good morning internet today i'm coming to you from my front yard herb garden which has been overtaken
by my ginormous rosemary bush and some leeks that i planted like four years ago
so um yeah welcome to 2020 where every video is filmed in like
some random location in my yard today we're going to be talking about mental filtering which is why
you may only notice the bad things going on in your life
g-a-r-r-i-s-s-o-n that is not how to spell garrison i'm gonna remember this word forever
because it's the word that i missed in the seventh grade spelling bee i took
second place in that prestigious event but only because i added an extra s to garrison
do you do that do you hyper focus on the one thing that went wrong that one little
mistake or that one mean comment on social media instead of the hundreds of things that go right
or the hundreds of nice people out there who are putting positive things on my youtube comments
this is called mental filtering it's a cognitive distortion and it can make you anxious
or depressed so mental filtering is this thought distortion where we only see one
aspect of a situation usually the negative side of it when it comes to anxiety or depression
so you may focus on the negative and disregard or filter out all of the positive
it might look like picking out a single negative detail and just hyper focusing on this instead of
all the other things that are going on so mental filtering sounds like no one is going to like me
or i can never do anything right or the world is a terrible place and it's getting worse every day
or for example like if you have a good day at work um but then the restaurant messes up your
take out then your whole day is ruined you obsess about the one question you got wrong on a test i
can still remember a review i had at work it was probably like 10 years ago where i got a piece
of feedback that i needed to manage my stress levels better now i'm sure that my boss had a
half dozen nice things to say but i don't remember any of them that is mental filtering the news is
a great example of mental filtering it mostly pays attention to the scary stories like murder hornets
and it really just disregards most of the positive things that are going on mental filtering can help
you fall out of love with your spouse when you only notice the bad things that they do
with mental filtering we disregard we minimize we brush aside anything that doesn't fit our
narrative but because of the sneaky nature of cognitive distortions we probably aren't going to
notice that we're doing it and that's because our perception creates our reality on my video about
the cognitive distortion catastrophizing i get a lot of comments like but catastrophizing is true
when life is always terrible or people say well no i'm not catastrophizing everything really is awful
i'm not imagining it excuse me that is a cognitive distortion your thoughts are lying to you
do you have hot running water do you have refrigeration do you have electric lights are you
watching this video on the internet do you have the ability to read if the answer is yes to any
of these questions then you have more luxury than kings and peasants for the last 99.9 of people
in the history of the earth now that is not to say that life isn't difficult i'm sure that for
many of you life is incredibly painful and and difficult things are happening and have
happened to you but everything isn't awful right acknowledging and being honest with your thoughts
and your emotions is not the same as only sitting with the crappy ones so seeing things
clearly requires us to see both sides the the painful the crappy the difficult things
and also the positives so the global pandemic and social distancing really are difficult
they're painful and if you're watching this you also have access to the internet which is pretty
miraculous if you look at the big picture history of the world one of the reasons that i love to
read archaeology is because it really broadens my perspective it helps me appreciate the positive
things that are happening in my life even when it feels like the world is falling apart a little bit
so if you can't see anything positive then your thoughts are lying to you mental filtering makes
us more anxious but anxiety also makes us mental filter more because anxiety attunes
our brain to threats it makes it so that we're more likely to notice the bad that is happening
mental filtering can also make us more depressed when we only notice the bad life is depressing
but when we feel crappy when we feel depressed we're more likely to mental filter
now even though mental filtering can cause depression and depression can cause mental
filtering we still have room for choice in our life we can take intentional action to change
how we think but first we have to realize why we're hanging on to the lies what the distorted
reality is doing for us so mental filtering serves a dysfunctional function let me give
you an example so when a situation is actually dangerous like for example an abusive spouse
it can be helpful to forget any sweet moments with him or her to give you the courage to leave
so this is functional anxiety right anxiety is supposed to help motivate us to leave dangerous
situations and in that situation mental filtering might help us forget the positive things so that
we are firm enough in our decision to leave that dangerous situation but when we have disordered
anxiety the world feels dangerous when it's actually safe our anxious or our depressed view
is exaggerated and this can make us sick so when i only notice the bad things on my performance
review suddenly my boss feels threatening and dangerous when he's really just trying to help
me improve now my boss actually was trying to help me improve he was a good-hearted man
one of the difficulties of working with thoughts is trying to figure out which ones are helpful and
which ones are true and which ones aren't so some bosses actually are quite threatening and you're
better off changing your employment if you can but in other situations you're better off changing how
you think and how you see the world but it's just important that we try to do this with as clear of
a head as possible so i mean get good at noticing your thoughts and challenging your thoughts
you don't have to believe everything that you think and then after you've noticed them
you can choose which ones are most helpful for your life purpose and to do this we really have
to realize why mental filtering with all of its downsides actually feels good in the short term
so let me give you a couple of examples of when mental filtering feels good in the short term
so let's say you start to notice all the annoying and frustrating things that your boss does
so have you ever just reveled in a conversation with a co-worker where you're like oh my gosh
i hate him he's so terrible i mean i i have i wish i could say that i hadn't but i have and it feels
good to to talk about all the bad things that your boss is doing and completely disregard
all the positive things that your boss is doing because this can justify you in you know excusing
you from working hard or trying hard mental filtering justifies us in hating our boss and
excusing ourselves from not working hard or on the other hand mental filtering might only select and
highlight our own mistakes and flaws convincing ourselves that we are bad and that we are
incurably broken thus justifying ourselves and not trying hard that can also feel good to wallow in
your own brokenness see how terrible of a person that i am well there's nothing i can do about it
because i'm just that bad right most of the time we think of mental filtering as only seeing the
bad because that's when it's associated with anxiety and depression but mental filtering can
go both ways when we tend to only see the bad in the world or in ourselves we tend to be anxious
or depressed or self-loathing but mental filtering can go the opposite way too
so for example a narcissist may only see the good in herself putting others down to lift
herself up mental filtering can make us depressed or anxious but the big lie is it makes us think
that that's how reality is instead of it being our perception and that excuses us in staying there
mental filtering creates divides it makes us see the only the best in our political candidate and
only the worst in the other candidate the other side becomes a terrible horrible anti-patriotic
you know group of people and our own side's flaws are minimized or pushed aside or ignored and this
feels good to be on the right team but in the long run it makes things worse mental filtering feels
so good but only for a short while and then it can make you depressed and anxious in the long run
so how can we change we can all combat mental filtering through a conscious practice is the
glass half full or half empty well actually it's neither it's half full of water and it's half full
of air we can choose to combat mental filtering by slowing down and trying to see both sides of
situations this is a skill of attention it's about where you put your focus we can combat mental
filtering not only by thinking of the positive but by being intentional instead of reactionary
or emotional so first it's important to start noticing when you're doing it so what does it
look like when you are mental filtering and then try to see what function it serves for you
and then take a deep breath slow down try to put yourself in a place that feels safe or calm
and when you've calmed yourself down just a little bit you've gotten a little bit of perspective
then you can start to counteract that mental filter by expanding your perspective so here's
a few ways that you can do that the first and for me the easiest way is to bring to mind gratitude
another thing that's important is to let yourself sit with a compliment i think a
lot of people just brush compliments off very quickly but they hold on tightly to criticism so
give yourself credit for the good that you do and if someone compliments you say thank you and try
to take it in make a daily habit of seeing the good that you do don't just suppress your wins
so many people with depression or anxiety they don't notice the positive things that they do
i use a daily journal template to write down three of my wins each day and also to write down one to
two things i'd like to improve tomorrow and these wins don't have to be huge massive accomplishments
they can be things as simple as you know getting out of bed and taking a shower just acknowledging
that you were able to accomplish a couple things can help reinforce uh that dopamine in your brain
that motivation and also combat that mental filter where you only notice you know the things you
aren't doing another thing that can help is to look around you and see if you can find someone
who seems to see the world clearly this could be a friend a therapist or a parent and just consider
including their perspective into how you decide to see the world also i really encourage you to
choose media sources that don't use extremes that don't use emotional reasoning or labeling people
or only telling one side of the story um and then you know also just try countering these automatic
negative thoughts that pop up try countering them with a positive thought another thing that's
helpful is to you know practice training yourself to intentionally look to understand both sides of
a story and to see other people as multi-faceted human beings instead of labels and all or nothing
so for example i recently read a book about a man who cheated on his wife and it was from his
perspective and it helped me uh gain a little bit more understanding of how someone could get
into that situation now that's not to say that that behavior oh gosh my sprinklers just came on
okay that was fun um
i'm gonna go over here by the trash cans because that's the last place in my yard that seems safe
oh man okay so i was talking about this guy who cheated on his wife
and i'm not trying to excuse his behavior but understanding his perspective
helped me be a little more empathetic and you know in this instance he had been through some trauma
and he had developed a sexual addiction as a way to cope with that trauma
um again no excuses but help me understand him as a multifaceted human being okay where am i gonna
finish this we'll just sit in the corner by the fence and hopefully the sprinklers don't get me
okay um okay a couple last tips right look for ways to take a bigger perspective look at
how this one instance in your life like you know the restaurant ruining your take out or whatever
look at how this fits into the big scheme of things is this going to matter in a year is this
going to matter in five years and if not you know don't sweat the small stuff another thing that's
helpful is you know taking a bigger perspective is look at others lives around the world so when
i was a teenager i lived in Russia and i lived in the west bank and later on i lived in Argentina
and living in these different countries helped me gain a different perspective on my relative
prosperity and you know reading about history and reading about the lives of other people throughout
the world can help broaden your perspective on your own situation when you change the way you
look at things the things you look at change so you really can change your perception of reality
you can change how you experience the world by changing how you see the world so don't let
mental filtering control you you can choose which thoughts you're going to listen to and which ones
you're going to disregard i hope you found this video helpful thank you for watching and take care