Episode Transcript
Speaker 1 00:00:07 Welcome to Village Church Mental Health. Today we're gonna be continuing our conversation on cognitive distortions, talking about jumping to conclusions and the most common one of catastrophizing. So let's jump in again. Our first one is jumping to conclusions. And this falls underneath the category of intuition. And so intuition, cognitive distortions are generally people who feel and and think from their gut, right? They have this sense and honestly, most of the times they have a strong sense of discernment and they have a lot of intuitive parts to them. The cognitive distortions come to play because their intuition is something they've learned to trust. But because we are all sinful and because we are all affected by the sin in the world around us, even that intuition that we've learned to trust can oftentimes lie to us and get us in a place of deception because we cannot see through the deception.
Speaker 1 00:01:13 In jumping to conclusions, there are two types, but what both of them have in common is this. They both jump to conclusions without information, making assumptions that are not based on evidence. In both of these, someone's brain is all hot and spicy. They're rearing, it's the brain is working too fast, and it's oftentimes working from a place of rejection trying to fulfill, to self fulfill this narrative that they live in, that they believe is true, that something's about to come, that is gonna make them feel rejected. So if they can just jump to that conclusion, it can get the whole show done and over with and make them feel more settled, even if that's being settled in a lie. And so the first subtype is mind reading. I know, I know what you're thinking. I know why you're on your phone. You think I'm not interesting enough.
Speaker 1 00:02:13 I would say that most of the time this subtype starts off with those words. I know my internal dialogue when I hear people talk about this often is long lines of like, Oh, so the Holy Spirit took a vacation today and he put you in charge of knowing, you know, the knowing, right? No, he never takes a day off and he never gives you that entirely, not apart from sin, gift of knowing. So we, even if there are, are many times when you're able to discern a situation and understand what is going on, even that is subject to deception. So you think you know what the other person is thinking, The assumptions are based on reasons or intentions, and you accept this in your perspective as the only valid thought process you go off of with little evidence. And in reality, there might be many possibilities as to what could be going on, but you will not acknowledge them.
Speaker 1 00:03:16 Cuz you know the second subtype is called negative forecasting. This is one of my favorite ones, and I'm not gonna lie, I do wish we lived in a world where we could just listen to people and sometimes be like, Oh, that's negative forecasting. And we can use this common language, not in a way to squish or belittle people, but to call to the forefront, Oh, I am, I'm negative forecasting and it looks like this. Well, that's now gonna work. They make conclusions and predictions about something in the future based on little or no evidence. It's generally pretty arbitrary. It's always negative and it's always spinning something that is going to be negative. Not working, negative forecasting, no, no presence of hope into how a situation could go. And this is what this looks like. Lots of interrupting, lots of talking over other people, lots of sarcasm, lots of debating, lots of cutting someone off at least in their mind and tuning out because you already jumped. You already know the end of the story, right? Like, so why do I even need this other person in a relationship or to tell me what they're thinking? I can jump to the conclusions cuz I know I don't actually need the other person here.
Speaker 1 00:04:38 And it lives like you need to have all the pieces to the puzzle. You get anxious when you're waiting for a gap to be filled in. So you grab the nearest thing to shove it into the puzzle and make it work. Doesn't have to fit, doesn't have to be right. You don't have to have evidence to that. And by and large people who are jumping to conclusions are impatient. You want to know the end of the story and you don't wait. Well, you're too nervous to get it over with having a sense that rejection is lurking, that you kind of call rejection into this moment and make it a self-fulfilling prophecy so it can just be felt and done and in your control and wrapped up with a bow.
Speaker 1 00:05:25 But what this leads to is that you're missing what someone is actually thinking and feeling. You're missing the connection that can happen in a relational, interpersonal dynamic. You're missing connecting with that person and empathizing for where they are at in their story and checking in with them. This disconnects you interpersonally because it makes you not a safe place to start a feeling because then it's always gonna be jumped to a different conclusion. It also creates a rut in your brain where your ba brain bathes in the feelings of lies and rejection, often in this context of relationships, but sometimes in the context of identity also. And when you invite lies into a relationship, they always move in. They always take up more space and they always stay way longer than you invited for them to be able to come and they stifle beautiful things that could be happening.
Speaker 1 00:06:24 I believe the scripture speaks to this very directly in Proverbs 15 eight, we are told that a hot tempered man stirs up strife, but he who is patient or slow to anger in some versions quiets contention because you see it as patience that it takes to not fill in the gaps, to not jump to conclusions. And that quiets any contention that could possibly come from that dynamic, whether that is in someone's internal dialogue or whether that is in their external relational dialogue. This hot and spicy mind who just wants to have all the puzzle pieces, the answer is patience to be able to quiet what's going on, to be able to calm and to cool that down. Romans 12, two says to be transformed by the renewing of your mind. And I believe that this renewing process is so much of what gives us the opportunity to be able to press pause on jumping to conclusions and to be able to turn around and regain the ground both internally and externally.
Speaker 1 00:07:32 That jumping to conclusions has caused us to lose, to be able to go back and to say, Alright, actually I don't know any of that is true. So I'm gonna take a step back maybe 40 miles back depending on the relationship and depending on the idea. And I'm gonna have patience to be able to understand what is actually going on here. I'm gonna be involved as slow as it is in this process to understand what is truly part of this puzzle. And so I believe the gospel opportunity is just that patience. It's checking in with people. We get to ask people how they feel, what they're thinking, and we get to change our assumptions and our conclusions and are jumping with the information that they give us. And we put ourselves in positions where we choose to trust other people that instead of this loud puzzle piece that seems to make sense and go along with our narrative, that we could just slap right in there. We're gonna choose to trust other people when they give us a piece of information that is different, even if it feels like we are shutting down something that feels so true because remember cognitive distortions, they are inaccurate and they try to speak lies that I meant for our destruction.
Speaker 1 00:08:55 We can communicate with others directly. We can consider the odds and different approaches to our conclusions and we can look at the evidence that is against our negative thoughts. So if I were to reframe this, it looks like this, Oh, I can check in with this person and try to understand what's been going on in their story or I'm not sure how this is gonna turn out, but I'm excited to wait and see One of my all time favorite missionaries, reading her biographies, she's a writer and she writes a book of poetry called If It's, and that is by Amy Carmichael. And this little book of poetry is hard to find, but it also is I would say one of the most transformational pieces of literature that I've ever read. And she has pages and pages of poems. She stayed up writing one night and they all start with, If I do this, then I know nothing of the calvary love.
Speaker 1 00:09:55 And what she's talking about there is the power of the gospel. I don't, I must not know the power of the gospel if I continue to do these things. And one of the things she says is, if I do not give a friend the benefit of the doubt, but put the worst construction instead of the best on what is said or done, then I know nothing of Calvary love. And I believe that is the power of the gospel working both in our internal dialogue and our relationships to be able to bring patience, to be able to bring positive assumptions and grace into what is going on, keeping us from jumping to conclusions. So let's move on to the cognitive distortion of catastrophizing. Catastrophizing again falls in this other category of cognitive distortions of selective focus, which means we tend to just narrow in and kind of obsess over one thing.
Speaker 1 00:10:53 This is what it looks like If I don't recover quickly from this procedure, I will never get better and I will be disabled my whole life. It's ruminating about worst case scenario outcomes. There's games and there's memes and there's so many things that have been created because this is such a common tendency of people to be excellently skilled at catastrophizing situations. This is gonna be awful. You begin to consistently expect the worst. In fact, you even, you even plan for the worst. You even carry things in a bag ready to attend because you know that this could be the worst because so much of your mind has been spent in the what ifs. It misses out on reality. You also think that these rough situations are gonna go on forever. There is no end to them. This is often an exaggerated perspective. It's kind of like chicken little when the sky is falling, right?
Speaker 1 00:11:54 Like yes, there's something going on, but the catastrophizing is making it into the end all be all. Their emotive response does not match the threat or the timeline of what's going on. And so people who are catastrophizing oftentimes in their lives, it gets ex, it gets exhausting honestly to be in relationship with them because it's one thing after another. And although you can see they're not trying to necessarily add drama for the sake of drama to a situation, what you begin to see is that their perception of the world around them is so much inflated and over exaggerated from what it is. It's very hard to live in that they doubt their own and others' abilities to be able to be capable to handle things. They have a very low sense of capability. Again, the magnitude is distorted in a negative way and they are magnifying thoughts and situations that are so blown way out of fruit portion from reality.
Speaker 1 00:12:49 But this is what they feel. So it lives like this. And this is a quote from positive psychology.com and I just thought it was too good. I just wanted to read the way it was. Catastrophizing is not pleasant as it evolves extensive and irrational worry over what might happen in the future. Sometimes individuals catastrophize in a way of protecting themselves from getting hurt. For example, Catastrophizers make consciously or unconsciously believe that only expecting the absolute worst will equal less hurt or disappointment if they don't go wrong. However, like seeing a glass as half empty, the catastrophizers viewpoint is pessimistic. I love this next part and uninspiring because this type of negativistic thinking reduces a person's likelihood of taking reasonable and important risks like looking for a new job, traveling to new places, making commitment to something. The ultimate outcome of catastrophizing is to shield one's self from some of life's most important, meaningful and joyous experiences.
Speaker 1 00:14:09 So while we does serve an adaptive function, it oftentimes prepares us right from danger. Catastrophizing operates on a whole nother level since catastrophizing involves ruminating right about terrible things that have happened with a low probability of happening in the future. Such worrying is wasting negative energy and erodes are emotional wellbeing. So let's talk about what this leads to. It leads to panic. I believe in my whole heart that this is the genesis of so many different panic disorders. It also leads to preventing people from taking action in a situation where action is required. A study in 2016 found that it supported that this cognitive distortion of catastrophizing supports the relationship bet with anxiety disorders, short term and long term depressive affect and increased pain and debilitation among those suffering from pain related conditions. I believe that it's real and greatest danger is that it steals us though from the here and the now.
Speaker 1 00:15:23 People who could chast as they live in the what if they live in the future and not with hope, not with expectation, but in the what ifs and it steals them away from being present with the people around them. Their thoughts attempt to carry them away in a land that is full of no magic and it is only full of the skewed imagination and darkness. It brings them and their brain right to feel feelings and to have chemical impulses and chemical reactions, the things that are actually not reality. But again, as I've said many times, and I'll say probably many times before, our brains can only know what to feel by what they well by what we tell them to feel. So if our creative imaginations are creating all these what if worst case scenarios, that's all they know how to react to. They even think that that's going on and are sending them on these constant spirals of brain chemicals and emotions that are not reality.
Speaker 1 00:16:30 We miss the beauty of where the Lord has chosen to equip us because although it says that he is the same yesterday, today and forever, it is in our present moment that he is to equip us. We are told do not worry about tomorrow because today has enough. And this comes all after this whole conversation that we are to seek first the kingdom of God because that is what actually quells our worries. By and large, this leads to zapping us from the strength that we have for this present moment by living in the future. So when we talk about scripture, I wanna talk about a few that I feel like really speak beautifully to this cognitive distortion. Philippians four, four says, Rejoice in the Lord always. Again, I will say rejoice, Psalms 73 28 says, But as for me, the nearness of God is my good.
Speaker 1 00:17:31 I have made the Lord God my refuge that I may tell of all of your works. And so I believe that the answer to catastrophizing is to be present and to rejoice and to ground ourselves in this present moment, rejoicing in what is, even if it's not our favorite, but keeping our mind and collecting it back from the future to this present moment. Even if this present moment is a hot mess, we can do this because we know that God is saying that he is with us, that he is near to us, that he is providing this refuge for us, not in the future, although he will show up then also. But the refuge is available for our mind here now. And this changes everything of auto responses. Collections one 17 is one of my all time favorite verses. And it says He is before all things and he holds all things together.
Speaker 1 00:18:32 It's not our job. He's already there. He's already before all of the things. And it is his job to hold all the things together. Our job, our response, the opposite of this cognitive distortion is to be present in rejoicing, taking refuge of him and telling others about what he's doing in this present moment. So that is our gospel opportunity is to be present and to rejoice present in the here now de catastrophizing, right? Taking our thoughts and our imagination and our energy back from the future and putting it into this moment. I'll be honest, I was tempted to say that the gospel opportunity for this is hope as we look for the future. But the longer I sat on it, the more I was really convicted that that is also just giving more. Yes, we are to look into the future with hope, but that's still putting our mind into the future in stealing it from being present in the now.
Speaker 1 00:19:38 So it's retraining our imaginations to bring them here, retraining our eyes to be able to rejoice. And it is stopping this forward momentum and this spotlight that is stealing so much of our energy to bring it to what we have now and to be watching God work all around us, telling about what he is doing because we are present and we are watching and we're able to seal these memories. Because you see, when we are in a state of survival and when we're looking to the future and we're trying to figure things out all the time, our memory doesn't seal things in, doesn't remember the way that it's supposed to be. It just chemically can't. And so by even doing this, the testimony of what we're building and watching God is completely different by being president. So what it looks like in this is reframing.
Speaker 1 00:20:30 I'm recovering on a timeframe that my doctors are pleased with. I will watch God work in all of the details and I will rejoice in him as I walk this road of healing. I hope that this has been helpful for you to enter into this dialogue and conversation on the cognitive distortions of jumping to conclusions and catastrophizing. I think you will see as we've been talking about that these are common ways. These are common things that people see all the time in their processes of their thinking. And I hope that again, you will choose to be able to be patient and to be able to be present instead of running, to jump to conclusions and to make much out of situations in the what ifs. Until next time, press on.
