Fact or Feeling?

The first step in learning how to check the facts is to practice mindfulness skills, so we can become more aware of our emotions to help us identify them and separate them from the facts. One way to determine the difference between a fact and feeling is by checking the facts. We need to ask ourselves are we catastrophizing? Am I making an assumption? We do not acknowledge how often we make an assumption and mistake it for a fact. In order to begin to check the facts, we need to identify the facts of the promoting event that triggered our emotion. We can ask ourselves “Do our emotions fit the facts of the situation”? We can explore if we are feeling our emotions due to an event or our interpretation of the event. 

Example: 

Andy studies for his upcoming math test and ends up failing. He then thinks “I am stupid, I am a failure, I will never get into college”. He is feeling hopeless for his future. This is not only catastrophizing but is an example of how his emotions of feeling hopeless do not fit the situation. A feeling that could fit the facts is feeling disappointed. Andy might be disappointed that he studied and failed, but he can also accept his feelings and instead of catastrophizing he could focus on the positive. He can think about how this is a learning experience and he can ask his teacher for extra help with this topic. By doing this, Andy is checking the facts which are that failing a test does not mean Andy is stupid and will not get into college. He can acknowledge that he tried his best and he can try to do better next time. 

When our emotions and intensity of the emotions do fit the facts, we can then implement alternative skills to cope. Checking the facts is a great tool in helping us to come out of our emotional mind and into our wise mind. Checking the facts helps us to manage our cognitive distortions such as black and white thinking, over-generalization, focusing on the negative and fortune telling. Examining the facts can also help us in accepting our emotions. When we check the facts, we can have more time to think about our actions before immediately reacting on an emotion.