Got another cognitive distortion for you today: The Fallacy of Fairness.
Who heard “Life isn’t fair” from their parents as kids? 🙋🏼♀️ Sometimes this is a hard concept to remember as an adult.
If you spend your life judging fairness and unfairness, you’re bound to have a bad time. If you’re always measuring your life against others’ 📊, believing this Fallacy of Fairness is probably getting in the way of you working for and achieving what you want out of life.
Life isn’t fair— things don’t always work out in your favor. It’s up to you to change your perspective!
I think it’s important to mention that unfairness in regards to your or others’ experiences of systemic oppression (discrimination based on gender, race, sexuality, capital, immigration status, ability, size, mental or physical illness, etc) is a VERY REAL and VERY VALID experience of injustice. Societal oppression is real and worth questioning and fighting against. This fallacy in no way means to demean or invalidate that fight!
I am so excited 🎉 to announce that I will be releasing a podcast (!!!) along with dear friend and fellow therapist Cory Anton of Cory Anton Counseling.
#Adulting Therapists is a podcast that follows myself and Cory’s adventure in “adulting”. Listen in as we share self care techniques, make fun of each other 😂, talk about being a therapist and managing our own mental health needs, meet with special guests, and more!
You can listen to #Adulting Therapists TOMORROW on Apple Podcasts, Stitcher, Anchor.fm, and all other places where you listen 👂🏻 to podcasts.
Have a question you’d like answered by a therapist? Send me a email! 💕
Today we’re going to talk about the control fallacy, another cognitive distortion. The Fallacy of Control is where you assume an inaccurate amount of control in a situation or in life. You either believe you can control everything or believe you can control nothing.
When you believe you control everything, you are assuming responsibility for both the pain and happiness of everyone around you. If a friend is in a bad mood 😒, you may wonder what you did to make them feel that way. If your workplace receives a good review or award, you may feel like it’s all your doing.
When you believe you control nothing, you see yourself as a helpless bystander to your situation. You may feel like there’s nothing you can do to make your life better, to improve your happiness, or to change your situation. 😞 This feeling is a big contributor to “stuckness” and resistance to change- if we don’t believe we have any control in our lives, what would we get out of changing?
What we should strive for instead is to more accurately identify the amount of control we have in any given situation or in life’s circumstances. Regardless of how high or low functioning we are, we never have NO CONTROL or FULL CONTROL of our lives.
Where do you land between these two fallacies?
