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Mental Filters—We All Have Them

And they suck.

By KatrinaPublished 5 years ago 2 min read
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Have you ever sat back and thought about the overall theme of your thoughts?

Are your thoughts mostly negative?

Is there a specific pattern you can recognize?

Do you wonder why you keep having negative thoughts when something good is happening?

Do you always think the worst? Or think in extremes?

These are a few questions to begin asking yourself as you being to acknowledge your mental filters and how these filters tremendously impact your perspective on everything that happens in life.

What are mental filters?

Mental filters are subjective and can be described in either vague or very specific terms. Some people may be able to easily recognize them, but for others, it may happen on a subconscious level that results in an unawareness of how each thought is aligning with these filters.

Mental filters are a way of distorting reality and believing in these distortions. They are mostly negative in nature and result in feelings of unhappiness, low self-esteem, low confidence, etc. We frequently filter ourselves into specific beliefs (I am not good enough; I am nothing special; no one likes me). For example, lets take someone who believes they are worthless and doesn't deserve happiness. If this is how you view yourself, every thought will filter through this idea of being worthless. Over time, your thoughts will become so distorted by this belief about yourself that you may even push away the memories of when you felt worthy or someone made you feel worthy. Odds are, you will eventually begin to turn any situation into one that reinforces this idea that you are worthless. You now have this reinforced belief that you have attached evidence to that you are worthless and no one and nothing can convince you otherwise.

How We Forget About the Impact Mental Filters Have on Our Lives

In today's society, it is extremely easy to get busy and forget to think and care about ourselves. It happens to all of us from time to time, and some more than others. This is not bad and sometimes it happens more frequently than we would like. Have you ever gone through the day and realized that you were not really present? This feeling is similar to the feeling of driving in the car and realizing a minute later that you weren't really paying attention to the road and are asking yourself how you didn't just crash the car. Our minds and bodies go into overdrive and takeover and somehow, everything feels like a blur. We also forget to think about what we are doing and how we are feeling. I'm sure many people can relate to this feeling. Sometimes, it is unavoidable.

What to Do About These Mental Filters

Is it imperative to reflect on our mental filters and how they impact the way we view society. Self-awareness is the first step in beginning to work towards a change. We need to become more aware of how we are treating ourselves and when we are not taking enough time for ourselves. If you were to make it a goal to reflect on your day every night for 5-10 minutes, you would become much more aware of yourself and your thoughts very quickly. If you start thinking positive and challenge yourself to take on a differentperspective to situations, maybe you would start being able to explore new thoughts. Is this easy? No. But can you do it? Absolutely!

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