud even before they get started with an endeavor, project, relationship or other experience.
Cynics: Have the knack for finding something wrong, even if it’s the only thing wrong.
Despite the good, they use their mental “cynic” radar to see only the bad. Usually, it’s under the guise of, “I just want to make things better.”
Their reward is they get to be miserable.
Blamers: Blamers point a finger at someone else for their own problems.
They do this even though it’s rare that problems are caused entirely by someone else.
It’s the opposite of taking responsibility. The buck stops with them is not in a blamers vocabulary.
Justifiers: Justifiers remind themselves of all the reasons they are entitled to this negative emotion or that negative outburst.
Justifiers losing sight of their vision. They’re advocates for their own negativity with statements like,“if you only knew what they did…”
When we allow these RATs in our lives, we’re sinking our relationships and dragging our emotions through the dirt. They are stealing our joy and keep us from achieving our potential.
How do we put an end to the RATs that are sinking our relationships?
1. Stop Myself Before I Wreck Myself
Stop when we see our emotions spiraling down.
When we find ourselves emotionally low, we can be assured that we’ve been dwelling on negative things.
2. Identify the RAT
We need to ask ourselves, “Are these RATs trying to sink my relationship?"
If they are, identify which really awful thought is dragging us down.
“Only when we become the driver of our emotions, through awareness, can we steer our emotions through our thoughts.” - 40 Days to a Joy-filled life by Tommy Newberry
3. Change My Source
Next, we need to ask ourselves, “Am I looking at the vastness of my need or the vastness of my Jesus and His provision?"
Jesus is our ultimate source, even when it comes to relationships. When we choose to dwell on his provision, it changes our thinking which changes our emotions.
Change the source of what I'm thinking about by thanking God for His goodness, love, grace, provision, and mercy.
By stopping yourself when you’re in the midst of a negative spiral, identifying the RAT that’s attacking and changing your source for your thoughts to Jesus, you will change how your thoughts and ultimately change how you feel. This will change how you interact in your relationship.