Lies Our Brains Tell Us And How To Stop Listening
I’ve struggled to ever hold down a job for longer than a month…
Seemingly every time I would get settled into a new environment, or grow accustomed to new coworkers, my thoughts would inevitably become overwhelmed with paranoia that would sabotage my performance. I’ve spent many days convinced that every peer must hate me, every customer surely sees me as incompetent, and every one of my “skills” are actually useless, leading me to find myself pessimistically rotating from job to job with no solution in sight.
About three months ago, I found myself at a crossroads. I refused to wallow in the embarrassment of depending on those around me for financial stability any longer, and I knew, one way or another, that I needed to overcome this flaw. So, I checked myself into a partial-hospitalization program that specialized in anxiety and OCD treatment back in my hometown, relinquishing all real contact with my partner or friends for the foreseeable future for the sake of bettering myself.
Dedicated to make solid and substantial improvements in my time at the program, I was released a month later with a renewed sense of reality. For the first time in years, I was finally free to take risks, make mistakes, and indulge in the present moment.
So, I was cured of my anxiety? Well… no. Absolutely not.
Instead, I was awakened to the harsh truth that I had spent so long stubbornly denying: that our brains lie to us.
The brain does not do this maliciously, of course, but rather as a consequence of our evolutionary survival. For example, think of the fight or flight response (more recently referred to as fight/flight/freeze). This is a residual reaction, left over from millions of years ago, that was once necessary to keep us alive long enough to reproduce.
Those lingering self-defense responses are called Cognitive Distortions, and have been shown to influence a person’s thoughts, feelings, and behaviors immensely whilst left unchecked. Rarely are these beliefs rooted in reality, instead often exacerbating irrational thinking and encouraging paranoid rumination.
That being said, these perceptions being natural progressions of the human mind doesn’t mean that there’s nothing we can do about them. Just like a bad roommate or an awkward birthmark, no one can entirely evade cognitive distortions. Nevertheless, we can learn how to live with them.
The first step is to recognize what cognitive distortions look like, and to identify the inaccuracies (or “lies”) within them.
So, what do they look like?
Black and White Thinking
Also known as “All Or Nothing Thinking”, this is when we diminish our expectations to only either complete success or complete failure, without making space for anything in-between.
Similar to perfectionism, this distortion leads to the development of unrealistic expectations, rampant self-criticism, and, ultimately, disappointment.
An example of black and white thinking would be making a new years resolution to go to the gym every day, only to completely abandon working out as a whole after missing a single day in the routine. The idea is that you can either flawlessly succeed, or fail, and any kind of shortcoming to the original (and, most likely, unrealistic) goal is indicative of inability.
In the case of my job anxiety, I’ve noticed that this was evident in my uncertainty over whether a coworker or staff member liked me. The slightest hint of upset in their tone of voice would become evidence in my mind that they despised me, and that they likely always have. This led me to isolate and dread coming into work on days I was scheduled with certain people, regardless of the lack of any real confirmation that they ever even had a problem with me in the first place.
Overgeneralizing / Fortune Telling
Overgeneralization occurs when we take a singular or otherwise isolated event and allow it to define how we perceive the possible outcome of all related events in the future.
By devaluing our opportunities, these assumptive conclusions inhibit our motivation to learn new skills and breed insecurity in our self-perception.
Times where we use the words “Always” and “Never”, or “Everything” and “Nothing” are easy-to-spot examples of overgeneralizing, such as getting a bad grade on a test and concluding that you’ll “never” understand the subject. It can appear very similarly to fortune telling, though there are measurable differences.
Fortune Telling is when we assume the worst (as it’s usually used negatively) about a situation without apt evidence that supports that belief. While overgeneralization can be derived from actual experience, fortune telling can occur even when we have no concrete reasoning to believe these events will happen.
At nearly every job I’ve worked, there have been moments of resolution where I was almost certain I would be fired over what were, in retrospect, negligible mistakes. I became convinced that I would “always” end up hating “every” job that I could “ever” apply for, and I grew stagnant in my pursuit of employment. It began to feel fruitless to make my attempts at stability, and my motivation sunk to a depth of depression.
Magnification (Catastrophizing / Minimizing)
Related to fortune telling, magnification is when we exaggerate the possible outcome of our actions to an irrational degree. This can either come in the form of catastrophizing, which is when you expect a severe and harsh consequence over something, or minimizing, which would be inappropriately assuming something to be inconsequential.
The paranoia that comes from both sides of the scale of magnification prompt us to set unrealistic expectations and inevitably leads to disappointment. Often wrought with “What If-?” spiraling thoughts, these distortions can appear as simple as finding an unfamiliar freckle on your body and assuming that it means you must have terminal cancer.
I recall a specific time at a previous job where I was running late one day, sprinting as fast as I could for far too long to preface an 8-hour shift. I reached a point of wondering if I should “…just never go back to work. I’m probably already fired anyway, might as well go home”. Embarrassingly, I listened to that catastrophizing voice, and clearly lost the job. In retrospect, it was a horrible overreaction and irrational assumption that cost me my financial stability.
In Summary…
There are plenty of examples of cognitive distortions I’ve not mentioned, though, in my opinion, these are the most common forms and easiest to identify in yourself. By taking the initial steps of acknowledging these internal biases, you’ll equip yourself with the mindfulness required to start making substantial improvements in your life.
When it comes to my current job, I’ve found so much more success with discounting and rationalizing my way through these thoughts when they arrive. The urges still arise, as they likely will for the rest of my life. However, I finally have the ability to take my life back into my own hands, rather than leaving it to the will of my passing thoughts.
So, all I ask you to remember is that you are not a slave to your thoughts. They exist to keep you safe, and you are not defective by any means for having them, but you are the one who makes the final decision. Every time.
