Most of us like to think that that we possess the ability to think clearly about almost any situation in which we find ourselves as we travel on our Life Journey. Realistically, it is the rare person who does not have at least one major distortion in the cognitive process of thinking clearly regarding their personal thoughts and feelings.
Like many aspects of our lives, these distortions occur at different times during our journey and the degree of their presence will also vary. If we are fortunate, we have people in our lives to help us sort out these cognitive distortions to thinking clearly and assist us to make healthier decisions.
We cannot cover all of the cognitive distortions that people may have with this blog method, but hopefully by focusing on a few, we can better understand the process and how we wish to manage them as me make life choices.
One of the major cognitive distortions is referred to as “all or nothing”. We may look at our life situations and see them as being all one way or another without any possibility for degree. Very few people or choices come in this black-and-white manner; much of life is usually some shade of grey with multiple choices.
When we place people and situations in this all-or-nothing view, we limit the creations of options for others and ourselves. There is almost no room for thinking “outside of the box” or for utilizing problem-solving processes like compromise.
One of the best ways to avoid making a decision is to see life as all or nothing. Since so seldom is this true, we give ourselves permission to avoiding making any decision since we know at some level that neither of the two black-white options we give ourselves will fit and/or work.
We may even feel free that we avoided a choice and its accompanying responsibility or we have given ourselves permission to be frustrated and miserable since there is no reasonable way out of this all-or-nothing method of choice.
Overgeneralization is another technique that we may use to distort our ability to think clearly. There are many aspects of our lives that we find easier to live by using generalizations. Some of us may find that we over generalize in seeing others and ourselves to such a degree that we cannot use the positive aspects of generalization.
Generalization gives us a tool to realize that many characteristics present in one situation can and often may be present in another. People who behave one way at certain times can often be predicted to behave that way when the circumstances are similar. We rely on generalized behavior like people walking or driving to the right.
If a person gets angry during a discussion of politics, we assume that political discussion will irritate him in the future. If we want peace, we never mention political topics with this person; if we like seeing someone get upset, we manage to bring up the current political rage of the day.
Overgeneralization becomes a problem for us when we take the circumstances from one situation and apply these circumstances to another situation that usually is different in some significant way. We do not focus on the significance of this difference and allows overgeneralization to distort us from having a clear view to make healthy choices where the situation is similar, but is not the same.
Discounting the positives is a process where we tend to see only the problems and aspects of the situation where only a negative outcome is likely to occur. Using the “half-glass’ analogy, we focus on the empty part of the glass and ignore or discount any positive aspects which may be present.
Many people who like to view people and their life situations using this cognitive distortion, frequently like to play mental games like “yes, but” where any positive view is immediately attached with a negative view to discount or lessen its value or the likely hood of it happening with a positive outcome.
Many people with positive attitudes can easily be trapped into playing mental games as they attempt to change the negative person. Even those with a missionary zeal of positivism can leave these encounters with feelings of disappointment and failure.
We all can usually be happier with the life choices we make for ourselves when we accept the realization that people make choices to meet their needs, not ours, and are very seldom are going to chance without some inner need.
No comments:
Post a Comment