Not All Emotional Reactions Are Valid
To lesson your anxiety, ground your emotions in reality
As a therapist, I can’t tell you how much I dislike the platitude, “Your emotions are valid.” Sometimes, they aren’t. When rioters stormed the Capitol this month, they demonstrated how dangerous emotions can be when they aren’t rooted in reality.
The relationship between conspiracy-fueled narratives and emotions is a two-way street. As I tell my clients, when you feel anxious or angry, you’re more likely to believe statements that confirm those feelings. And the greater your exposure to emotion-filled propaganda, the more likely you are to absorb those emotions.
So what do you do when it feels like a significant chunk of the population is operating in a different reality than you are — about election fraud, Covid-19 precautions, systemic racism, the future of the planet?
You make sure that your own emotions are rooted in reality.
You might not be sharing conspiracy theories on the internet, but it’s only human to let the…
