041: Creativity and Cognitive Distortions

Sometimes the thoughts running through our heads aren’t serving us in the way they should be.

In this episode, I’m breaking down the 10 cognitive distortions from David D. Burns’ book, Feeling Good: The New Mood Therapy. I chat about identifying what thoughts are true, what thoughts you like, what thoughts are serving you and which ones might not be based on reality.

You’ll also hear me relate these back to creativity and your experience as a creative to help you better understand these distortions as they come up.

What you’ll find in this episode:

A segment on what I’m currently creating
The 10 cognitive distortions
How these distortions relate to creativity

Read the transcript of the episode below:

 Ep 41 Creativity and Cognitive Distortions

We often hear that our thinking can really affect our feelings and our experiences, but we don't often get into the specifics of just how our thoughts become distorted. This is episode 41 Creativity and Cognitive Distortions.

Welcome to the Committed to create podcast. I'm Lisa Funk and I am so excited to hang out with you here as we talk about the power of creating with our hands and our minds. I like to keep it real, remind you that you are not alone and share specific ways that creativity and mindfulness can help us live even more meaningful and joyful lives.

I am so glad that you're here.

Hello, my friend, and welcome back to the podcast. I'm really glad that you're here and I'm just so grateful for all of the feedback on our last episode, talking about anxiety. Wow. A lot of us have struggled with this, continue to struggle with it, to varying degrees, but it is something that is very relatable.

So last week in the episode, I mentioned that one of the tips is to really take a look at what we are thinking to journal and figure out what is going on in our head. And it can be so helpful to see what thoughts our brain is coming up with and to put them down onto paper. But how can we identify which thoughts are true which thoughts we like, which thoughts are serving us and which thoughts may not be based in reality, or which thoughts might be distorted.

Before I get into these 10 cognitive distortions, I want to have a segment called Currently Creating.

Okay, I just had to use this segment to tell you that last night, I got a copy in my hands of the new volume of Daily Mindful Lettering. It is maybe my favorite thing I've ever made. I don't know. I feel like that with every new book, I just am so thrilled with the final product. It's beautiful. It's meaningful.

And I think that it's going to resonate with every single person listening to this. With everyone who is a part of our community, it is going to be such a great way to bring more peace and calm for us. And it would make such an incredible gift for someone, you know, that may be dealing with stress, anxiety, and major challenges.

So April 21st is the day that it's going to be available. We are working with our printer, who is a local printer, a family owned business that we have worked with for years, from the very beginning of creating these books. And we're working with them to get these printed and ready so that you can order them and they will be available April 21st, which gives you plenty of time to order in time for Mother's Day. Don't forget that any excuse to get a little something for yourself is awesome. You don't need an excuse.

I think that this book is going to be such a blessing to everyone that you should just plan on getting it no matter what, April 21st. If you are not already on our email list, we're going to be sending out all of the info to our email list first.

So you can head over to hand lettered design.com and scroll to the bottom, fill in your email and you will be the first to know when it releases.. So that is super exciting. And what I am currently creating.

Okay. Now we're going to get into the bulk of this episode and it relates to last week's episode and talking about anxiety and stress and how we sometimes have a distorted thinking that can really trip us up.

This is all coming from David Byrne's book called Feeling Good: The New Mood Therapy, and he has been an adjunct clinical professor of psychiatry and behavioral sciences at Stanford School of Medicine, and has served as a visiting scholar at Harvard.

He is such a leader in this space of mental health. And his book is very, uh, I don't know how to say this. His book is awesome, but it is kind of dense. It's kind of a lot to read about all of the science and the techniques that he recommends.

So I am definitely someone who enjoys learning more about mental health, because I have struggled with it so much. And I found a lot of things in this book to be very useful. But the most important, the most useful to me was learning about these 10 cognitive distortions.

So I'm going to go over those today. They can relate to any part of your life. Most of us use these cognitive distortions, or they happen to us, every day, multiple times a day.

And that's fine. The goal isn't to never use any of these 10 distortions or to never allow them to happen. The point is that if we are feeling anxious or feeling depressed or feeling something that we want to take a look at and see what our brain is doing, we can get all of our thoughts out on paper, identify what the thoughts are, and then identify using these 10 cognitive distortions, we can see what's happening a little bit more in detail with our brain and our thoughts.

So today I am going to share what these 10 are, and also give some examples of how they relate to creativity, but I encourage you to relate this to whatever's going on. Think of something that's really challenging for you right now, and try to relate one of these distortions also pay attention to one that you might kind of gravitate toward.

I think most of us probably do all of them at different times, but see if there's one that kind of sticks out where it's like, oh yeah, I do that. I definitely do that. And it's okay. There is no shame in this. This is a tool for us to better understand our brain. All right.

So number one is all or nothing thinking. This is when you see things in black and white categories. So if your performance falls just a little bit short of perfect, you see yourself as a total failure.

I have a funny feeling that we have a lot of perfectionist here or recovering perfectionists who have struggled to not be perfect to not have our work be perfect, what we produce be perfect. And we all know how hard it is to learn a new skill when we're expecting it to be perfect on the very first try.

Can we give ourselves a range? Can we see things on a spectrum instead of black and white? Can we be somewhere in the middle where it doesn't need to be perfect or a failure?

There aren't just those two options. That we can see lots of different options, that we're learning that we're trying and that we don't need to label it that way.

Number two is overgeneralization. So this is when you see a single negative event as a never ending pattern of defeat.

So for example, you try using a brush pen for the first time, this is what happened to me, I tried and using a brush pen and I thought, what is happening? I thought that the pen magically was amazing and automatically was going to make my lettering look like a professional. And I can't believe that it's not working. It's not looking right. I thought that the pen just had failed me, definitely, but I also just couldn't figure this out and that I would never be able to figure out any brush pen. I over generalized that single event to becoming a pattern of defeat that anytime I tried that it was not going to work.

Number three is mental filter. So this is when you pick out a single negative detail and you dwell on it exclusively so that your vision of all reality becomes darkened, like the drop of ink that colors the entire beaker of water.

So this is when something happens and you just expand it. It becomes the way that you see everything. So if you decide I'm not good at painting, I'm not going to be good at anything artistic because I wasn't good at this one thing and I wasn't good at it right away. So that means that I'm going to use that as my filter for seeing the rest of the world and making decisions about my abilities and what I could possibly enjoy.

Number four is disqualifying the positive. So you reject positive experiences by insisting that they don't count for some reason or other. And this way you maintain a negative belief that is contradicted by your everyday experiences.

So think about that. Have you ever done this where you're like, oh my gosh, I am so bad at this. And someone will say, but that, that looks so good. And then you say, well, I know, but that one doesn't count because I was getting some tips from the tutorial and it's like, of course it still counts, but we want to have this belief for some reason, we're holding on to this belief, we want to believe we're bad at it that we're never going to be good. And so if something positive does happen, we discount it and disqualify it right away.

Number five is jumping to conclusions. So you make a negative interpretation, even though there are no definite facts that convincingly support your conclusion. This can include mind reading, which we've talked about this before, where we kind of arbitrarily conclude that someone is reacting negatively to us and that we don't bother to actually figure out if they are.

And I'm not saying that we should try to figure out if people don't like us, but without even asking, without having any real evidence for it, we just jumped to conclusions and believe that somehow we can read people's minds.

Another way that we jumped to conclusions is what he calls in the book, the fortune teller error, where you anticipate that things will turn out badly and you have convinced yourself that this prediction is an already established fact.

Like, there is no way that I am going to be good at this. Like, I've decided, it's as good as done. And you just anticipate that it's going to turn out badly and it feels like a fact.

Number six is magnification or catastrophizing, or minimization. So this is where you exaggerate the importance of things such as your goof up or someone else's achievement, or you inappropriately shrink things until they appeared tiny, your own desirable qualities or the other person's imperfections. This is also called the binocular trick.

So you can think about how we do this all of the time. Someone else might have some type of success that you can see and you blow that up to be the most important thing. And it's such a big deal and it's way better than anything you've ever done. And then when you think about what you've accomplished, you shrink it, you bring it way down. And it is not reality. It's not realistic to compare in that way, where you're really maximizing and then minimizing by choice.

And so anytime you notice yourself kind of maximizing or kind of going to worst case with the catastrophizing, just recognize that that is a cognitive distortion.

Number seven is emotional reasoning. I can definitely relate to this one.

I am very connected to my emotions and that is okay. There's nothing wrong with it, but it says, you assume that your negative emotions necessarily reflect the way things really are. So if you feel it, that it must be true. So if you feel like people hate you, they must hate you. Or if you feel like you did a terrible job, that must be true, even though you don't have any facts to back that up, it feels true. And so, you kind of base your reality on that, even if it's not.

Number eight is should statements. You try to motivate yourself with shoulds and shouldn'ts as if you had to be whipped and punished before you could be expected to do anything. Musts and odds are also offenders. The emotional consequence is guilt. When you direct should statements toward others, you feel anger, frustration and resentment.

Oh my goodness. I have tried to seriously delete the word "should" from my vocabulary as well as the words "should not," or "shouldn't", because it is a way for us to hold ourselves to some standard, to create some rules that we think are just set in stone that are the rules of the universe that we have to follow, or else we're going to be in trouble or else we're a bad person.

Like what is it that we believe is going to happen? Or what are our reasons for believing that we should do all of those things? Ask yourself why. When you hear yourself saying that in your brain or to someone else, when you say, well, I should do that. Why? And you often will find that it's in order to feel like you're a good person or that you're worthy or enough.

And I'm not saying that it is never true, what you're getting at. So like, if I say I should help, I'm not saying that I'm not going to help or that I don't want to help, but it is so much more powerful for me when I replace the word should with "want" or even "could." Like I could go help instead of I should, I should do that.

It just doesn't really motivate me or inspire me to take action from a really pure place. It is often fueled by this desire to, you know, like I said, be enough or come across as a good person or fulfill some obligation that I don't even know where that obligation came from. So that is another one to definitely look out for.

We talk about it a lot here and I, I really want to challenge you to delete the word should see what happens. See if there's a time when you see that, no, I actually think it's benefiting me in this scenario. Send me a message. I want to know. I'm open to being wrong about pretty much anything. So. I just know that for me and my life, it has greatly improved my mental health by deleting that word from my vocabulary.

Number nine is labeling and mislabeling. So this is an extreme form of overgeneralization, instead of describing your error, you attach a negative label to yourself. So instead of just talking about what you did or didn't, do you turn that into a label of who you are.

So instead of saying, oh yeah, when I did that, this happened, you say: I'm a loser. When you're not necessarily getting the brush strokes down right away when you try lettering, you say I'm just not a creative. Or, we can also do this to other people. So when someone else's behavior rubs you the wrong way, you can often attach a negative label to that person by saying they're a jerk or fill in the blank, whatever label that we might put on someone else that puts them into a box that isn't just describing behavior, but is labeling the person.

I'm going to say that in general, I struggle with labeling myself more than anyone else. Most of my negative thinking and cognitive distortions are directed at myself, and that's some inner work to do, you know? And it's really good to start being aware of that and seeing like, am I calling myself a moron?

Am I saying, you know, what am I saying? Like, oh, I'm such an idiot. Like, let's stop labeling, let's stop name calling with ourselves. I just think it's not helpful.

And so that's something I've also really tried to change because in the past, when I was being mean to myself in my head, I would often say, oh my gosh, why did I do that? I'm such an idiot. I don't want my kids to ever say that about themselves. I don't want them to say that to anyone. To each other. Why would I ever say that about myself? We treat ourselves so much worse than we would ever allow someone else to treat us or like our children to treat, you know, each other or themselves.

All right. Number 10 is personalization. You see yourself as the cause of some negative external event which in fact you were not primarily responsible for. So this can be any number of things where you somehow want to take responsibility for what happened, even though you had nothing to do with it.

I see this a lot in myself with apologizing. I find myself apologizing for everything. I really tried to work on this, but it's something that I still find myself doing. It will be the most random thing. Someone will tell me, oh my gosh, I stubbed my toe and I'm like, oh, I'm sorry.

And it's one thing to say, I'm sorry that happened to you. Like, that stinks. But it's this other weird thing when we somehow feel responsible that, oh, well maybe if I would have moved that stuff in front of you, or I should have known that that was going to happen and I could have helped you walk the other way. Like we really personalize everything  and believe that these negative things that are happening to those around us or external events that happen are somehow our fault, even though it makes no sense that it would be.

You know, we may believe like, oh, my kids are never going to be good at anything because I'm not. And we just make everything personalized and our fault.

So this is a long list and it's not necessarily a list that you will want to like carry around with you. But I think that just talking through these things is really helpful because these are different ways that our brain distorts our thinking. They're not necessarily true facts when we want to label ourselves when we want to think that we're a failure because we fell a little bit short of perfect, or when we have one negative thing happened, and that becomes our filter for how we see everything.

Just start to pay attention. And it can be helpful in that process of going through and trying to address our anxiety or our negative feelings when we journal and write down all of the thoughts in our heads. We can just start paying attention and saying, oh my gosh, there was some labels. There's some "should" statements. There's some emotional reasoning where I'm really just completely relying on emotions and not any external facts. You can see where you're magnifying things.

You can see where you're doing a lot of mind reading, assuming that you know what other people are thinking and feeling. Where we're doing the fortune telling where we anticipate that we know exactly how terrible everything's going to turn out. We're just sure of it. And also when we disqualify the positive.

You might just start paying attention. The more that you're aware of these things you might say, huh? So funny how my brain wants to discount the fact that I actually did create something beautiful.

Or your brain might want to discount the fact that you enjoyed doing the creative thing. Even if you weren't good at it, your brain might say, well, that's not good enough. It doesn't count for anything. If I enjoyed it, it needs to also look like an expert. Did it? You all know me, I'm here to tell you that it's okay to do things that you're bad at. It's okay to enjoy things, even if you're not good at them. And it's possible to.

So this is a list that's been really helpful for me. I'm going to have it in the show notes so that you can refer back to it. Again, it comes from David Byrne's book called Feeling Good, and he also has another book called When Panic Attacks. And maybe in another episode, I will share some of the highlights from that book as well. They are, you know, written by a doctor by a psychiatrist. And you know, it's not necessarily a light read always, but there's a lot of good info in there.

So today was focusing on kind of identifying some distortions in our thinking. There are so many ways to address our thinking and to, choose the intentional thoughts. And that's what we do with mindful lettering.

It's choosing what we want to be thinking about. It's putting the address and the GPS where we want to go and paying attention to make sure that that's where we're going.

I hope that this helps you. I just want you to know that no matter what you're going through, I am here for you. I do not have this all figured out. I still struggle. I still go through this stuff. You are not alone. I can guarantee you that we have so many incredible people here in our community who are awesome and they still struggle. It's not a measure of how amazing you are or if you're a good person or if you're smart or capable. There are so many reasons why it is tricky with mental health.

So I just want you to know you're not alone and I'm glad that you're here. So thank you for being here. Thank you for all of your reviews on the podcast. And I look forward to talking to you again next week.

Links:

Daily Mindful Lettering
Feeling Good: The New Mood Therapy
When Panic Attacks: The New, Drug-Free Anxiety Therapy That Can Change Your Life

Ready for a fun activity to feel less stress? Come get our FREE Guide - 5 Creative Steps to Less Stress & More Joy while it's still available: http://CommittedtoCreate.com/lessstress

I hope that my podcast has left you feeling inspired and excited to create the life that you want. If you’ve enjoyed listening to this podcast, I’d love for you to subscribe so you can continue to hear more. Want to get to know me better? Connect with me on my website or on Instagram to keep up with everything that is going on with me and my business.

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Jennifer L. IN LOVE!! What a perfect idea! I am a plant mama too, like Lisa. I also manage a great deal of anxiety. I got into lettering a couple years ago as a creative outlet and discovered a multitude of treasures in the lettering community! This book that Lisa created with her daughter is just perfection! It's all the feels for me! Thank you both!!!
Cinthanie C. EXCELLENT BOOK! I really enjoy taking a minute each day to slow down and apply my hand to something that is not only emotionally supportive but relaxing and fun to do!! The mantras for everyday are very helpful for me. Thank you for your work and bringing such a high quality product into my life!

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041: Creativity and Cognitive Distortions

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