I feel like this is the most important cognitive distortion.

And since I'm using emotional reasoning, it totally is.

Let’s talk about Cognitive Distortions.

We’ve discussed catastrophizing and minimization, because blowing things out of proportion and giving less credit than is due are unhelpful assessments of reality.

We’ve discussed mind reading and jumping to conclusions, because unconsciously assuming we can predict the future usually isn’t accurate or emotionally beneficial.

We’ve discussed mental filter and disqualifying the positive, because limiting our perspective to dis-include aspects that feel good is short-changing us mentally and emotionally.

We’ve discussed all or nothing thinking and overgeneralization, because when our anxious brains drastically simplify what is happening, we can miss out on options and opportunities.

Which of these have you noticed in yourself in the last month? Which have you heard others describe doing? Have any of your discoveries surprised you?

When I first started paying enough attention to my thoughts to recognize the cognitive distortions I was using, it was both an annoyance and a relief.

“Why am I thinking this limited way?! It’s just making me feel worse…”

and (thankfully) also,

“Thank goodness things AREN’T really the way I’m telling myself they are! I’m using a cognitive distortion! If I am conscious about this, I can really look at it more rationally and see things I was overlooking!”

When I present cognitive distortions to clients in my office, I usually introduce this next one as “my favorite.” It’s one I have used plenty myself and it is also probably the most challenging cognitive distortion to explain because it involves an emotional experience that insists it is informing reality.

emotional reasoning

-Believing that if you feel a certain way, it must be the way that things are.

(though our feelings are always okay, they are a result of our perception, not necessarily what actually happened)

If you have had the devastating experience of losing a very close loved one to death and you’ve emerged into the world in shock: that people were still going to work, still laughing at jokes, still mowing their lawns, as if nothing had happened, you may have a sense of what emotional reasoning is like. You “knew” that nothing would ever be the same again. And yet, since death is a natural part of life that happens all the time, the world did go on just as it always has.

Emotional reasoning breeds many of the thought patterns the other cognitive distortions describe because for some of us, emotions precede thoughts. Mind reading “she hates me” may come from emotional reasoning based on a felt sense of rejection. Or, feeling as though everything is ruined is the emotional reasoning breeding the catastrophizing thoughts that indeed, everything is ruined.

shoulding

-The best way to create guilt! “I should be ___” or “I should do ___.” When we should others, we feel angry, resentful and frustrated.

One of the dozens of catchy phrases used in 12-Step programs is the reminder “don’t should on yourself.” Shoulding on yourself stinks, feels bad, and ultimately makes things harder. Every time you say or even just think to yourself “I should have gotten up earlier” or “I should have meal prepped this weekend” or “I should have made it to the gym today,” it doesn’t reverse what you wish went differently. Instead, it makes you feel worse, and then you have less energy to do what needs to be done in that moment.

Try something like “I would have liked to have ___.” This gives you more emotional space to follow it up with “And so I’ll ____ now/tomorrow/next time.”

And shoulding someone else is just arrogant. Who are you to say you would do a better job managing their lives than they? This reminds me of the occasions when clients have asked me “what should I do?” I can share research based on what we know about human development/emotional regulation/families/physiology/etc. I can help you explore the various factors that affect and will be affected by your decisions. But I can’t be in charge of what you should do! Especially because we can’t ultimately know all that may accompany different outcomes. You “should have” stayed home on a cold, rainy night until you run into a friend you haven’t seen in years and make plans to get together soon. You “should have” brought lunch to eat at your desk but because you left your office to get food you had a chance to talk more with a coworker about a project you’ve been interested in doing. Shoulding not only increases guilt and shame, it assumes we are all-knowing and leaves out the possibility of something even better happening. And it keeps us from seeing the good in the way things are because we are hung up on regret.

When is the last time you shoulded yourself or someone else? What could have been a different way to perceive what happened?