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The Cognitive Distortion of Emotional Reasoning
Barbara Heffernan • December 18, 2024
Why is listening to your emotions sometimes a distortion?
The cognitive distortion of emotional reasoning. What is it and why is it a problem?
However...
How to Stop Using the Cognitive Distortion of Emotional Reasoning
Shouldn't you take your emotions into account when you make your judgments and decisions?
Let's talk about it.
What is emotional reasoning?
Emotional reasoning is when you draw a conclusion based solely on how you feel.
People with this thinking pattern can feel like their feelings actually prove something is true, even if the evidence is contrary to that conclusion.
Or they might feel that their emotions prove something's true when they simply don't have any evidence one way or another.
Why emotional reasoning is a problem
If we are using emotional reasoning, we take action based on those feelings and on the conclusion they led us to. Those actions, in turn, exacerbate those feelings.
We'll believe whatever it is we're believing, stronger and stronger. We escalate the problem and the emotions.
This leads to highs and lows in our emotions, also called emotional dysregulation.
While using emotional reasoning, we aren't judging situations properly, we're not making great decisions about our lives or about other people.
However...
Having said this, it is important to also realize that your emotions are valid!
The best decisions combine your logic and reason with an accurate assessment of what your emotions are telling you.
So I'm going to give you three keys to how you can know whether you're using emotional reasoning
or whether you are accurately accessing the information that your emotions are giving you.
#1 Key: REACTIVITY
When we are in an emotionally reactive state, we are not thinking clearly.
When we can learn to respond to situations instead of react, we are operating from emotional regulation, and we have much more access to the logical part of our brain so we can balance reason and emotion.
You can assess your reactivity by how upset you are. Has your pulse rate gone up? Do you feel like you're having any physical feelings from a fight, flight, freeze response? If your emotions hit you in a whoosh and feel very strong, it is probably reactivity.
And the best thing to do at that moment is something that helps you emotionally regulate.
#2 Key: Identifying Your Habitual Emotion
The second key to knowing whether or not you are using the cognitive distortion of emotional reasoning is whether it is a habitual emotion that you are feeling.
Now, this is a super important concept, and I don't see this talked about a lot, but most of our emotions do give us really valid information. But when we have a habitual emotion, it isn’t giving us good information. In fact, it is probably covering up other emotions that might have more valid info for us.
A habitual emotion is our go-to emotion.
I'm going to share some very specific examples that will help to illustrate this concept, and then I'll share that third key.
Some emotional reasoning examples are extremely common, and most of us do something like these on occasion. And then there are examples that actually contribute to particular anxiety diagnoses. So I'm going to give both of these to you so you get a sense of how this emotional reasoning could impact you.
A very common example of emotional reasoning is the following:
You have a fight with your partner and you are very angry at something they did. It probably ties to something from your past or something that they've done before that they know you don't like. You feel that “If they really loved me, they wouldn't do this because they know how mad it makes me. They don't love me anymore. This is not worthwhile.” You work yourself up to the point where you're ready to break up with the person, Then a few days go by, you wake up and you are feeling better. Maybe the fight was resolved, or maybe your emotions have simply eased. You think to yourself “Wow,, I really love this person. What was I thinking?!”
As you can tell in this example, you have a rush of reactivity and you make a judgment about the person and situation. At that moment, you might say some horrible, hurtful, destructive things, which often causes the other person to do the same. Everything escalates, because of emotional reasoning.
An example of emotional reasoning that contributes to an anxiety disorder is the following:
Let’s talk about someone who has had one or two panic attacks in the past. Perhaps they called an ambulance and went to the hospital, thinking they were having a heart attack. At the hospital, after many tests and time, they are told it “isn’t physical, just a heart attack.” (Which I do not think is helpful information, to be honest!)This person is faced with a similar situation with that first panic attack and they feel like they might have another panic attack. This feeling translates immediately into the thought “I might have another panic attack,” and their heart rate goes up and the begin to feel more anxious. The thought changes to “I will definitely have another panic attack.” And this either can spiral into another panic attack, or they decide to avoid the situation that came up (which in the long run will make panic worse).
The feeling that they are going to have another panic attack translates into the belief they will, which almost certainly guarantees they well.
Another example is:
Let's take a person with social anxiety who feels like a group of people is talking behind their back. Since they feel that, they “know” it is true. Because they believe that, they withdraw from the group and avoid the situation. Over time, avoidance makes social anxiety worse. Further, that group of people will stop reaching out to the person over time, confirming the person’s belief that those people didn’t like him or her.
Emotional reasoning can contribute to very significant issues in your life.
#3 Key: Recognize the Negative Core Belief Which is Triggered
Emotional reasoning almost always corresponds to your negative core belief.
So for example, let’s say your negative core belief is, “I'm not good enough,” and you've had it since you were a child. You feel it in many situations. Lo and behold, if you become a parent, you'll feel “I'm not good enough.” Whatever goes wrong with the kids, you’ll feel, at core, “I’m just not a good enough parent.”
For somebody with health anxiety and panic disorder, their negative core belief could be “I'm in danger.” Many bodily feelings will be interpreted from that core belief, and they will feel
they have a terrible illness, and therefore, believe
it.
Could you comment below and let me know if this makes sense to you? This is a key concept. The reactivity, which probably comes from a trigger to that negative core belief, is bringing up that habitual emotion. The negative core belief is in full force and your body is having a reactive fight, flight, freeze response.
Okay, so if you are doing this, how do you stop using the cognitive distortion of emotional reasoning?
How do you get to a place where you can balance your logical mind with your awareness of valid emotions that are giving you good information?
How to Stop Using the Cognitive Distortion of Emotional Reasoning
Step 1: Recognize when you're in a reactive state
Note it to yourself, “I'm very reactive right now.”
When we're really reactive, we are not thinking clearly. Our fight, flight, freeze response is in full control of our brain, even if we're someone who appears super logical and super in control. Know that when you're activated, you're probably not making the best decisions for yourself.
Step 2: Identify the habitual emotion
Which emotion do you kind of “feel all the time?” When you're upset is it usually because you're anxious, or angry, or depressed? Or overwhelmed? Numbed out?
Any one of these, if they're habitual for you, come from reactivity.
Step 3: Identify what negative core belief has been triggered
Our negative core beliefs form very young in life, and they stay with us throughout life until we really do some work to get over them. And I do have a free PDF on identifying your negative core belief with three techniques to transform it. You can download that here.
Step 4: Take the time to emotionally regulate
Don't make major decisions in this moment. Don't impulsively say things.
If you need to, withdraw from the situation. Diaphragmatically breathe, do grounding techniques, go for a walk out in nature if that's something you find calming. Find ways to lower your heart rate back to its normal rate. Calm down and know that at that moment what you think is true is probably not true.
Step 5: Step back from your feelings
Take a moment to separate from your feelings so you can see them and you can acknowledge them, but not to be totally in them.
So on my channel and in my blog, I talk a lot about separating from thoughts. This is also about separating from thoughts, because you are having thoughts about those emotions! However, first, take the time to separate from your emotions. You don’t have to be totally in them.
An example could be: “Oh, okay, I am feeling panic coming on. I know this is a habitual pattern of mine. I know that I have felt this way before. I’ve been to the hospital a few times and they said it wasn’t anything dangerous. Clearly it wasn't a heart attack, because I lived for another year. So this is a habitual emotion. It is not giving me good information. I feel like I’m in danger but I know that I am not.”
You might keep feeling it, and part of you may still think it's real, but another part of you is able to recognize it as an anxious response that gets interpreted as a heart attack. That part knows you are safe enough, and that part will become stronger and stronger as you practice.
Another piece that comes into all of this is something called emotional intelligence. It is sometimes called EQ (as opposed to IQ). This includes being able to understand what your emotions are communicating to you.
Unfortunately, we’re not taught this in school. We're often not taught it at all in our families.
It is really useful to begin to learn, “Alright, what does anger tell me? What signal is it giving me?" Or: "If I'm feeling sad, what is that emotion telling me?”
If this is not a habitual emotion, it has information for you that you can pull in and then incorporate with your logical side to make decisions.
If this is not a habitual emotion, it has information for you that you can pull in and then incorporate with your logical side to make decisions.
Our best decisions in life are those that combine our logic and our emotions, our valid emotions.
So let me know if this made sense to you, whether you found it helpful, and whether you have any questions about it. And I will see you next week.
Blog Author: Barbara Heffernan, LCSW, MBA. Barbara is a licensed psychotherapist and specialist in anxiety, trauma, and healthy boundaries. She had a private practice in Connecticut for twenty years before starting her popular YouTube channel designed to help people around the world live a more joyful life. Barbara has a BA from Yale University, an MBA from Columbia University and an MSW from SCSU. More info on Barbara can be found on her bio page.
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Understanding the Fawn Response The Fawn response is a behavior developed in childhood, often connected to complex trauma. It could even be little "t" traumas on an ongoing basis, where as a child, you learned to subjugate yourself to the caregiver in order to stay in relationship and survive. This becomes a deeply ingrained survival behavior which can become habitual. As you grow up, it gets applied to all situations. This blog will go through nine components required for healing. - The first three focus on internal work - The next three are more practical, action-oriented techniques - The last three address deeper psychological work Internal Work (Components 1-3) # 1. Recognize that fawning developed because it was necessary at the time Understand that fawning was a survival strategy, and it might have been the very best choice available to you. It may also have been, in many ways, the only choice. Even today as adults, there are situations where choosing a fawning-type behavior might actually be the best choice. This is important to understand because we don't want to eliminate this response entirely—we want to get to the point where it's not an automatic go-to reaction. Instead, we want to reach a place where you can consciously think, "I'm choosing to do this right now." Acknowledging that this developed as a survival strategy helps prepare you for the next two components. [ For more information on what the fawn response is and why it developed, read this blog] # 2. Begin to acknowledge and validate your own feelings If you grew up in an environment where you learned to fawn, my guess is that not only were your caregivers not paying attention to your feelings, but you also had to subjugate your own feelings to the point where you weren't aware of what you were feeling. As an adult, it's necessary to begin recognizing and identifying your emotions: "I'm feeling angry" or "sad" or "frustrated" or "irritated." Begin to acknowledge and even verbalize what you're feeling. The simple act of labeling your emotion calms down your fight-flight-freeze response and increases activity in the areas of the brain that help you solve problems. There is research that shows this happening via fMRIs! # 3. Practice self-compassion Understanding why this behavior developed can help you practice self-compassion. Changing these behaviors is hard and takes time. If you find yourself automatically fawning and later yelling at yourself, try not to do that—you're basically re-traumatizing yourself for a behavior you learned for survival. Instead, try noting it with self-compassion: "Interesting, I fell into that pattern again." And then connect this to the next step by adding, "I fell into that pattern again because of this situation." Observe with compassion rather than judgment. Practical Tools (Components 4-6) # 4. Identify situations that trigger fawning behavior Notice which situations trigger your fawning behavior. As you review these situations, see if there are patterns similar to those you experienced as a child. They may reflect situations that were emotionally or physically dangerous, or that created a rift between you and your caregivers. Identifying these situations helps you understand what patterns became embedded in your emotional brain. As you observe these patterns, bring in self-compassion and that observer mindset. This approach is much more productive than criticizing yourself. As you identify these patterns, you can connect them to current situations: "This situation at work with a difficult authority figure is recreating this childhood pattern for me." You are bringing in your frontal lobe to analyze the emotional reaction, which helps you realize, "That was threatening to my very existence when I was a child, but it is not threatening to my existence right now." This recognition is crucial because automatic fawning behaviors come from a need to survive immediate danger. The uncertainty of longer-term consequences (like losing a job) might be problematic, but it's not an immediate survival threat. Differentiating between then and now helps calm your fawn response. # 5. Keep a journal to track people-pleasing behaviors Keep a journal for 30 days. Journal on this question: "Did I say or do something today to please someone else that was at my own expense?" As you review the events of each day, you might realize, "I didn't do it this situation, but I did do it in those five situations." Again, maintain self-compassion with no judgment—just observe and be aware this will take time. This question gets at the heart of the issue: What did you do today that ignored your own values or needs in order to stay in relationship with someone else, avoid criticism, or prevent rejection? Verbalizing this through an audio journal or writing it down utilizes different parts of your brain that help you comprehensively understand what's happening. # 6. Practice emotional regulation tools daily Implement diaphragmatic breathing, grounding exercises, or any techniques that calm your physiology. Practice these regularly, not just in the middle of triggering events. You can weave these practices throughout your day. Set an alarm for three different times during the day, and when it goes off, simply take three deep diaphragmatic breaths. No one needs to know you're doing it—you can do it anywhere, and it's free. While it might not feel immediately helpful, you're stimulating a different part of your nervous system that helps you realize, "In this situation, it would not be life-threatening if the relationship were severed. I'm not in a situation where my immediate survival is at stake." When you feel safe enough, your normal breathing pattern will naturally be diaphragmatic. It's all a feedback loop—a body-based technique that communicates to the rest of your brain. The fawn response is differentiated from the fight-flight-freeze response. Sometimes they're grouped together, but I think it's more useful to separate them (I'll cover this topic in the future if you're interested—let me know in the comments). The fawn response uses different parts of the nervous system and brain because it's largely about staying in connection with others. That said, knowing whether your underlying response is fight, flight, or freeze beneath the fawn behavior can be helpful. People who fawn typically have either a flight response (wanting to run away) or a freeze response. Fighters rarely develop the fawn response. I recently created videos and blogs about calming the fight-flight-freeze response that might be useful for you. Deeper Work (Components 7-9) # 7. Recognize your negative core beliefs Identify what beliefs developed when you were young that led you to fawn, and what beliefs developed as a result of fawning. A common belief for people who fawn is "my needs don't matter," or even " I don't matter." Other common beliefs include "I'm not good enough," or "I'm powerless." A general feeling of being in danger is also common. Identifying these negative core beliefs and beginning to use tools to rewire them is extremely helpful. [I have a free PDF that helps you identify these beliefs and learn tools to rewire them. You can find it by clicking here ]. # 8. Learn to recognize and separate from limiting thoughts Notice when your behavior is driven by your negative core beliefs, whether you're fawning or not. You might operate from these beliefs almost all the time, even when not actively people-pleasing. Begin to separate yourself from these thoughts. Not all of our thoughts are true. Not all of our beliefs are true. We can "diffuse" from our thoughts by using our observer mind: "Interesting, I'm thinking that again, but I know it isn't necessarily true." A helpful technique is to "practice as if." If you feel like your needs don't matter, pretend that they do matter. Ask yourself, "What would I do right now if my needs mattered?" You can practice this approach in small ways. Your behavior, even if it is coming from a place of pretense, will actually begin to rewire these beliefs. # 9. Establish healthy boundaries I've placed this component last because establishing healthy boundaries isn't simply about saying "no." (Sometimes saying no is a healthy boundary, but sometimes it's not—and boundaries encompass much more than that). Healthy boundaries require a deep understanding of yourself and your values, and an understanding of where you end and others begin. To truly understand healthy boundaries requires deep inner work. The other components we've discussed, particularly emotional regulation, are prerequisites for establishing boundaries. Until you develop a certain level of emotional regulation, it's nearly impossible to implement healthy boundaries. When your amygdala is firing with the fight-flight-freeze response, your response is automatic and happening too quickly for your rational brain to intervene. Your rational mind might know "I should be saying no right now" or "I should leave this conversation," but the panic response has already set in, and your brain is focused solely on keeping the relationship intact and staying safe by avoiding conflict. This is why healthy boundaries aren't just about learning more information. You've probably read extensively about boundaries and have cognitive awareness of what healthy boundaries might look like. Then you get frustrated when you can't implement them because no one talks about the fact that boundary-setting starts with emotional regulation. Healthy boundaries also require healing negative core beliefs and knowing (even if you don't yet feel it ) that you can be safe without maintaining a toxic relationship, you can be safe even when there's conflict. A Structured Approach to Healing In my boundary program , I've designed an approach which walks you through the CORE components of healing and establishing helthy boundaries. The program helps you: develop the emotional regulation you need to begin to set boundaries identify and heal the negative core beliefs that are driving unhealthy boundaries learn assertive communication (as opposed to passive or aggressive) understand how to set boundaries and consequences and begin to do so! (For more info on the boundary program, click here) Learning assertive communication is essential because people with fawn patterns often use passive communication. Assertive communication represents the middle ground between passive and aggressive communication. It embodies the principle "I'm okay, you're okay." Many people who fawn misinterpret assertive communication as aggressive, and since they don't want to be like their aggressive abuser, they default to passive communication. But there is a healthy middle ground. As always, I'd love to hear your thoughts and questions—please comment below. I truly hope this is helpful, and I'll see you next week.
Do you find yourself automatically people-pleasing? Automatically becoming subservient to others? If yes, you might have the fawn response. Read this blog to understand what the fawn response is and why you might have developed it.
All anxiety disorders are driven by an amygdala hijack. This blog explains how this work, why it is a problem and what to do about it. If your anxiety is controlling your life, ruining your happiness, and maybe even impacting your health, know that it is not all in your head. Your nervous system has been hijacked, and understanding this can really help you on your path to recovery.
7 Steps to Calm an Amygdala Hijack. The overwhelming emotional response of an amygdala hijack can cause many problems. Learn to regulate emotionally and calm this response.
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