Have you ever felt overwhelmed and lost in cycle of negative thoughts just based on a single incident only to realise later on that perhaps it was irrational and not grounded in reality? Kim Yumi (Kim Go-Eun) in Season 2 of Yumi’s Cells experienced just that with Yoo Babi (GOT7’s Jinyoung), her co-worker with whom she explores a relationship with this season. Let’s talk about problematic repeated thoughts and how we can learn from Yumi’s and Babi’s experience with it this season. Spoilers ahead!
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Yumi starts this season dealing with a heartbreak after a breaking up with Goo Woong (Ahn Bo-Hyun). She is barely making it through each day while her braincells try to nurse her back to normal with a hilarious mix of distractions, but nothing seems to work and she continues trying to come to terms with the end of her relationship with Woong.
As fate would have it, it isn’t long before her co-worker, the sensitive and charming Babi, catches her attention with his kindness, and helps her open up through a shared interest in reading and ska, providing her with an effective distraction. This all eventually leads to a confession by Babi to Yumi.
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A confused Yumi, still reeling from her break up with Woong, rejects Babi. Her Love and Rational Cells decide that it’s not love but infatuation she feels with Babi. But even though she made a good, rational decision, she soon has to grapple with even more confusing distorted thinking and has a hard time managing her emotions after rejecting him.
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After receiving that confession from Babi, Yumi’s self-esteem is at an all-time high. While she has made a decision to reject Babi, she becomes sensitive about how he behaves around her and starts to mind-read. She overthinks how he feels about the situation they’re in. When he appears completely normal after the rejection, but she reads into this and perceives his actions as cold and that he is intentionally avoiding her.
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To add to the negative thoughts she’s already having about Babi, she spots him with his ex-girlfriend one morning, and concludes (erroneously) from that one single incident that he has gone back to his ex immediately after confessing to her. She overgeneralises and this turns from annoyance to anger. She starts feeling uncomfortable around him and her cells even comment that it should be him feeling uncomfortable, not her!
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Yumi becomes stuck in a cycle of negative thoughts about Babi and this starts to affect her and the way she reacts to him. We later learn in the season that whatever Yumi had felt wasn’t reality and they were really irrational thoughts, that weren’t supported by facts, escalated by her emotions. While she had built up very positive feelings towards Babi, her feelings take a sudden turn almost overnight. She adopts black-and-white thoughts about Babi and now feels he’s not that great a person like she thought he was, and seeing him in an extremely negative light.
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Thankfully for Yumi, Babi wears his heart on his sleeves and takes action when he senses that a misunderstanding is brewing. He initiates open conversations with her to explain his side of the story and makes his feelings known to her even though he has already been rejected once by her. Even her Love Cell acknowledges his courage and self-confidence and admires Babi for that. Perhaps, this something not just Yumi, but we all can learn to do from Babi.
