08/01/2018
Today I want to share a bit about Cognitive Distortions. Cognitive Behavior therapists and Dialectical Behavior therapists use cognitive distortions as a lens they see through when counseling. And really, when you dissect these cognitive distortions apart, I believe they are super basic and human in nature, ringing true for all of us, in any shape or form.
There are several cognitive distortions. I won’t get into them all here. But what I will say, is they distract us from truth. They are a consistent way of thinking, a pattern we create in our mind that may support a certain way of thinking that is harmful, untrue and quite frankly, ugly. They keep you from staying focused on your path, allowing emotion or fear to essentially lead you.
We all have baggage. To have baggage is to be human. Naturally, we create cognitive distortions as a way to protect or shield us from the painful truth OR to make sense of the unknown. We may believe that what we feel is truth ( emotional reasoning) I.e: “ i feel like a bad (friend, lover, mother, neighbor), so therefore I must be.” Or arbitrary inference- drawing conclusions with little to no evidence. This negatively supports false judgments, racism, sexism, ageism, any ism really, self hate, or religious hate. The unknown makes us uncomfortable and therefore, we make up our own story instead of engaging, asking, or having a child like heart.
I challenge you today, and really this week- to dive into the faulty ways of thinking that you’ve created. We all have them. Call yourself out on it in a loving way, and start letting His light shed truth on your false ways of thinking:). Trust me, it’s a work in progress. .