Cognitive Distortions are the Enemy of Self Love

Written by Natalie Scivally

The quality of my current life is somewhat of a miracle; especially if you were to ask my younger self. That girl was up to her ears in a grimy ocean of social anxiety, fear of failure, and dissociation. In a mix like that, it is quite a struggle to see a way out. 

Obviously, the way to keep life functioning would be to keep her head above the murky waves and “just keep going”. If she could just pump her legs and swing her arms, she’d be swimming with her face in the clear air. Her mouth would pull nourishing air into her lungs and her eyes would drink in the brilliance of the sun colliding with the horizon. 

Unfortunately, that only lasts so long. At some point she would tire and once again sink below the liquid filth; this time with the added weight of defeat. The sun looks close, but it remains unreachable, no matter how long you can just keep going.

My point here is that I used to be very stuck and attempting to escape my struggle seemed hopeless. I’m now inclined to believe that my disordered mental state was largely a matter of malleable distortion and not an inherent characteristic of the brain I was born with. That metaphorical ocean of grime wasn’t my natural habitat, it was a misguided design.

*Note: I cannot claim that the ideas I share in this story are applicable to every human being. The complexity of the human experience is too diverse. My words are meant to serve as a case study of a sort and a gentle push toward a route to mental relief that you may not be aware of.

The Theory

Once I identified the possibility that my perception was distorted (it’s a difficult thing to come to terms with), I began reframing the way I was narrating my life, a technique I got from Cognitive Behavioral Therapy.

Cognitive behavioral therapy is an approach to therapy used to treat a variety of psychiatric disorders: depression, anxiety, PTSD, eating disorders, substance abuse…etc.. It was developed by a man named Aaron Beck in 1960. The theory was built upon Becks’ study of depression and has since been adapted to treat a host of other disorders.

The idea in very simple terms is that our mental states are created by our cognition (by our thoughts). The way we feel is shaped by the way we think. When I compared myself to my peers and labeled myself as “awkward”, my body responded to my mind and I began to feel awkward. When I punished myself with insults after procrastinating an important task, my body responded to my mind and I felt like a failure. 

Speaking broadly, our moods aren’t necessarily created by our external environment. They are created by our internal interaction with our external environment. The way we interpret the world matters.

The Practice

My life has seemingly always had the potential to be fulfilling. I grew up in a nice area with loving parents and a good head on my shoulders, yet I felt that it was wasted on me. I just couldn’t shake the fears that bogged me down. I lived miserable and isolated wondering why I couldn’t live up to the life I was handed.

As it turns out, I could live up to it. Life was mine to enjoy if I could just heal my distorted perception. 

The most difficult part was identifying the distortions. It’s not easy to see the facade in perceptions that feel so real. Hope very quickly became my strategy. I picked out the beliefs that I hoped could be different and started with that. I hoped I was wrong about being unlikable and boring. I hoped I was wrong about being too lazy to work hard for the skills I wanted to learn. I hoped I was wrong about being too slow to keep up with clever humor. 

The next step was to the patterns in the way I thought about those beliefs. What kinds of thoughts was I thinking when I interacted with other people? I was going into conversations with the assumption that I had nothing interesting to say and that even if I did I wouldn’t know how to say it. What thoughts was I thinking when I planned to learn a new skill? I was starting the learning process with the assumption that I would get burnt out and quit soon after I began. What thoughts was I thinking when other people found humor in something I didn’t? I assumed that I was too slow to understand. 

My pattern of thinking was to assume I was incapable and incompetent. It was my way of processing my environment and my role within it, but it was by no means the only way I could view it.

I started small. I chose a few small “risks” (steps outside of my safe comfort zone) and a few affirmations and began my experiment. 

The Results

The “risks” I took were steps into areas I was afraid of: social interaction, challenging tasks…etc. And the affirmations I began to repeat to myself were meant to foster self compassion.

The format of my distortion dissolving was taking small steps outside of comfort and practicing self compassion in the face of the inevitable discomfort. As I went out of my way to talk to people, took on jobs that required a lot of me, pursued a college degree, and all of the other little risks, I practiced my new compassionate way of framing myself:

“Okay girly, that conversation was a rough one. There was some faltering, but you held it together. I’m gonna count that as a triumph.” 

“Alright this was not your best day, hun. You put off a lot of important things and got sucked into that social media garbage hole for an alarming amount of time. It’s all good. It happens. Let’s shake it off, do a little homework, and call it a day.”

“Yep, that joke went over your head but don’t you worry about it. Humor isn’t universal.”

The change wasn’t immediate, progress rarely is, but the distortions that colored my view in despair and isolation began to melt away. I started to feel less anxiety and a little glimmer of confidence seeped into my bummy attitude. And I felt more joy.

This practice of reframing how you talk about the world around opens the door to self love. Try it out. Let a little self compassion into your life and watch what happens.