A conversation with your neighbor is rudely interrupted by an absurdly loud, pulsating octave. It takes you only half-a-second to recognize the noise as the siren of an ambulance, and in short order the vehicle comes clearly into view. Soon, however, the sound begins to morph again, and as you emerge from a deep sleep, you recognize it instead as your 6:30am alarm.

Our minds are pattern recognition machines. In a split second we are able to detect even subtle similarities between past experiences and current events, a feat which allows us to attend selectively and make sense of huge amounts of competing information. Yet, the stories we tell ourselves do not always reflect reality. Dreaming is one demonstration of the intense power of the mind to tell stories. When in a dream, however, our errors are generally benign. When the stories are about our waking lives and reflect narratives about ourselves, others, or the world around us, however, the errors can be a bit more malignant.

Cognitive behaviorist have a lot to say about the sorts of trouble we get ourselves into when telling stories. Sometimes called “cognitive distortions”, these are internally-consistent explanations of phenomenon that do not necessarily reflect reality. Because these distortions often make sense within the frame they provide, however, they are easy to get entangled with and hard to refute.

What’s worse, we are more likely to tell ourselves painful stories about the negative events in our life rather than uplifting stories about our successes. That is, when we have a setback or experience a negative event (e.g. a missed meeting or an awkward exchange) our brains are more likely to tell us a compelling narrative about why this terrible thing has happened. It can rope in all sorts of reasons, from the idea that there must be something deeply wrong with us to the notion that others are cold and uncaring. The stories themselves tend to be fairly extreme, because it is in their extreme form that they seem to be the most believable. Typically the real story of the event is something much less compelling, like “you looked at your calendar too quickly and didn’t register the actual time.”

As painful as having a negative explanatory framework like this is, there’s a reason our brain’s do it. Having a story of the negative event gives a sense of control and helps us believe we can prevent it from happening again. The problem is that, along with being inaccurate, these stories are usually very self-punishing (e.g. “you’re so lazy! That’s why you can’t show up on time,” or “you need to have better self-confidence! That’s why these interactions are so clumsy”); other-blaming (e.g. “she’s so selfish, she couldn’t even ask me about myself,” or “they should have sent me a reminder before the meeting!”), provide us little tangible direction (e.g. what is any possible solution if the problem is “you’re a bad person”?), and are resistant to any disproving evidence (what evidence could ever prove that she isn’t selfish?).

There are certain cognitive errors that actually function to keep our mental health in-check, for example. the “self-serving bias” in which we claim more responsibility for our successes than our failures. In the case of mood and anxiety disorders, however, there are a number of cognitive distortions that keep us trapped. These include personalization, where we see ourselves as the sole determinant of events in our life (typically blaming ourselves for our negative feelings); over-generalization in which we believe that our current experiences reflect “how it will always be;” and the ambiguity aversion, in which we prefer to be certain that things are wrong instead of sitting with the ambiguity of the present moment.

Cognitive distortions are particularly sticky wickets because the more we try to stop them the deeper we often sink. We can end up only further punishing ourselves for having such thoughts, blaming ourselves for overgeneralizing (“stop overgeneralizing, you’re such an idiot!” which is, in a sad bit of irony, personalization). Instead, the most effective strategies involve simply holding our thoughts more lightly, almost like you might hold tea cup that is full to the brim. Knowing that negative stories (usually termed “Automatic Negative Thoughts”) are much likely to occur following painful experiences can help us slow down and be very intentional when such events occur. For example, we might know for ourselves that running late for work, forgetting someone’s name, or not remembering an event are all personal triggers for us that tend to set the wheels in motion for our storytelling. By recognizing that these are important moments, we can be intentional about simply watching the story-making machine of our minds. Knowing that these stories are just that, stories, allows us to not take them too seriously and use them as useful bits of information. Simply noticing the fact that we are thinking (“oh, a story!” “Wow, that story is particularly self-punishing!”) as opposed to living within our stories can go an extremely long way in improving our mental health. The mind is story-telling machine, however, so it does take some practice to step outside the constant stream (or raging river) of our thinking.

Once we begin to appreciate our minds as wonderful story-tellers we can listen to them like we might listen to a beloved, but rather eccentric, uncle. Our thoughts can then occupy a very different sort of relationship with our day-to-day lives… in a comfy chair next to the fireplace rather than standing in the front door of our experience.