These 3 Mindsets are Making You Miserable

Your brain is always at work. Whether you are asleep or awake, this powerful organ is constantly processing data, connecting thoughts, and keeping you alive. You can read and understand these words because your brain interprets them and puts them in context of everything you’ve learned and experienced before. 

But what about when your brain makes an interpretation that is...wrong? I’m sure it’s never happened to you, but for the other readers out there, thoughts and conclusions are often based on things other than reality. They are termed “cognitive distortions” because they distort something about a situation or experience. I’ll call them mindsets for simplicity. 

Sometimes, we make things a lot worse by the conclusions we come to about them. If we don’t monitor our thinking patterns, we run the risk of blowing up a scenario into something far more extreme than it actually is. Life is hard enough on it’s own - don’t make it worse by your interpretation. See if you have fallen prey to one of these mindsets. 

There are a whole lot more than 3 cognitive distortions (here’s a list of 50 if you are interested) but let’s go over just a few: 

1. Black and White Thinking

This mindset involves thinking in only extremes, where there is no balance. Take a quick scroll through your Facebook timeline and you’re likely to see many instances of this. Humans find comfort in knowing and categorizing things because ambiguity is scary. So often we polarize issues to easily see where we land (and where our friends and family land). Finding common ground is tough and takes a lot of work, especially around election time. 

But this isn’t just seen in politics. The 4.0 student who thinks she is a failure for getting an 89% on a test is using this cognitive distortion. The people pleaser who thinks others either love him or hate him is as well. It’s all or nothing. Perfection or failure. But this simply isn’t true.

The cure: Balance

Humanity is filled with countless shades of personality, experience, and uniqueness. We must learn to find a balance in everything that we do - moderation. Learn to accept victory and defeat, as neither one defines who you are. Strive to be kind to people who believe something different than you, and look out for exceptions to your “always” and “never” statements. 

2. Emotional Reasoning

This distortion uses emotions as the basis for defining what is true. Have you ever left an interaction feeling like someone didn’t like you or was mad at you, simply because of how it felt? Those are some pretty significant conclusions, especially if it’s someone close to you. When we let our emotions define reality, we are subject to the roller coaster of how we feel at any given moment. Don’t get me wrong - emotions are extremely important and you should not ignore them. But they reveal more about what you believe than they do about reality. What if the other person was just tired, or having a bad day, or even having the same insecurities as you?

The cure: Look for Evidence

When you feel like coming to a conclusion about a situation based on your emotions, act like a judge and look for the evidence. To use the example from above, is there an unresolved situation in the relationship that could have brought some tension into the interaction? Did the other person actually mention anything they were frustrated about? Don’t go digging for the tiniest hint to confirm your feelings, but consider if the facts actually support your conclusion. 

3. Mind Reading 

This last mindset also deals with communication, and you’ll save yourself a lot of drama by avoiding it in relationships. Just like the name sounds, this happens when you assume you know what is going on in someone else’s brain without them actually saying it. Consider this scenario - you invite a friend to hangout but they say that they have been really busy and just need to rest. You have a choice - you can respect their boundary and believe them or try to read their mind to figure out if there is some other reason they don’t want to hang out with you. Choosing the latter can be devastating and build bitterness inside of you.

The cure: Clarification

We cannot read minds. Yes, there is often more to the story than people communicate, but that is not for you to assume. The cure for this cognitive distortion is clarification - asking the other person if you understood them correctly. This gives you direct insight from the source and empowers them to open up and be truthful. A little clarification now can save a lot of misunderstanding later. Some phrases you could use: 

“Do you mean…” 

“If I’m hearing you correctly…” 

“What I’m hearing is…” 

In closing, give grace to yourself if you have used some or all of these mindsets in your interactions with others. They are easy to slip into, especially if you aren’t aware they exist. One small step at a time you can try to change the way your brain thinks to a healthier state of mind that will benefit your mental health and relationships for years to come. 

Nick Hunter MA, LPC