You Can’t Always Trust What Your Brain Tells You, It May Be Lying

Watch out for these cognitive distortions that can kill your creativity

I’ve lived with low-grade depression since childhood, and I’ve done all the stuff you’re supposed to do to address it, so it has gotten better. At my lowest point, I discovered cognitive behavior therapy (CBT), which turned my life around.

Many people espouse the benefits of CBT; others, not so much. Whether you are pro or con, one valuable tool I learned from it was how to recognize faulty thinking in myself and what to do when I discover cognitive distortions whispering in my ear.

My brain and my thoughts can’t always be trusted. In fact, they may be lying to me, and the words they use can either boost me up or tear me down. Since I’ve always led my life from my brain and not my emotions, this was eye opening. I couldn’t depend on the one thing I most valued: my mind.

Most of us, even those not dealing with depression, fall victim to some of these thought patterns sometime. We may not ever be aware that we are listening and believing what our brains are telling us is true. Cognitive distortions can affect all aspects of our lives. They interfere with life and work success and satisfaction, interpersonal relationships, communication, and peace of mind. Let’s look at the cognitive distortions that influence our ability to be creative — how to recognize them and what to do about them.

All-or-nothing locks us into a tiny cage

“Also called black-or-white thinking or dichotomous thinking, the basic idea is that instead of being able accurately to assess a situation (especially a somewhat negative one), a person sees things in terms that are much more stark. For instance, things don’t feel just partially damaged — they are devastated altogether. A day isn’t just going fairly poorly — it’s the worst day ever. It’s not that a few people are being difficult — it’s that everyone is.” — Andrea Bonior Ph.D.

This faulty thinking does not allow for any shades of gray and often is associated with a fixed mindset and perfectionism .Our work is either good or bad, successful or an utter failure. Either we’re creative, or we’re not. Period. No exceptions. There’s no room for improvement or development, no way to learn and grow. If our first attempt isn’t perfect, throw it away.

When you hear yourself thinking all-or-nothing, black-or-white statements. stop and rephrase them with more neutral words like “sometimes” or “occasionally.” Be willing to consider shades of gray, not necessarily 50. The objective is to allow for gradations.

“Don’t use all-or-nothing thinking. Take each day as its own day, and don’t worry about it if you mess up one day. The most important thing you can do is just get back up on the horse.” — Henry Cloud, Ph.D.

Negative filters cloud our ability to learn and grow

“Negative filtering is a common cognitive distortion, and most of us do it from time to time. Simply, it is filtering out all of the positive information about a specific situation, and only allowing in the negative information. In other words, negative filtering is focusing on negative things and discounting positive things.” — Cognitive Behavioral Therapy Los Angeles

This faulty thinking is living with dark glasses on. When this cognitive distortion slithers into our thoughts, we become unable to notice what’s positive. One critical comment about our idea, and we completely discount comments from those that find it worthwhile. All we think about is that one critical comment.

This gray, gloomy outlook can seep into all areas of our lives and negatively influence our entire outlook. The antidote is to avoid dwelling on whatever we perceive as negative and deliberately look for proof of what’s positive. Examine the evidence like a forensic detective for what’s positive.

“Don’t over-focus on the negatives and under-focus the positives in your life.” — Lalah Delia

Magnification and minimization

“When thinking with the cognitive distortion known as magnification and minimization, one of two things happens: the importance of insignificant events — like a mistake — is exaggerated, or the importance of something significant — such as a personal achievement — is lessened. In other words, a person’s problems are blown out proportion, while the positive aspects of their lives are ignored.” — Katharina Star, Ph.D.

Alice in her trips through Wonderland is offered one pill that makes her bigger and another that makes her smaller. Drugs aside, this cognitive distortion does the same. We either blow things up or shrink them without regard to the facts.

This often happens with creative endeavors. We receive one rejection, and it looms over us every time we start a new piece while we completely ignore the many times our work was received with critical acclaim. This magnification of the negative undermines our self-confidence and ability to take risks — which can death to any career that relies on creativity. On the other hand, we can minimize any feedback that could make our endeavors more successful.

Creativity is messy. We have to be willing to make mistakes and learn from them. We have to believe that what we have created is good and accept that it for what it is. Study any master artist to see how their skill refined from their first works to their last. Even great masters like Mozart got better as they progressed in their creative process.

“Creativity takes courage.” — Henri Matisse

Thinking makes it so

“There is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so.” — Shakespeare

The grandmaster of literature was right. Our thinking creates our experiences. If we harbor faulty thinking, if we let ourselves believe these thoughts are true, they will out-picture in our lives. This is where confirmation bias can kick in. Our brains start searching for and finding anything and everything that confirms the validity of our faulty thinking.

The solution is to put a guard over our thoughts and pay attention to what they are telling us. When we feel ourselves on that downward slide, we need to stop and question them. Allowing cognitively distorted thinking to go unchecked will strangle our creativity and send us deeper and deeper into a pit that can hard to struggle out of without professional help.

Additional Resources

David Burns, M.D., Feeling Good: The New Mood Therapy, (Not an affiliate link. You will leave Medium.com and go to a Third-Party site.)