Identify Your Lies
Exercises to help you choose the truth
On the list of favorite books I recommend to clients, Feeling Good: The New Mood Therapy by Dr. David Burns is at the top. (It’s long but worth it!)
Dr. Burns reveals some of the terrible untruths we tell ourselves every day for no good reason. These lies beat us down. They don’t let up. And they’re a bad bad habit we need to break.
Here’s the hopeful part. If we learn to listen for and recognize how unfair this false inner voice can be, we can hush it. And we can learn to perceive life more realistically. I’m not talking about squelching our conscience; we need that to tell us right from wrong, and so we can live healthy, compassionate, values-driven lives.
The voice I’m addressing is the one that says, “I’m a PIG.” instead of, “I overdid it on the birthday cake today.” That one.
Of the ten (10!) ways Dr. Burns says we lie to ourselves — he calls them cognitive distortions — “Overgeneralization” gets me the most. That’s when we conclude that an unpleasant thing that’s happened once or twice is bound to happen over and over again. Suddenly there’s no doubt we’ve fallen into a never-ending pattern of defeat.
Examples:
- I burn the garlic bread, then announce to family and the world, “That’s it…
