Liberating yourself from cognitive distortions

In the previous post, we saw that when we aim to change aspects of ourselves, like becoming happier, more confident, or less anxious, we often approach it as if we want to build our tree (or our confidence, happiness…). However, the key question isn’t how to grow your tree but what is preventing it from growing. 

The answer is found in the roots of your trees, but because the roots are underground (in your subconscious), you cannot see them. There are two main burdens hanging from your roots, which prevent your trees from growing: limiting beliefs and cognitive distortions. They belong to the domain of thoughts/language, and, as we also saw in earlier posts, our thoughts influence our emotions and actions. Limiting beliefs and cognitive distortions can generate fear, guilt, and anxiety, limiting your ability to change or take action. To be able to grow your trees in the declining forests of your brainforest, you need to identify and untie these limiting beliefs and distortions from the roots.

The good news is that because limiting beliefs and cognitive distortions are in the domain of thought/action, so you can progressively change them using the same key tool for self-rewiring that we have been utilizing so far: language.

This is a practical post containing the most common types of cognitive distortions. You can use your external observer to observe yourself and detect if you are doing any of them which might be preventing your trees from growing. The list is quite extensive so I will focus on limiting beliefs the next time.