Evidence that the Spiritual Battleground is our Mind

Cognitive Dissonance? Cognitive Distortion?

Cognitive dissonance may be defined as the state of having inconsistent or conflicting thoughts, beliefs, attitudes or behaviors, which, in turn, produce a feeling of discomfort within the individual.

Cognitive distortions are simply ways that our mind convinces us of something that isn't really true. These inaccurate thoughts are usually used to reinforce negative thinking or emotions — telling ourselves things that sound rational and accurate, but really only serve to keep us feeling bad about ourselves.

Some Distortions:

• Always being right
• Blaming
• Disqualifying the positive
• Emotional reasoning
• Fallacy of change
• Fallacy of fairness
• Jumping to conclusions
• Labeling and mislabeling
• Magnification and minimization
• Overgeneralizing
• Personalizing
• Making "must" or "should" statements
• Splitting (All-or-nothing thinking, black-or-white thinking, dichotomous reasoning)

It's not whether a thought is positive or negative or a "thinking error". The question is whether the thinking is based on truth, which stirs conviction that leads to hope, or on a lie which concludes condemnation which leads to hopelessness.

Renewing the mind...

Taking every thought captive

Pray without ceasing