Perception Vs. Misperception
What you say to yourself and what others say to you may or may not be accurate. You are more likely to find the truth if you remember that your thoughts, memories, and perceptions are just predictions and representations of reality. They are not reality, and they are never completely accurate. The present moment is the only reality; everything else is just a mental representation of reality. This is the opposite of believing with certainty that what you think is always correct. Multiple things can be true at the same time, and they may not always seem to fit together. Awareness that you might not see the truth helps clear up this confusion and allows you to see the truth more clearly. Five people looking at the same thing will have five different stories, so how do we figure out what actually happened? The answer lies in questioning, the art of not knowing, and knowing that you do not know. This creates a healthy space around thoughts in which helpful feelings, perspectives, and insights can arise.
Knowing we cannot be sure what we think is entirely accurate or always beneficial holds us together in our collective humanity. Awareness of this imperfection can be helpful; we can rest in the comfort of knowing we are not alone with our distressing and often misguided thoughts. Accepting that everyone struggles with thoughts and emotions can level the playing field and keep us from feeling isolated, different, or wrong.
Once we accept that we may not be thinking or perceiving correctly, we are still faced with trying to understand how our thoughts and perceptions might complicate our lives and those of our loved ones. To manage thoughts is to notice, question, and examine them before automatically reacting to them. This is the art of responding vs. reacting.
“There is a space between stimulus and response, and in that space, we have the right to choose, and that choice determines our destiny.” Attributed to Viktor Frankl, an Austrian psychiatrist and philosopher. This is the space where we decide whether to go with our thoughts or regroup and reassess.
Perception Vs. Perspectives
Distorted thoughts can lead to negative mindsets or viewpoints or Unhealthy Belief Systems. A mindset is a view of life that profoundly affects how you live your life. Mindsets are habitual, automatic, reactive patterns of thinking. Once we accept and believe a certain way, we no longer question or examine the belief; these beliefs become our worldviews. Unhealthy mindsets color how we interpret events and influence our choices and opinions. Healthy mindsets help us grow and make better choices. We usually aren’t even aware that these patterns exist!
If we focus too much attention on distorted thoughts, reality becomes distorted. Perception is not the same as perspective; perception is often flawed, and a one-sided view is biased by many factors. This is a shaky place, and people can become very fragile when confronted with a different perspective. They may hold ever more tightly to their views and become convinced they are correct, and anyone questioning them is wrong. This happens when you cling to your biased perceptions and fail to develop healthy perspectives.
We all get stuck, dwell, and obsess over issues, and anyone can develop distorted perspectives and be immobilized or mobilized into self-defeating actions. Regardless of our state or condition, we must determine how our thoughts and perceptions may contribute to negative coping or adjustment patterns.
Perspectives are unique to the person. They develop over time and influence what we take in or believe to be true.
A Story About Perspectives: By Richard Dismukes L.P.C.
A red channel marker, #18, marks a shoal area known to the locals as Redfish Point. Mariners use this marker to navigate the intercostal waterway or to sail in and out of Massilina Bayou from St. Andrews Bay, Shell Island, or the Gulf of Mexico. Passing this marker at different times under different weather conditions is fascinating because the same physical structure looks so different every time.
The marker stands on a beautiful point that separates the bay from the Intracoastal Waterway. In the early morning, just after sunrise, the sun strikes the marker from the east at a low angle and illuminates the bright orange triangle. The water is usually calm at this time of day, and the marker stands peacefully in contrast to the lighter colors of the shoaling blue-green water and the crisp, soft colors of the trees, beaches, and grasses that line the shoreline. In the late afternoon, approaching the marker from the west, you see a similar warm glow, but the afternoon sun is not as soft. Light reflects more harshly, and as the angle lowers and you pass and look back into the sun, or if you are heading out late in the day, all you can see is the marker's silhouette against the sun's glow. Mariners frequently anchor to the east of the channel marker to watch the sun drop over the bay and illuminate the bottom of the clouds with warm, pink, orange, and blue colors that gradually fade as the light moves further away, and the colors dance across the open waters of the bay. Marker #18 stands peacefully in the foreground as the light show unfolds. At night, depending on the time and amount of light, the marker might appear as a faint dark pedestal supporting a bright red light that flashes at one-second intervals. Sometimes, dense fog makes the marker invisible until you get close, and all you can see is the faint red light flashing on top. At night, you can barely find this light as it gets lost among many other lights flashing in various ways to help mariners navigate the Intracoastal Waterway. When the wind and the waves are howling, or a squall passes through, the marker stands tall to reassure sailors that they are in the channel approaching the safety of a protected bayou or the comfort of their home port.
As a mariner, I've found it fascinating to notice how the same thing can appear so very different at different times and from different points of view. This reminds me that the context from which we view things constantly changes, and everyone has a unique history that influences what they see. A person who has never been on the water might be preoccupied and not even notice this particular channel marker. We can only see from our unique perspective, shaped by our history and the context of the viewing. A problematic life or the proverbial silver spoon can create distorted perspectives, and the changing context of the viewing will exacerbate these distortions. So, it is natural that different people might look at the same thing from very different points of view and see something completely different. The truth is absolute, but like everything else, it is also constantly changing. Often, two opposing views can both be true even if they seem incompatible. This is the paradox of life and of nature. We should learn to appreciate these differences and not argue about who is “right”, because right or wrong is influenced by the context and history of the person doing the viewing. Different perspectives reflect real differences in how people experience their lives. This is as natural as the different shades of channel marker #18.
Distorted perspectives can be driven by fears, unmet needs, or emotions learned from childhood experiences. Bringing unhealthy thought patterns into awareness and examining them openly will often help you let go of unhealthy narratives and stop being driven by unconscious biases or distortions. Some refer to this as updating the reward value of old thought habits. Others view it more as learning to be present in the moment; either way, it helps us eliminate unhealthy narratives and the bodily memories that accompany many of them.
The following list includes common patterns of thought that can cause stress, unhappiness, or discontent. By bringing some of these viewpoints into awareness, we can begin to examine the impact they might have on our lives.
Notice the underlying cognitive distortions in bold print.
Need To Please
Many people develop an overwhelming desire or need to please or gain approval from others. This is often rooted in childhood experiences and may be related to a parent who is unavailable or disapproving for various reasons. We all want approval, but it is unrealistic to expect that everyone will always be happy with us or that we are wrong and “should” somehow fix it whenever someone is upset with us or in general. This might start as an attempt to please a specific person or to get much-needed attention, but this line of thinking can generalize to trying to please everyone or getting excessively upset when anyone is unhappy with us. We cannot control what others do or think, and the effort to do so will only result in frustration and stress, which brings back memories and encourages us to think we (should) or somehow can fix it.
Rationalization
Humans have a unique capacity to rationalize or excuse our behavior when we do things that harm ourselves or others. This is a mental filter through which we see the world. It might help us cope with our shortcomings but prevent us from learning new skills by accepting responsibility for our mistakes.
We are clever at coming up with all kinds of ideas or thoughts which in our mind might excuse or rationalize the behavior: Someone made me do it, It’s not my fault, Someone is plotting or does not like me, I was given bad advice or information, Everyone else does it, I have and … the list goes on forever. These thoughts contain many distortions, such as all-or-none thinking, overgeneralization, mental filters, jumping to conclusions, magnification or minimization, labeling, or emotional reasoning. (See the distorted thoughts section.)
In reality, we repeat behaviors because of their reward or survival value. Over time, we develop systems of reinforcement involving ego, likes or cravings, desires, and strivings. We all react inappropriately, give in to temptations, or make poor judgments.
This hints at how important it is to manage cravings, desires, emotions, and thoughts, but thoughts and emotions go hand in hand and require management from both directions. The skill is to become aware of desires or cravings and how they impact us, rather than letting these likes and dislikes control our thoughts. Negative behavior is still negative and will eventually result in negative consequences, regardless of who is doing it or why. The correction is to see things as they are, manage our internal dialogue, and accept responsibility when we fall short, without filtering situations through lenses that color our perspectives to our advantage. This is cheating yourself.
The Ultimate Cognitive Distortion- Lying
Sometimes, people think that they are protecting or helping someone by deliberately telling a lie. The world is not always black or white; we certainly do not want to kill Santa Claus or the Easter Bunny, and we are not talking about opinions or impressions such as how the dress looks or if you like the pie. We are addressing the distress caused when an individual learns that someone has deliberately misled them or lied about something they believed to be true. This is amplified when this is someone with whom we have a close relationship.
This violation of trust is extremely hard to overcome. This is even more complicated when you consider how hard it is for any of us to tell what is true and what is not. We all make honest mistakes in this regard, but it is safe to say that the truth exists as an absolute; it can’t be whatever we want it to be. The skill is to try to be honest but also kind.
This does not mean telling everything you think all the time because sometimes it is better to hold back thoughts or information if this helps others, but you can’t protect others or yourself from reality. People who lie distort reality and always lose some of their connection to the real world, not to mention the damage this does to relationships. As a friend recently put it, “Honesty is a necessity of life.” Living without honesty is like being a fake, partial, or incomplete person. It just does not work in a healthy world. Lying is a go-to behavior for self-serving, narcissistic, ego-centric, and abusive people.
“The liar’s punishment is not that he cannot be believed - but that he cannot believe anyone else.” George Benard Shaw
Need For Perfection
This is a cousin of the need to please, but it is more driven by the perspective that we should not make mistakes. This line of thinking fails to recognize what it means to be human, to be organic. All humans are flawed. This is our nature; We are not designed like computers which are programmed to perfection. We must take risks and will make mistakes as we learn and grow new skills. The need or desire for perfection is also related to fear or worry about being wrong, which might keep us from taking a risk that will help us learn. Perfectionism narrows our world to only living in areas in which we are completely comfortable. This is not the real world.
Dr. David Hanscom makes the following points.
Perfectionism is felt by many of us to be a virtue. It is reflected in terms of,
“high standards,” “excellent quality,” and “strong work ethic.”
• It is actually a disguised version of anger directed at yourself. These ideas actually become translated our minds as, “not good enough,” “imposter syndrome,” and “why do I always do this?”
• Holding yourself up to impossible standards is a way of remaining in a victim role indefinitely.
• These “standards” also translate into judgments of others as you project your views of yourself onto them.
• The most disturbing aspect of this issue is that all of this arises from the unconscious brain, these are hardwired circuits beginning from birth, you have no control over them, and they are unresponsive to the conscious brain.
• They have to be dealt with by reprogramming the unconscious brain.
Inability To Admit When You Are Wrong
Loss Aversion is a bias that originated in economic literature but is found in many other behavioral domains. The basic principle is that people hate to lose something twice as much as they desire to gain the same something. This principle means a person would rather (avoid losing) hold on to $10.00 (that they already have) rather than gain something worth twice the value ($20.00).
This may sound completely irrational, but it occurs often and is an easy trap to fall into. Research on loss aversion shows that investors feel the pain of a loss more than twice as strongly as the enjoyment of making a profit. In behavioral science, this translates into a powerful bias to not admit when we are wrong. This results in a powerful tendency to hold on to material possessions, relationships, or ideology when it is clear that you have made a bad investment or a poor choice and you are being harmed by continuing to hold on to the thing that you do not want to admit you were wrong about. People often hold on far beyond the time when it is reasonable to let go.
Loss aversion does not apply to grief work or an unexpected loss where we must work through a process of acceptance. This applies when we become ego-involved in a decision and do not want to be wrong, embarrassed, humiliated, or to accept the loss. People are often willing to go to great extremes to cover up or hold on to avoid admitting they made a bad choice.
Sometimes it is difficult to tell if the loss is real or imagined, so there may be a need to consult with others or practice the skills of discernment and patience to see clearly or try to salvage whatever you can from a bad decision.
When the loss is real, the skill is to overcome this powerful behavioral principle, accept the situation's reality, and let go.
This is at the heart of managing thoughts. To make a good decision, we must question our viewpoint and not let our desires, ego, or need to be right overrule our ability to accept and reason a solution to a problem. To state this in another way, the challenge is to overcome the fear of making mistakes or being wrong and be willing to move forward in a new direction if the direction we have been traveling is not working out. Life frequently forces us to let go and move from familiar to unfamiliar territory.
The Blame Game
We sometimes blame or look toward someone or something in the external world that has “caused” us to act a certain way. This leads us to think that something outside of our control must change for us to be regulated. This is a cognitive trap; we cannot solve a problem unless we own the problem. Accepting responsibility for our behavior is the only way to correct this problem. This distortion usually comes from buying into self-criticism, which makes it difficult to admit when you are wrong. We cope by developing the distorted thought that our behaviors occur because of what someone else said or did or that some outside force is controlling our destiny. This puts us in a reactionary mode, often a victim mindset.
The correction is to accept responsibility for our actions. If we own the problem, we have the potential to solve the problem. We can’t change the outside world, and it can be hard to self-regulate if you put much effort into trying to change everyone else.
Radical responsibility ( Dr. Fleet Maul) moves you away from the blame game and teaches us to be honest about our behavior, accept responsibility, and make corrections when we do something that is harmful to ourselves or others. Radical responsibility enables us to step out of the blame game and look honestly at how we get into drama. Dr. Maul teaches a radical responsibility course in which he helps people understand how to move from the drama zone into the empowerment zone by asking the question: What can I do to solve the problem? Or, What have I done to contribute to the situation? When there is conflict, there is always more than just one side to the story; looking for answers within, where you have control, is much more helpful than looking outside for someone to blame.
We need to examine our behavior carefully and honestly within the context of our ecological system. Accepting our common humanity (Dr. Kristin Neff) is to accept that we are flawed, imperfect, organic beings and that it is reasonable to make mistakes. We obviously need to learn from our mistakes, but giving yourself grace and compassion is much better than beating yourself up and looking for someone to blame.
Buying In To Your Internal Critic
It is easy to get caught up in minimalizing our accomplishments. We often struggle with thoughts that we are broken, not a good person, or that we are wrong in some way. This is often rooted in negative experiences in which our basic needs are unmet. When we are frequently judged or labeled to be wrong or unstable, especially by people who are important to us, we can easily begin to believe this is true and start to judge ourselves.
We are all flawed in one way or another; this is the human condition. The correction is to be positive with self and challenge negative self-talk. If we do not feel good about ourselves and have an active internal critic, we are much more at risk of thinking or perceiving things negatively. When we notice the criticism and understand that we have unmet needs, we can find someone or something that can help us meet these needs. This will help us learn to silence the critic and feel better about ourselves.
These thought patterns can be unhealthy because they create conflict, but some of these viewpoints may be adaptive in certain situations; everything is relative. The idea is to notice and develop the ability to reduce unhealthy thought patterns, turn down their volume, or re-examine the context in which they were developed and determine if there is a better way to move forward. These are some of the slippery slopes in mental health.