Cognitive Distortions

[Rito]

I have noticed certain traits in myself as well as many others that are popularly called cognitive distortions.They come in various measures like over interpreting ,negative forecasting,black and white thinking,  and hundreds  more.I think all this falls in the category of neurosis.All these are holding back our creativity and are definitely neurotic traits.I can definitely remember times when I was free of them which begs the question how did I acquire them?Did it originate in me by itself or did someone plant it in me?Or is it that I just started overthinking due to a phase of boredom and is just a product of my brooding?Knowing its origin will help me ward off any future twisted thinking that may manifest in my thought process.Do you guys have them too?How did you overcome them or plan to do so?

[Leo Gura]

Those are not neuroses. They are cognitive biases which are largely hardwired into your brain. They are how the brain human brain works. Nature has made these optimizations as rules-of-thumb to make our thinking faster and simpler. There are good aspects to these optimizations and bad aspects.

The best way to avoid them is to simply do less thinking and mental-masturbation. Which is why meditation and mindfulness practice is so great. They let you bypass all these biases more and more with practice because you stop taking your thinking so seriously.