LTBH: COGNITIVE DISTORTIONS

02: Understanding Cognitive Dissonance

LTBH: COGNITIVE DISTORTIONS Understanding Cognitive Dissonance Healing is about realising wholeness, unity and integrity. True happiness, and lasting contentment depend

12: The Illusion of Ownership

LTBH: COGNITIVE DISTORTIONS Labelling: the Illusion of Ownership Ownership is a concept, and possession, is a relationship.  When I think,

13: The Illusion of Relationship

LTBH: COGNITIVE DISTORTIONS Labelling: the Illusion of Relationship I started the lesson by saying “ownership is a concept, and possession,

14: How We Filter Information

LTBH: COGNITIVE DISTORTIONS Understanding Cognitive Bias Do you think our anecdotal recollections of an experience are accurate?  Why do people

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LTBH: THE FOUNDATIONS My Account [pmpro_levels] Relection: What Am I Attached To? Get out your notepad. Name several things you

Summarising More Cognitive Distortions

This lesson concludes the unit on Cognitive Distortions in the Full Package course.

Hopefully this unit has helped you to apply logic and critical reasoning skills in analysing your thoughts, feelings and beliefs.

You have been presented with what may seem like several mighty tasks, but all of them hinge on the same understanding: that our thoughts don’t represent the way things really are. 

Let’s look at some of the major points we covered.

  • Ownership is a concept. It is indicated by the labels, mine, yours and theirs.
  • No one can tell what car on the street is yours just by looking at it, because it has no real connection to you.
  • The connection you feel to your possessions is in your mind. They are not really yours: that is just a thought.
  • Does the thought, this is mine, function well to make you happy? Or does it set you up for feeling bad?
  • It’s healthier to relate to your possessions as merely borrowed, as this helps you cultivate appreciation, and gratitude, without the dangers of entitlement and anxieties of loss.
  • Relationships are not independently existent. You have your way of relating to them and they have their way of relating to you.
  • Since relationships are concepts, you cannot really have or lose a relationship, you can only change the way you think about the person.
  • When we relate to people as being their roles, we are far more likely to have expectations of them.
  • When we think of people as ours, we’re more likely to feel offended and get defensive on their behalf, and feel hurt when they’re hurt, and this isn’t helpful.
  • When we think of people as the label we have given them, we stop seeing them as they really are, and see them only in relation to what they are to us.
  • We are predisposed to notice patterns, even where they don’t exist.
  • We tend to notice and remember what we already know, and overlook or forget things that do not interest us, or that don’t align with what we already think.
  • We filter out a lot of information when we’re making a generalisation.
  • When you say the words, always, never, no one, and everyone, in reference to people, you are definitely filtering!
  • The term maximising refers to taking extra notice of something, which makes it seem more frequent or prevalent to you. The term minimising refers to taking less notice of something, making it seem less frequent, or less prevalent to you.
  • We can reduce the negative effects of filtering by asking these questions:
    • What am I not seeing?
    • Is there another way to look at this?
    • What evidence is there against my point of view?
    • What would this look like from so and so’s perspective?
  • When we engage in research on a subject, we can deliberately look for evidence supporting all points of view.
  • Curiosity will see us through this cognitive distortion. The most important thing to be curious about, is understanding why we are emotionally invested in a particular perspective.
  • The cognitive distortion, jumping to conclusions, occurs when we accept things at face value, draw conclusions prematurely or draw conclusions based on bias.
  • The two most likely reasons for our jumping to conclusions; are ignorance, and being emotionally invested in a particular answer. 
  • We cure ignorance by asking, what do I know for certain, which puts us back in touch with a healthy dose of uncertainty.
  • We can work at overcoming our emotional bias by asking ourselves how we feel about the different possibilities, in order to see if we are personally invested. When we’re honest with ourselves about what we want to be true, what we fear might be true, and why, it helps liberate us from emotional influences.
  • ‘Science’ has only described processes and has never determined the nature of things. 
  • Quantum physicists discovered that the behaviour of subatomic particles is affected by our observation of them.
  • Thinking critically means, being able to separate the subjective interpretation of an experience from the immediate reality of what was seen, heard, and felt. To think critically is to witness the creation of meaning, and to know that meaning is subjective, not objective.
  •  There’s nothing wrong with having a framework to help describe, understand and organise the things we experience, but the danger in adhering to a particular philosophy, is how easily it leads to all kinds of assumptions. We must remember that ‘the meaning’ isn’t something we have observed, but something we invented.
  • If we relate to each other, not through stories, but through feelings, we’ll come to understand each other a lot better. Like I said, the effect our experiences have on the way we think, feel, and behave, are what is most important. How have your experiences changed you? Have they made you more adaptable, more resilient, more loving? That is what really matters.
  • Most religions and spiritual philosophies have a branch of mystical teachings related to the presence of spirits, the use of spiritual power or miracles, and all kinds of rituals for healing, fertility and abundance. 
  • At times these teachings may seem impractical, if not bizarre, but other times you find some gems, and so I encourage you to keep an open mind.
  • So long as you remember, feelings follow thoughts, and that you want to be happy, you can transform any idea, philosophy or spiritual practice into a practical healing tool.
  • When we feel very certain, we must defend our position against conflicting information and points of view, but when we acknowledge and abide comfortably in uncertainty, there’s nothing to defend and we can honestly say to other people, without being condescending, that anything is possible, while still acting on what we think is most probable. 
  • We’re not learning to think critically in order to argue with people. We’re learning to think critically to free ourselves of negative and self-limiting beliefs. 
  • When we keep in mind that everyone wants to be happy and free of suffering, and that everyone’s feelings are determined by their own thoughts and beliefs, we can have compassion for ourselves and others. Rather than obsessing over who is right or wrong and arguing against someone’s point of view, we can ask instead, how a way of thinking functions:
    • How do these beliefs affect the way I think?
    • How do these beliefs affect the way I feel?
    • How do these beliefs affect the way I behave?