today we're going to be talking about faulty beliefs and assumptions you might
have about yourself and the world and how these subconscious beliefs
might be causing feelings of depression and hopelessness
hi everyone we all tend to hold various beliefs and assumptions about ourselves
other people and the world more generally these underlying beliefs and assumptions
serve as a bit of mental shorthand to help us organize and understand the world and the thing is
we may not fully be aware of some of the subconscious beliefs and assumptions
that we actually hold now for the most part this isn't a problem but when a person is experiencing
depression there can be a number of faulty beliefs and assumptions that can fuel the depression cycle
and that's what we're going to be talking about in today's video but before i get into that just a
couple of disclaimers to go over i'm a registered psychologist in the province of british columbia
canada and this video is for informational purposes only it is not intended as a substitute
or replacement for advice from your doctor or mental health professional now with those things
out of the way let's start talking about faulty beliefs and assumptions in depression now this is
going to be the first in a three-part mini-series on subconscious beliefs and assumptions that fuel
depression now these are common underlying beliefs and assumptions that underlie depression and many
of these assumptions were identified over 50 years ago by psychologist albert ellis so these are
nothing new but unfortunately these faulty beliefs and assumptions continue to stand the test of time
the thing about these beliefs and assumptions is that they tend to be implicit and not necessarily
beliefs and assumptions that we're fully aware of
so as i'm discussing some of these negative beliefs and assumptions
you might be thinking to yourself that's silly i don't believe that or i know that's not true
but the point is not to think about these beliefs and assumptions as do i believe these to be true
but more do i act as though i'm believing these things are my emotional reactions
consistent as though i believe these things
and if you find that your emotional reactions or behaviors are consistent with these beliefs
and assumptions then that might be a sign that these subconscious beliefs these are subconscious
beliefs that you actually hold and which may be contributing to feelings of depression
so the first common faulty assumption i want to talk about is the idea that everything i do
must be absolutely perfect otherwise i'm a failure this belief is at the core of perfectionism
and there tends to be a high degree of societal pressure to strive for perfection which tends to
underlie this belief the problem with this idea is that nobody's perfect and nobody does everything
perfectly in fact pretty much everything we ever do has some degree of imperfection to it
but if you hold the belief that everything needs to be perfect
or you need to be perfect in order to feel good about yourself in order to not
be a failure what can end up happening is that you'll never be satisfied with anything you do
there's no success there are no accomplishments only failures and i could have done better
the other problem with this belief is that it often causes people to avoid trying new things
and avoid stepping out of their comfort zone because inherent in learning something new is
making mistakes so i might stay in an unfilling i might stay in an unfulfilling job or career
because i know it well and i do it well even though i don't really enjoy it
i may not take up any new hobbies like skiing because i might fall a lot
i won't try to learn how to play a musical instrument because it won't sound very good when
i first start and if i feel like i always need to be perfect making mistakes while learning to do
something learning to do something new will be too intolerable and as a result my world and my life
will remain small and constricted because i can never branch out to do anything new
now the second faulty belief and assumption i want to talk about is the idea that life is fair
now this is sometimes referred to as the just world hypothesis and at its core assumes that
life in the world is fair and just people who work hard will succeed while people who are lazy will
not succeed if i'm nice and caring to other people they will be nice and caring to me people will
evaluate me based on my character and performance not where i come from or what i look like
the problem with this just world hypothesis
is that it's simply not true despite the fact that i think we all wish it was true
i think we all wish that the world was fair and just but that's simply not the case
so if you hold this belief that life is fair or that good things happen to good people think about
the implications of what hap what that means when bad things happen if i hold the belief that life
is fair and something bad happens to me what does that mean well it must mean that i did something
wrong in order for the bad thing to have happened it must be that i'm being punished for something
so whenever anything bad happens to me this may drive feelings of
guilt because i must have done something terrible to deserve this bad thing that's happening
the key point behind this is that no one ever said that life was fair or just
so a big part of this is accepting that the world is not always fair and that when bad things
happen it's not necessarily punishment for something i've done wrong it's just
that sometimes bad things happen and that's the way it is it's not fair or unfair it just is
now a third common depression assumption is that i am only worthwhile as long as
i'm doing something for someone else now this is a big one for mothers who
always feel like they need to constantly be taking care of other people putting the needs and wants
of others ahead of themselves because that is what they're supposed to be doing
now while the notion of serving and caring for other people is not
in and of it in and of itself bad the problem becomes when you constantly put the needs of
other people ahead of you when you constantly sacrifice yourself for the good of other people
if you've ever felt guilty or anxious whenever you treat yourself or take time out for you
this faulty assumption may be playing a role in that
people who hold this belief always seem to prioritize the needs and wants of other people
and place themselves at the back of the line and this is a recipe for depression
the key here is to remind yourself that you're important as well and that taking care of yourself
is not some sort of selfish indulgence or luxury but that it's a necessity if you're not taking
care of yourself you're eventually going to burn out and drain your fuel tank which means
you won't have anything left to take care of other people and if i burn myself out and i'm not able
to help people the way i used to this will likely lead to me feeling even worse about myself because
now i'm not taking care of people the way i should be and this just leads to even more depression
and the last common faulty belief and assumption i'm going to be talking about
is this idea and the notion that anger is bad
if you think about anger being bad um we often think about certain emotions that
on a societal or cultural level we identify as being good emotions
versus bad emotions now good emotions are things like happiness and joy contentment
and being at peace whereas bad emotions bad emotions are things like sadness guilt fear anger
many of us are taught to suppress or ignore anger viewing it as bad irrational
destructive as a result we try to bottle up or deny feelings of anger
which is rarely successful it often leads to more feelings of resentment and even stronger anger
the key is that anger in and of in and of itself is not bad anger isn't is normal it's a healthy
human emotion the purpose of anger is that it helps us recognize when someone is doing something
to cause harm to me or someone i care about or when someone is crossing my personal boundaries
and when i feel angry it helps activate me to engage and address the problematic behavior
through things like saying no or standing up for myself the idea is anger pushes me to take
action to stop the harmful behavior of the other person so when you view it that way anger isn't
bad but rather a necessary emotion to protect ourselves and the people that we care about
anger only becomes problematic if it's expressed in violent or harmful ways either
verbally or physically but verbal or physical aggression is not the only way to express anger
and so rather than seeing anger as bad and something to be ignored or suppressed the
focus should be more on appropriate and productive ways of expressing the anger so things like being
assertive being able to say no being able to stand up for yourself there's nothing wrong with that
so as i mentioned at the beginning of this video this is just the first in a three-part
video series on faulty assumptions and beliefs that dive dead drive depression
uh if you want to learn more about other calming faulty beliefs and assumptions please keep an
eye out for those other two videos that will be following this one so i hope that gives you a
good introduction on some of these faulty beliefs and assumptions i would love to hear your thoughts
or questions about this so please leave me some comments in the comments section down below if
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so that's all for today's video on faulty beliefs and assumptions
uh thank you for making it all the way to the end of this video and i will see you in the next one