Feelings (hurt, anger, betrayal, etc.) are very real signals, but they are untranslated signals.
They tell you that something in your internal world has been activated, but they don’t automatically identify the cause, the intent, or the objective facts of the external event.
You might have a specific feeling for a number of reasons.
The feeling is the starting point for inquiry ("Why do I feel this way?"), not the final proof of wrongdoing.
Furthermore, as my dear loving father—brilliant psychiatrist—used to say, feelings can also arise without a clear or accurate ‘reason’ attached. It is important to understand that both truths can coexist.
For feelings that do arise from a clear and accurate reason, be mindful not to connect those feelings to a faulty conclusion about someone else.
Here are four common cognitive distortions that can lead to connecting feelings with an inaccurate conclusion about another person:
1. Mind Reading
This distortion involves assuming you know what another person is thinking or why they are acting, often without any factual evidence.
- The Flaw: You substitute your feeling (e.g., hurt, suspicion) for the fact of their intention.
- The Cycle: You feel dismissed → You conclude that the other person intended to disrespect you or believes you're unimportant → You feel angry or wronged → You treat this feeling as evidence of their malice.
- The Reality Check: They might have been preoccupied, tired, running late, or simply failed to communicate effectively, with no harmful intent whatsoever.
2. Emotional Reasoning
This is the direct and primary link we've been discussing: believing something is true simply because you feel it strongly.
- The Flaw: Treating subjective internal state as objective external truth.
- The Cycle: You feel intensely betrayed → You conclude that the other person must have intentionally betrayed you, even if the facts (e.g., a simple misunderstanding or a mistake) don't support it → Your feeling validates the conclusion.
- The Reality Check: Emotions are powerful, but they are not reliable data points for factual accuracy. If you feel afraid on a crowded bus, it doesn't mean a threat exists; it means your internal alarm system is activated.
3. Catastrophizing
This involves expecting the worst outcome or viewing a minor negative event as an intolerable catastrophe.
- The Flaw: Exaggerating the severity of the other person's action.
- The Cycle: Someone forgets to call you back → You feel anxious and ignored → You conclude that this means the relationship is over, they secretly hate you, or they are a fundamentally unreliable, malicious person who is wronging you → The heightened, catastrophic feeling reinforces the sense of a massive wrongdoing.
- The Reality Check: The person may have simply lost their phone or been unexpectedly pulled into a meeting. Their action was inconvenient, not an end-of-the-world personal attack.
4. Labeling
Instead of describing a specific negative behavior (which could be evidence of a specific wrongdoing), this distortion involves assigning a global, negative, and fixed label to the entire person based on one event.
- The Flaw: Turning a single action into a permanent character judgment.
- The Cycle: A colleague misses a deadline → You feel stressed → You label them as "irresponsible" or "incompetent" → This label now serves as "evidence" that they are continually "wronging" the team, regardless of their past performance or the actual cause of the delay.
- The Reality Check: They may have made a mistake, which is a specific behavior that can be corrected, but this doesn't make them inherently "irresponsible." The feeling associated with the label is usually much stronger than the feeling associated with a simple mistake.
Understanding these patterns is the first step toward separating your valid emotional response from the unverified facts of another person's actions.
