Don't Trust Yourself

I guess I'll go ahead and clarify, a little bit, right off the bat. More thoroughly, the title of this post probably should have been, “Don't always trust yourself.” And, it's good advice. Sometimes we should, indeed, trust ourselves. But, not always. You see, a lot of people seem to be very proud that they, “Go with their gut.” And I would agree that instincts, or gut feelings, are often accurate. But, they're often wrong, as well. Let me explain.

Many years ago, psychologist Aaron Beck founded a scientific discipline called Cognitive Therapy. One of the many things Beck did was identify a phenomenon that he called a “Cognitive Distortion.” It's not a term we hear every day but, perhaps we should. It's a really important idea. Instead of using the technical, psychological jargon, let's just call it a “Thinking mistake.” The fact of the matter is, we humans make thinking mistakes all the time (humbling though that may be.) In fact, we often make these mistakes in regular patterns. So much so that Dan Ariely felt inclined to write a book titled Predictably Irrational. It's a jolly good read. If you haven't read it, I highly recommend doing so.

Any how. The thinking mistake that has been on my mind lately, is something Beck would call, “Emotional reasoning.” The thought process, behind emotional reasoning, goes something like this, “I feel it, therefore it must be true.” For example, let's say you totally over sleep one day. You wake up and frantically run around the house trying to get the kids ready for school. The thoughts swirling in your head are, “How could you do this? You're such a bad mom. This kids are counting on you and all you can do is selfishly snore the days away. You should be ashamed of yourself!”

This is an example of emotional reasoning. That morning, when you looked at the alarm clock and realized your kids were an hour late for school, you started to beat yourself up. You went so far as to label yourself a bad mother. The reasoning was emotional. It goes something like this, “Oh, I feel so guilty, I must be a bad person.” You see, a lot of people, when they feel the emotion of guilt, automatically assume they must have done something wrong. So, you scurry around the house throwing sharp, mental daggers at yourself. You get so caught up in your self-imposed torture that you can't even hear your children trying to tell you it's Saturday.

Now, that might seem like a silly example, and perhaps it is. But these sorts of scenarios are all too common in modern life. The following is how the book Thoughts & Feelings explains emotional reasoning, “You believe that what you feel must be true-automatically. If you feel stupid or boring, then you must be stupid and boring. If you feel guilty, then you must have done something wrong. The problem with emotional reasoning is that our emotions interact and correlate with our thinking process. Therefore, if you have distorted thoughts and beliefs, your emotions will reflect these distortions.”

In the example of the late-rising mother, the problem was her assumption that it must be a weekday. Which is a totally understandable assumption, seeing as the majority of days (71%) are weekdays. It just so happens that this particular day wasn't one of them. It was a Saturday and there was no school. I used that example because it's innocent enough. However, as it turns out, these sorts of thinking mistakes are quite common. And so, we need to be on-guard against them.

One place where it's most obvious that we shouldn't always trust ourselves is with our diet. This is a realm that often leads to some rather delicious paradoxes. One thing I often say is, “I love dessert. That's why I don't eat it.” Get it? It's a total paradox but it makes sense, doesn't it? It's easy to get carried away eating sugary treats. My love for desserts keeps me on-guard against them. It's not that different from how an alcoholic should not go into a bar. Just because we feel like eating or drinking something, doesn't mean that we should. Again, it's not always a good idea to trust your feelings.

One of Aaron Beck's students was a gentleman named David Burns. Dr. Burns says that procrastination is one of the most common side effects of emotional reasoning. Which makes all the sense in the world. I can tell you this, I don't know that I've ever felt like taking out the garbage. And I've damn near earned a PhD in procrastination. But, it must be done, so we do it. Right?

Another psychologist, David Reynolds, puts it like this, “The mature human being goes about doing what needs to be done regardless of whether that person feels great or terrible. Knowing that you are the kind of person with that kind of self-control brings all the satisfaction and confidence you will ever need. Even on days when the satisfaction and confidence just aren’t there, you can get the job done anyway.”

Maybe that tag, those three words, will sick in your head. Don't trust yourself. (Three more common words would be Do It Now.) I mean, you shouldn't, necessarily, listen to your feelings. Sometimes ya gotta do what ya gotta do. You have to force yourself. Get out of your comfort zone. Like meeting new people. It can be quite uncomfortable. But that's certainly no reason to not do it. (Are double negatives allowed? I always forget.)

I think this whole listening-to-your-emotions thing was parodied beautifully in that Sprint commercial with James Earl Jones and Malcolm McDowell. You know the one? The one where they reenact a text conversation between two guys named Chris and Craig. “I'm kinda tired, but I also kinda wanna go out … Me too!! ….Well, text me if you do … K. But, I probably won't. But I might.”

Too funny!!

Have a good one :)