Is What You’re Telling Yourself Actually True?
I had a client, we'll call Christine, that struggled with an overwhelming belief that people didn't like her. She walked into every single interaction with people immediately feeling like she was unwelcome, unliked, and unwanted. It was as if she had lenses on that skewed her perspective towards this false belief. No matter how positive people were towards her, she still had a core belief that she was flawed and that others fundamentally didn't want to be her friend.
After working with Christine for a while, I could see just how damaging and pervasive this belief had become. It was spilling over into her family. I saw how sad she was. How lonely. She was constantly hurt. She experienced the painful effects of shame. It was the perfect concoction for this false narrative to take hold.
Over the course of our time together, Christine shared a story about an instance when she had been leaving a movie with a friend and in the distance, she saw a woman walking in her direction that she had met a few weeks prior through another friend. While she didn't know her well, she got up the courage to smile at her and attempted to say hi. This was a risk for her. Something that her shy demeanor didn't do often. As she opened up to smile, she said the acquaintance walked right by her without acknowledging her presence.
<Ouch.>
She was crushed. She turned to her friend and said, "I knew she didn't like me."
As we were processing this scenario, she shared that in reality, she doesn't think this acquaintance even saw her. She admitted that while the acquaintance was walking toward her she was looking at, and talking with someone else. ANDDD was even looking the other way.
Did you catch that?
Christine was accumulating evidence that supported her negative view of herself, but she doesn't even know if it's true. She was jumping to a conclusion based on an assumption. Not on evidence. All because of this false narrative that was permeating her daily life.
Here's the thing about our brains: We want to be right. Even when it's not true.
This need for our brains to be right is what is called Confirmation Bias. Our brain tends to pay attention to information that reinforces or upholds our beliefs, instead of considering information that challenges or contradicts them. Basically, we focus on information that validates our existing beliefs.
And in Christine's scenario, because of what she believed about herself, she used her confirmation biases to scan the world for evidence to reinforce this belief. But even when she couldn’t find facts to support it, she’d create it anyway.
Life's hard enough as it is. We don't need to make it harder by telling ourselves lies. The truth is, we can all keep our confirmation bias in check by filtering our beliefs through these three questions:
IS IT TRUE?
Sometimes this requires us to stop and do a bit of a gut-check. Asking ourselves, “what factual evidence do I have?” can be a challenging thing to do. For instance, if the acquaintance Christine was preparing to greet, looked at her, glared, rolled her eyes and brushed past her, and then looked away … thennn she'd have her evidence. It would be pretty obvious that something was amiss. But until there is evidence, we don't know that it's true. Keep truth at the forefront.
WHY DO I BELIEVE THIS?
Who doesn’t love a good deep-dive into our past, right?! (HA! Says no one!) But really challenging yourself to understand patterns throughout your life is so important. Often the messages our family passes down to us become truth, even though it might be subjective information. Was the situation you're experiencing tie back to something spoken over you or around you growing up?
Thinking about questions to ask yourself like, “Did someone tell me lies that I've believed?” or
“Am I trying to protect against rejection?”
These types of questions will help you understand why you’re jumping to conclusions and head it off at the pass.
WHAT IF I'M WRONG?
Another important part of navigating our own confirmation biases is to ask ourselves, “What does it mean if I am wrong?” We need to identify if we are attaching value to ourselves only if what we think is true, in fact, actually is. Other important questions to ask ourselves are: “Does my worth come from being correct?” and “Do I struggle considering different perspectives or views?”
Confirmation bias is real, and we all have it. There's no escaping the narrative that we've adopted. What's important is being mindful. There's value in noticing our automatic thoughts, filtering them through truth, and considering different lenses. Just because we feel a certain way doesn't make it true. Once we can acknowledge that, we're on our way to freedom.
You are amazing! Start living like it!
Kim Anderson is a Licensed Professional Counselor (LPC-MHSP) and a Certified Life Professional Coach (CPLC) who loves helping others live their lives with passion and purpose. She lives with her husband and two teenagers outside of Nashville, in Franklin, Tennessee, where she loves seasons, rolling hills, and the warmth of the South. Follow Kim at www.kimanderson.life, on Instagram @kim_anderson_life, and on Facebook@ KimAndersonLifeCoachingto learn more about what she offers.
