The scale has a number on it—or that number means I’m disgusting. She made a comment—or her comment must mean I’m a horrible person. I have a job—or my job isn’t good enough to make me successful in this life. He married me—or he’ll never love me enough.
The first half of those sentences are the facts from people’s lives, the latter are the opinions and judgments folks add to those facts. Fact vs. fiction—it’s not something most people think about on a daily basis because so many of us walk around believing everything we think. Those opinions and judgments often feel like the truth because most people don’t stop to question themselves.
Facts are indisputable. They are statements that everyone would agree with. Most people live believing a bunch of fictional nonsense though because it’s human nature to jump to conclusions—and often not such nice ones.
So, how do we figure out what is a fact, and what is fiction? First, when we are struggling with a painful thought, we can ask ourselves, Am I 100% sure this is true? and Would everyone on this planet agree with me? If the answer is yes, then it’s a fact. When we’re really honest with ourselves though, the answer is almost always no—even though we often want to believe the embellishments. Next, we can come up with three reasons why our opinion may not be true. This gives us the opportunity to disprove our icky thoughts.
Example time! Fact or fiction? So, you think you’re a bad mom/husband/friend/employee/sister/son. Are you 100% sure? Would everyone on this planet agree with you? What are three reasons why you may be a great mom/husband/friend/employee/sister/son? Pretty simple, huh?!
It’s kinda like what I wrote about last week, and is just another way of creating more room in our lives for happy feeling thoughts!
That’s it—that’s all I got for ya!
Happy day!
P.S.-I love you all…just felt like saying so.
