10 Questions to Ask When You Catch Yourself Mindreading
No one:
Me: “What am I going to write about in my blog this week? I’ll have to explain why I didn’t blog last week and why I am 2 days late in posting this week. And why I have been completely absent on social media for a few days. I want them to know I am not a flake, but that I am just practicing that long-term balance I wrote about a while ago. Lots of stuff going on in my personal life, and oh by the way, relocating to a new office. Blogging and social media had to take a back seat to the rest of my life…”
I caught myself falling into patterns that I talk to many of my clients about:
1. Putting thoughts in other people's heads (mindreading).
2. Overexplaining
Overexplaining is a by-product of mindreading. It ties in with perfectionism, people-pleasing, and trauma, and probably deserves its own blogpost at some point. It will just get a brief mention in this post. (Ironic that overexplaining will not be overexplained today!)
Mindreading is a cognitive distortion we work on using cognitive behavioral therapy.
When we engage in mindreading we have these (often inaccurate) ideas of what other people are thinking. And we just know we are right.
This becomes a habitual pattern; we do it without even realizing we are doing it.
The thing is, most of the time “they” (whoever “they” are) are not even thinking about us at all.
Who even noticed I didn’t blog last week? Nobody.
Or that I am 2 days late this week, that I have set the schedule for myself that new blogs come out on Mondays. Nobody.
Who missed me on social media? Nobody. Ok, maybe my Mom.
And if anybody did notice my absence, who cares? Again… nobody!
Throughout our lives, often starting in childhood, we collect experiences of people thinking negatively about us. If those experiences also had negative consequences, we make a strong case in our brains that what other people think about us is of utmost importance.
This can easily lead our brains to scan for danger on the minefield of other people’s thoughts. Just like a real minefield, we can’t see the dangers hidden under the surface, so we have to assume they are everywhere.
We conclude that if we are thinking something slightly negative about ourselves, everyone else is, too.
On social media, people publicly post their opinions on just about everything. It is so easy to internalize judgement from the invisible masses.
I remember watching a video in which some stranger made critical comments about different women’s eyebrows and I became self-conscious about my eyebrows for weeks! In every conversation I had with people, I studied them to try and figure out whether they were looking at my eyebrows.
Because that one person said that thing about someone else, what must people be thinking about me?
Often, the topics discussed on social medial hit closer to home, closer to our identities and values than the aesthetics of eyebrows.
Knowing other people’s opinions on these topics can affect us deeply and personally. It can cause us to overthink and magnify the importance of the thoughts of others.
This also causes us to overexplain our actions. We want to get ahead of what “they” are thinking so nobody can think anything bad about us. Even if we did something that wasn’t the greatest, we want the chance to explain that we know it wasn’t good, so we are not wounded by the words of someone else.
If we get ahead of the criticism, it won’t hurt so much.
We want to control the way “they” see us.
We want to be understood.
10 Questions to Ask When You Catch Yourself Mindreading
Who are “they?" Sometimes just defining who you are worried about helps us realize that nobody we actually know would be thinking whatever negative thought our brain is spinning. If someone specific comes to mind, it might be someone whose thoughts of you really don't matter to you.
Why do I care? What meaning have you attached to their opinion of you? Often we connect our "I am not good enough" stuff to our perceptions of others' thoughts.
Is this person’s opinion of me worth the energy I am giving it? I believe all people are inherently valuable, but we are all going to disagree on things. We have to decide which disagreements are worth wrestling with. In the words of Taylor Swift… “haters gonna hate (hate hate hate hate).” If you are doing something that aligns with what you believe you are supposed to be doing, you are going to have to find ways to shake off your critics. There will always be critics, especially if you are doing something new or different than the norm.
What do I think about the topic of the other person’s presumed thoughts? A lot of times, we perceive judgement coming from others because there is a part of us that isn’t sure we are right. If we are solid in our opinion, then the thoughts of others won’t make much of a dent in what we feel, and we wouldn’t be assigning negative thoughts to them.
We think others are judging us because we are judging ourselves.
I have not once worried about someone thinking my hair is frizzy, because I am painfully solid on the fact that I do not have enough natural curl in my hair for that. But I may have obsessed over whether my hair is flat or stringy.
How do I know they are thinking this? Did they say so? (Spoiler alert... that's the only way you can actually know) Or are you interpreting an expression on their face, an intonation in their voice? Are you taking something that random people on social media are saying as gospel truth (like my eyebrows example)? Separate the information you have from your interpretation of that information. Fact vs. fabrication. If anyone else saw and heard what you did, would they be able to confidently come to the same conclusion you did about the person’s thoughts?
What else could they be thinking? Try to come up with as many other possibilities as you can. Make sure some of them are good things about you! This broadens your perspective and helps you realize you don’t actually know what they are thinking.
Is this person a good communicator? Some people communicate in a passive-aggressive way and expect you to read between the lines. Just because they expect that, it doesn't mean you have to play by those rules. You can decide that if they thought something negative about you, it is on them to say so. It is not really your problem unless they communicate it as a problem. (I get it, this is hard to sit with. It gets easier with practice).
How can I ask for clarification? If you are concerned about their thoughts, and it doesn't feel ok to just assume they would speak up if they had a problem with you, ask them.
You can say something like, “The way you said that, it makes me feel like you are thinking (insert your assumption here). Am I understanding our interaction accurately?”
Again, this is hard at first, but the more you do it, the more you realize your immediate assumption is not always right – and that other people think wildly differently than you do.
When have I been wrong in the past about what I imagined someone else was thinking? Pulling up these memories lets your brain know that it can slow down before jumping to conclusions about what people are thinking. It can take a while to accumulate new experiences, like recognizing your assumptions are not always correct, but every time you slow down and pay attention to this, you are making progress. You are sending a message to the brain that fast-tracking your assumptions is not always the safe approach.
How can I show myself compassion? It can be easy to go down a shame trail of "Oh man, I did it again! Why can't I stop trying to mindread?" Old habits die hard. Celebrate your new awareness, even if you engaged in the behavior before you caught yourself. Awareness is the first step to change.
There is so much freedom that comes from letting the thoughts of other people just stay in their heads.
Their thoughts are not your business. No matter how hard you try, you can’t control what people think about you. You can, however, control your own thoughts.
If this blog post resonates with you and you want some help managing your thoughts, please reach out to set up a phone consultation. You can send me a secure message through my website, or call 717-219-4339. In the meantime, keep checking back for more mental health tips. I (usually) post on Monday mornings!
Jennie Sheffe is a National Certified Counselor ™ who helps women find freedom from anxiety and peace in their chaos. She sees clients virtually in the state of Pennsylvania, or in her downtown Carlisle, PA office. She offers Christian counseling and EMDR Therapy.
