The Mountain Is You by Brianna Wiest

224 BRIANNA WIEST
Anxiety is caused by logic lapses, where there’s a breach
in your reasoning skills. You jump from one event to an
unlikely conclusion, and because it makes you feel something
strongly, you assume it to be true. Ultimately, you
start thinking in dichotomies, which are not only ineffective,
but also spook you so much that you are rendered
incapable of actually handling your life.
STOP TRYING TO BE PSYCHIC, BECAUSE THIS IS A COGNITIVE
DISTORTION
Given that our most fundamental human fear is of the
unknown, it makes sense that we go through mental gymnastics
to try to predict certain outcomes in our lives.
However, psychic thinking, or the idea that your feelings
are premonitions, that you can “just know” what the future
will hold, or that your fate is somewhere set in stone for
you, makes you mentally weak. It places you in the passenger’s
seat when you need to be behind the wheel.
When you are engaging in psychic thinking, you’re extrapolating.
You’re taking a single feeling or experience
and making a long-term prediction about your life. It is
not only false; it often becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy.
Stop trying to predict what you can’t know, and start putting
your energy toward building what you can. You and
your life will be better for it.