After helping countless of individuals out of depression, I noticed the most common cause of depression - Mental Filtering. In this post, I will reveal the exact ways you can get out of depression by stopping mental filtering. But first, let me tell you the story of Amanda...
Christmas is approaching is Amanda has to prepare a sales pitch for her team. She spent weeks working on the pitch to make sure she got the best idea possible. During the pitch, she was calm, composed, and presented her ideas flawlessly. The higher-ups applaud her for her great pitch but mention one small way to improve it. Amanda focuses only on this feedback, filtering out all the positives and labeling this pitch as a failure. Her confidence dropped and she was disappointed in herself.
What is Mental Filtering?
Mental filtering is a cognitive distortion where we only see one side of a situation. It is usually the tendency to focus on the negative events while neglecting the positives. Mental filtering has its functional purposes, and we do it all the time. By only seeing how insensitive and our boss is can help us make a decision to leave the company. However, excessive mental filtering can lead to anxiety and depression, and people who are anxious and depressed tend to do more mental filtering.
The three main ways which we mental filter are how we view ourselves, how we view others and how we view circumstances.
Mental filtering when it comes to how we view ourselves is often accompanied by unrealistically high expectations or perfectionism. Unrealistic expectations involve anticipating always doing something well, or doing something perfectly. If you did something perfectly, it is merely doing what is expected. But if you fall short occasionally, it is easy to ignore all of your past successes and focus entirely on the few instances that were not as successful. Remember the story of Amanda and her sales pitch?
Mental filtering when it comes to how we view others is the disqualification of the positives and focusing solely on that negative trait of a person. Yes, your boss may be insensitive at times, but he is a fair person who does not show prejudice towards anyone and provides good welfare for all his employees.
When it comes to relationship, Mental Filtering can help you fall out of love with your spouse when you only notice the bad that they do. Considering both sides of one’s character would help us make a more accurate judgement or decision.
Mental filtering when it comes to how we view circumstances is labeling an event as ruined or horrible when there might just be one thing that didn’t go our way. I still remembered ten years ago, I had an amazing cultural exchange trip to Korea and have an experience of a lifetime but the whole trip was ruined because our flight got delayed.
How mental filtering leads to anxiety and depression
Our life can often seem so doom and gloomy, NOTHING is going right and if I can just migrate to a foreign land and start my life afresh, that will solve everything. I’ve heard some clients say this before. The fact is that there are positive things in your life, but if you can’t see it, your thoughts are lying to you. I am not saying that your life isn’t difficult, I am sure that many of you have been through a lot and may even be in pain right now. But not “EVERYTHING is doomed”. One thing, or a few things may have not gone your way but acknowledging and being honest with your thoughts and emotions is crucial.
A quote from Gary Vaynerchuk “If you wake up in the morning and everyone you care about is healthy, it’s a great day”. If you have a roof over your head, food on your table and have internet to watch this video, these are positives to celebrate as well. We are not discounting or dismissing your pain, but shifting our perspective to one that is more realistic.
Seeing things clearly requires us to see both sides, the painful, sad, difficult stuff, as well as the positives in life.
Mental filtering makes us more anxious, and at the same time anxiety makes us mental filter more. Anxiety attunes our brain to threats, making it so that we’re more likely to notice the bad.
Mental filtering also makes us more depressed, when we only notice the bad, life is gloomy and depressing. But when we feel shitty, depressed, empty, we’re more likely to mental filter. It is so easy to focus on the negatives and to further justify and make sense as of why our life sucks.
Why we mental filter
As you can see mental filtering can bring us into an unhealthy cycle of anxiety and depression. If mental filtering is so bad for us, why do we still do it?
With every cognitive distortion there is also a “function” for mental filtering. To understand why we do it is the first step to break free from this cycle.
In the short run, mental filtering has its survival benefits. As mentioned earlier, it can help us make quick decisions. For example, when being in a relationship with an abusive partner, if your mind focus on all the pain and hurt you received and forgot about all the happy memories, this can give us the courage to leave that relationship. This in itself is functional anxiety at play, which is our survival mechanism. However, in the long run making quick decisions without fully accessing both the positives and the negatives, may not be the most ideal way to solve problems.
Mental filtering can also bring us comfort when we are depressed. When we are so focused on our negatives, on how lonely I am, how terrible of a parent I am, how incompetent I am at work, we can justify to ourselves to not put in any effort to change, its almost like an excuse to stay depressed. If I am so hopeless and life is so doomed, there is nothing I can do to change it anyway, so I might as well stay the same. This can give you a momentarily feeling of comfort but evidently in the long run, it is self-fulfilling and self-sabotage.
Mental filtering can also, surprisingly, bring like-minded people together. Here in Singapore, we recently had a presidential campaign. So I was scrolling through my social medias and there are various posts about candidate A and why they are the best and Candidate B and why they are the best. And within the comments sections, supporters of Candidate A will be talking about how great of a leader he is and well he can represent the people of the nation, and talking crap about the other candidates.
The same thing happen in the comments section for supporters of Candidate B. This is also mental filtering at play, we will tend to reduce and filter out any flaws of the people or things that we deem is “on our side” and it feels good to be included with a group of like minded people who also share the same beliefs as us. However, in the long run, we may lose objectivity and even make things worse.
Remember, like every other cognitive distortions, just because we can justify it, doesn’t mean its good for us.
How to stop mental filtering
These are some ways for us to stop mental filtering and cut this unhealthy cycle. To combat mental filtering is a conscious choice that we have to make on a daily basis until it become second nature.
1. Recognise and Identify our trigger points: Engaging in mental filtering is a very subconscious process, many times we do it without even realising it. Hence, identifying our trigger points will be the first step to identify mental filtering. Because usually mental filtering kicks in when we are emotionally triggered by ourselves, someone, or an event. If we received one negative feedback from from our boss about our sales pitch, something within us is triggered, It can be our fear of criticism being activated, it can be sadness, it can be our need for perfectionism. We tend engage in mental filtering “my pitch is a failure, I am incompetent”, when realistically the feedbacks are mostly positives.
2. Try to see what function it serves you: As mentioned, mental filtering has its function in our life. Why do we mental filter? Is it because we are anxious and mental filtering can bring our anxiety down and give us a sense of mental closure? Or perhaps we do not have a good self-esteem to begin with, and focusing only on the negatives would help justify our depression? When you are able to successfully spot the reasons why you may engage in mental filter, and some people may require deep trauma work to realise this, you are able to realise how dysfunctional mental filtering is.
3. Ground yourself: Take a deep breath, SLOW DOWN, it takes effort to identify and call yourself out for your own thinking, applaud yourself for doing that and dont react. Not every problem or emotion requires an immediate justification. If it is difficult for you to think of the positives, it is perfectly okay to just tell yourself, to stop your thoughts and just breath.
4. Reframe your mind: One of the easiest way to reframe mental filtering is to literally bring yourself to spot the positives in things. Intentionally look to understand both sides of the story and to see others as multifaceted humans instead of labels and all or nothing. We can do this by having a gratitude journal or simply type into your phone, 3 things you are grateful for today. These are things which went well for you, and accomplishments that you deserves recognition. Many times people with anxiety and depression will supress their victories, and they may be their biggest critic. If it is difficult to pen down 3 wins without criticising yourself, pen down 1 or 2 things you would like to improve on for tomorrow as well. This will force our mind into a path of compassion and growth, which is key to healing our mind.
5. Expand your horizon: To be able to view the world from a broader perspective is a gift that keeps on giving. When we are living in our small little world, doing the same thing every day, having the same type of interactions, living in the same environment, it is difficult to change the way we see things.
Our brain has wired itself to behave in this particular way and a way to change the way our brain think is to intentionally change certain aspects of our life. The simplest way is to read and consume content that nourishes your mind and soul.
Filter out the platforms that we follow on social media that only pushes one side of the story, with every articles and news, ask yourself, is there other perspectives which I can view this? Have conversations with people of different perspectives, and if it is difficult for yourself to spot any good in yourself, ask someone you trust to spot it our for you. Your mind may dismiss it as them just sugar coat and please you, but pause and ask yourself, is there perhaps, some form of truth in what they are saying?
To challenge our thoughts and force ourselves to break out of a thinking habit takes time and patience. Set aside some time to journal and put in the work, and trust me, your brain can be rewired and this is one way we can heal from anxiety and depression. Lastly, you dont have to journey alone, it can be difficult to keep yourself accountable as we are often our own biggest enemy. I have helped hundreds of people break free of their mental chains, If you need help, reach out to me in the description below and book an appointment with me. As long as you are willing, I promise I will walk alongside you in your mental health journey. For a limited period of time, your first sessions is 50% off. Book now and get immediate help.
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