Cognitive Distortion – Precursors for a Perpetual Negative Loop

The neural functionality of the human sensory – motor connectivity process, mandates that humans will feel before they think (feeling is a sensory action and thinking is a motor action). Many people have opined that evolutionary survival has integrated associations with negative stimulus as a primary process and determination of a positive stimulus as a secondary process post analysis of the potential threat to survival potential. A wealth of written instruments exists to discuss both of these considerations. Today, I am going to tell you about the ones you can control with conscious thoughts and how to override the perpetual negative loop. Cognitive distortions are phenomena that you can control and re-frame with practice and intention.

The cognitive distortion is a mental capacity from which the sensory systems and the motor systems make adjudications that leave a person in a state of negativity with a constant wonder as to why things are so grim – let’s call it the Eeyore syndrome! A list of cognitive distortions:

• Leaps to conclusions – A person decides what an outcome will be by inference and association with the personal opinion before the facts are actually known or presented in proper context

• Magnifying a catastrophe – The person that always thinks the sky is going to fall “if _____ happens it will be a disaster!!!!!!” or “OMG what if __________ ruins everything”…… You get the point and I am sure that you have met a person or two like this as you giggle along here.

• A Polarized perspective – The individual that has a one way or no way mentality, it is either good or it is bad there is no other possibility or spectrum to consider.

• Defensive, doubtful or negative filters – Always looking for the worst in a situation, person, or environment. “Its too hot”, “its too cold” “That person does not like me”, She is so ugly”, I hate that idiot”, “why are we in this shit hole”…….. The list for these people is endless if we allow it to continue it will surely darken the hallways!!!!

• Personalized contextual purposing – The individual that makes everything and anything about them, and only them, never caring about anyone else or any other perspectives.

• Expectations and the lies of fairness – Face it life is not fair and if you expect it to be then you will be let down more times than not – the old adage “it is what it is “ rings true here ( I hate that phrase …..oops my lens needs adjustment!). Expecting others to act the way you think they should act, is pointless and will only cause you grief or envy, or sadness or a host of potential negative loop thought or feelings. Let that shit go – people will be who they are, and life is not always fair – do your best when you can and that is the only thing you can control.

• Victimization and the blame game – I could write a book here on why this is a life destroying position and activity. However, suffice it to say that you will never feel positive about blaming others or being a victim by your own accepted labeling.

• Coulda, shoulda, woulda – Reflective thinking is good but use Socratic thinking not bravado, bullshit, or rationalization – it will serve you much better in a discovery for positivity-based query. Appreciative Inquiry (a construct you should study more about).

• Change – Why do people always think change is a good thing? Then when change is the most desired thought a person has the idea that their life or situation sucks is highlighted and integrated in daily activity. Change can be good, but change must have a stated purpose other than changing just for change sake. If you decide that you want/need to make changes, identify a purpose and plan of action to instill the changes first! BTW – expecting others to change is a root fallacy, you do not get to adjust other people’s thinking and behaviors and the sooner you accept that the better off you will be – shake these cognitive distortions and exit the negative loop of falsehoods that change is a cure-all.

• The requirement to be right all the time – Individuals that think they are always right and will go to whatever lengths it takes to prove that they are, always seem to be seeking a negative position to exploit – guess what, if you are always looking for negative positions you will find them!

• Affective domain reasoning (emotional) – A person that always leads with their heart and is only going to make assessments or adjudications by what they “feel” at that time and place is a gateway to broken relationships, missed opportunities, and most of all valuable differential discourse that improves and collaborates if given the chance to exchange ideas and thoughts with rational discussions and actual evidence for reinforcement.

I hope that identification of these cognitive distortions is now something for you to examine in yourself and those that you surround yourself with. Eliminate as many of these behaviors as possible and you will soon begin to feel a little lighter and a bit more energized to enjoy your days and nights accordingly. Have fun, smile more, and stop overthinking and generalizing situations. Explore more, and communicate with good intentions, open minds and hearts, and specific boundaries that are important to you.

Be sure to check out our Youtube link located on the homepage or in the contact us section here on our website and remember to hit SUBSCRIBE while you are there. Subscribing to our YouTube channel provides us with additional tools to continue our disclosures and activities. We hope to entertain, enlighten, engage, empower, and educate those of you that care to participate or follow along with us on our #madzookjourney

MadzookJoe

Word of the Week - Novaturient

Novaturient is an adjective used to describe a person that is seeking a powerful change in their life, behavior, or situation. Do you have a novaturient disposition? If so, what will you do to empower the changes that you desire to make? Madzook offers competent single session discussion hour options for those of you wishing to initiate the road to discovery and explore your novaturient mindset.

Types of Memory

Today, I walked outside of my condo in Phuket Thailand and I realized that I could not find where I had last parked my scooter! After a bit of a pause I located the scooter and started thinking about memory and the human processes of varying types of memory. Today I decided to list out the types of memory and offer a summation into what the relevance for the varying types of memory provides to us from a functionality perspective.

We all start with our sensory memory. The sensory memory is a quick responsive process that sends neural information to the CNS and the cognitive domain of the brain regions that are responsible for the motor response or determination of importance. This action takes place instantaneously (less than a second)

We then divide memory into a continuum of Short-Term Memory and Long-Term Memory. The functional anatomical and neurological pathways and structures involved for that process is not the scope of this blog discussion. The purpose here is to identify and inform the reader of the types of memory with a summation of the purposes. The Short-term memory generally is believed to be for quick decision making and/or information processing that was determined to be worth a longer yet brief analysis than the instant use of a sensory memory. The short-term memory generally lasts a minute or two in duration. This is often referred to as the working memory – e.g. what did I write as my last sentence, where is my coffee cup and is my pen near my notepad or is it on the desk, are some examples of a working memory process.

The long – term memory is for storage and retrieval as necessary and the coding process has been embedded these memories for a lifetime. Some memories hold heuristic associations, and others are less easy to recall. However, if the brain has determined that the memory is more useful than just a minute or two needed for a specific working function, then it is retrievable, and it is stored somewhere in that big beautiful mind of yours!

The following happens from that point forward – the determination that a memory is going to be embedded and regulated to a long-term memory designation.

Long-term memory divides into:

Explicit memory: Conscious memories

Explicit memory breaks down into Declarative memory – The facts and events that we can recall and/or articulate. Declarative memory breaks down into:

Episodic memory – Events or experiences that we learned about, witnessed in person or via some form of media, or personally participated in.

Semantic memory – The facts, paradigms, worldviews, perspectives, emotions, concepts, or phenomena that we have learned, feel, opine or understand.

Implicit memory: Subconscious memories

Implicit memory breaks down into Procedural memory – The skills we maintain and the tasks that we perform.

These are the various types of human memory and the purposes for each. As always, we encourage you to take the time to explore the depths and breadth of specificity within all of the constructs or processes that we write about here when we share a small bit of introductory knowledge or opinion with you for your expansions of the information. Thank you for reading! For those of you that want to go deeper – study about memory recall methodology, or how to repress a memory or why persons sometimes lose their memory (types of amnesia).

Be sure to check out our Youtube link on the website and remember to hit SUBSCRIBE while you are there. Subscribing to our YouTube channel provides us with additional tools to continue our disclosures and activities. We hope to entertain, enlighten, engage, empower, and educate those of you that care to participate or follow along with us on our #madzookjourney

MadzookJoe

Romanticism; Historical Roots to the Modern Day “Woke” Philosophy

Quite often I discuss with clients or groups the importance of knowing differentiation between feelings and thoughts. It is biological, physiological and neurological truth, that a human will feel before they are able to think. In short, sensory stimulus provokes motor stimulus and feeling is sensory while thinking (cognitive functionality) is a motor process. Today we know these domains to be the affective domain (feelings, emotions, empathic response) and the cognitive domain (thoughts, memory, analytical response).

     Much has been highlighted in the generation of today and integrated generations of prior decades that describes a state of enlightened thought and emotional attunement referred to as being “woke”. Millennial’s cling to the moniker as a badge of honor, or superiority without reconciliation, or recognition of the historical roots and the cyclical, iterative, multi-directional and multi-planar continuum of human preference to thoughts, emotions, individual responsibility, or group/tribe mentality. Not to be a negative to the beauty of discovery so often neglected past the surface for the decades of younger generations throughout history that felt similar to being the only group in the know and the center of the functional universe. There is a beauty in watching people believe they know more than they actually do. The confidence is a powerful reinforcer, and the willingness of the intelligent to seek further and that epiphany moment one realizes when they have so much more discovery to encounter is exhilarating for a good coach, mentor, or advisor to witness.

     Enlightenment and Romanticism are paramount to the historical identification of the “woke” mentality of today’s nomenclature. These terms have been a bit skewed over the generational furtherance of the era of bygone significance. The terms were actually periods of historical philosophy and generational behaviorism influence. Enlightenment took place in the 1600’s – 1700’s, the elements of traditional enlightenment from this era (one can certainly postulate that Asia had differences in meanings of enlightenment than Europe) the highlights being that individual responsibility, reasoned thought, intellect, and skepticism were the foundations of the enlightenment period. The rebels of the day, the non-conformist, the social justice warriors, and the agents of change were seeking to argue that the restrictions and Dogma of the organized religions was more controlling than empowering, and that had to change. The people were enlightened to their own participatory requirement for creating the life and the humanity that they desired.

     Romanticism was from the period of the 1700’s through the early 1800’s and forwarded an emotional influence on philosophy and interactions between humans. A disposition of emotional connection, appreciation for nature as a relative Gestalt component of humanity, a view of holism, of mystical influences such as magic, or energy forces at work, a shift towards personal feelings rather than unified thoughts or reasoned positions. If it felt good, do it was the mentality. The idea of the modern “woke” generation seems to combine the constructs of these two historical eras of time. The recognized importance of individual thought, the connectivity of emotional purpose and empathy, the idea that energy, nature, and Deity preference are post-positivist mandates of existence. The belief that knowledge is power but without emotion knowledge is powerless to connect individuals and therefore emotion and thought must be present to be fully “woke”. The idea of being “woke” seems to be a bit subjective to me, as do the historical roots of these classical eras of philosophy and humanism. However, one thing is for sure – if we feel and think then we function and if we add individual responsibility to the soup then our functionality becomes awakened. Is that what being “woke” means to you? That is how I adjudicate if a person is truly woke or pretending to be.

     MadzookJoe

Welcome to MADZOOK

Look for our future weekly Blog posts that highlight the four - pillar lifestyle, offer some social entertainment, opine our perspectives of relative research positions, postulations to Be Better as a human by personal choice, and a shared discovery of our travels and encounters along the #madzookjourney - Thanks for being here! We hope you enjoy your stay. be sure to check out our YouTube channel and subscribe. We will begin our weekly postings here on Wednesday October 31, 2018 - be sure to look each week for new content to discover! If you wish to become a contributor to our blog, as a member of the #madzooktribe then be sure to reach out to us via e-mail and let us know what is on your mind!