In this episode we talk about cognitive distortions and the havoc they wreak on our lives. Topics discussed:

• Why I had to do this episode in the first place, which leads into me introducing the book The Coddling of the American Mind, by Greg Lukianoff and Jonathan Haidt.
• That book introduces us to cognitive distortions and the ways they are imposing themselves into our everyday lives.
• We define what a cognitive distortion is and we compare them to logical fallacies for a moment. 
• And then I introduce the 9 most common cognitive distortions that people deal with. They are: emotional reasoning, catastrophizing, overgeneralizing, dichotomous thinking, mind reading, labeling, negative filtering, discounting positive, and blaming. 
• We go into each one and I give several examples of how these distortions play out in real life. After going through this list it's no wonder we have a mental health crisis.
• Then we talk about how cognitive distortions like to work in tandem. They stack on top of each other quite well. And when you have multiple cognitive distortions going on at once then you can really find yourself in a bad place, mentally. 
• Then we talk about how to address these distortions. And let me be the first to say that the best way to address them is with professional help from a Cognitive Behavioral Therapist. But if they are minor or not impacting your life too badly then you can probably address them on your own.
• And that brings us to this weeks Call-to-Action. This week we challenge something we believe to be true because we feel it to be so. And we try to prove it true with evidence. We do this until we find one of our beliefs to not be true and we do this simply to prove that we should not accept our feelings as truths automatically and unconditionally. After we realize this it becomes easier to challenge our other distortions and reduce the mental volume across the board. 
• Thanks for listening. Be sure to subscribe and leave a review and share it with someone who could benefit from this information. And be sure to follow me on Instagram @ThinkersApprentice