Get Your Pretense On!

88 • Get Your Pretense On!

to confuse and discourage us. It details the prominent ways in which we may distort and poorly map the territory of our inner lives as well as the events and circumstances that we encounter.

Deadly Habits of the Soul: Categorizing Our Distortions about Safety, Security, and Significance

Tunnel vision: looking at a situation through only one element

Filtering

Looking at everything in extremes and absolute terms

Polarized Thinking

Drawing big conclusions based on one incident or piece of evidence

Over Generalization

Making huge snap judgments about situations, people, or events

Mind Reading

“Making mountains out of molehills” Amplifying “what ifs” into fretting

Catastrophizing

Making everything, regardless of the subject or issue, about yourself

Personalization

“If you feel something deeply enough, then it simply must be true.”

Emotional Reasoning

In the midst of any situation, others must be responsible for the problem.

Blame-Shifting

Functioning by a set of inflexible rules or conditions which must be kept

Shoulds

Most efforts in any exchange is your effort to prove that you are right.

Always Rightness

Adapted from H. Norman Wright, Self-talk, Imagery, and Prayer in Counseling , Waco Texas, 1986, pp. 66-68.