Right vs. Wrong - Video Transcript

Hey everyone, I'm Kristen the anxiety therapist, thanks for checking out my vlog today, I'm going to be talking about the concept of right versus wrong. So this is another kind of thinking trap or thinking air that we can find ourselves in um that we often use cognitive behavioral therapy to address.

And then when we have these types of thinking traps, it leads to distressing emotions such as anxiety. So in the right versus wrong thinking trap were very sort of dichotomous in our thinking. So let's say we're faced with making a decision and oftentimes we'll get stuck in thinking there's a right answer and a wrong answer or a right way to do something in a wrong way to do something.

And so we sort of get get stuck or paralyzed thinking that we need to be certain that we're making the right decision. However, there are so few instances in life in which there is an actual right decision because most things are based on our own values and belief systems and there's not a right or wrong when it comes to what we value or what we believe.

So someone else might judge your decision. They might think it's the wrong decision because they are looking at it through the lens of their own values and beliefs and so it might not be a decision that they would make for their own lives, but you have your own values and beliefs and so you are making the best decision that you know how to make, um that's in alignment with those, but when we don't have enough trust in ourselves to make those decisions, then we tend to be susceptible to this judgment from other people.

Um I see this come up a lot in our relationship with our parents, so if our parents think that we should be living our lives a certain way or they have a certain belief system or set of values that isn't necessarily what resonates with us, there can be a lot of tension there. Um I also see this show up a lot with social anxiety, so people get really stuck in wanting to say the right thing if they're interacting with someone and I think it's important to remember that there is no right thing to say. Um there are a million things you can say and you don't know what the other person is thinking, you'll say or anticipating you'll say.

So it's impossible to kind of hone in on on this right thing, but what anxiety does is it loves certainty, right? It loves something concrete, it loves something that that it knows is right and can predict the sort of the outcome with and that's just not realistic. So that's where this this kind of stuck nous comes from is that our anxiety wants certainty, it wants us to be certain that if we're making a decision or if we're saying something to someone, it's the right thing and there will be no adverse consequences, but that's impossible to know.

And so part of it is just trusting yourself enough that if you make a decision, just commit to it and then that by nature is the right decision because that's going to become your reality. And that if there are some adverse consequences that you will be able to navigate those after the fact, you know, there's there's no way we don't have a crystal ball, there's no way to predict the future.

And so we have to sometimes just commit without knowing for sure how something is going to turn out. This is a really, really hard thing to do. So if this is something that you struggle with, please feel free to check out my website, um, see how I might be able to help you with this and it's so common.

You know, I see this with pretty much every one of my clients, um, and there is a way to to just feel more trustful in yourself and more positive about the decisions you make and how you're living your life. So if you have any questions, feel free to leave a comment and I hope you all have a good week.