Have you ever been in a situation where you talk yourself into justifying your actions or someone else’s? This is what it means to rationalize. Chris leads the conversion from a point of understanding of what rationalization is and how you use it in your life. Some of the ways that we use rationalization is as a defense, justification, understanding and as protection.
The goal you want to strive for is the balance between those uses and developing a destructive habit of over-rationalizing everything.
Tune in to see Why Do We Rationalize Things So Much Through a Therapist’s Eyes.
Listen for the following takeaways from the show:
- Show starts with a therapist’s take on the war in Ukraine regarding the effects of PTSD and Propaganda.
- What is rationalization?
- There are two parts of the brain – limbic (emotions) and frontal cortex (logic).
- Being rational is not the same as rationalizing.
- You can use rationalization as a defense.
- They can be used to help us move past a struggle, but it can also stifle emotional growth.
- You can use rationalization to develop understanding.
- Rationalization can be an active form of anxiety management.
- You can use rationalization as protection.
- You need to develop balance in action vs thoughtfulness.
- We have to rationalize with reality.
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Episode #182 Transcription
Chris Gazdik: [00:00:00] Hello everybody. This is Through a Therapist’s Eyes. I am Chris Gazdik, mental health and substance abuse therapist since 1995. That sounds crazy. Doesn’t it? I was 12, 19 95, 19 12. I was 12. Oh my God. That’s terrible. I have the book out still re understanding emotions and becoming your best self. This is where you get personal insights from a therapist directly in your own home and personal time in your car, but not the delivery of therapy services in any way.
Always need to point that out. We definitely talk about a lot of therapy things in this one. We’re going to talk a little bit about really some things I get, I think, kinda more into therapy office. Some, some things that we’re trying to do and, and thinking about because the topic is going to be rationalize things so much.
So see the world through the lens of a therapist, [00:01:00] a five-star reviews is really helpful. Apple, iTunes, Spotify, apple, iTunes, especially lets us make comments. It’s very helpful to us. Listen, I’m really thankful to you, the listener who follows us through around the world we got really kind of a cool compliment.
Randomly. Somebody was telling me they were in a conversation, Neil, and they’re like, oh yeah, that pot’s got, I love that podcast. And really a new listener recently and was really excited about it. So I’m really grateful and thankful that you guys are following along with us. Pretty cool. That is awesome.
Contacted through a therapist that was a great way to reach us. We have the merchandise up tab top of the web. Hit merge. I don’t know if that’s clear enough. Yeah. We’ll
Neil Robinson: find some way to clear it up a little bit. It’s you got to save space on those links at the top. Is that what it is? Yeah. Too many letters, too many letters.
Merchandise that’s really long. So
Chris Gazdik: yeah. Merck and you get your cops, your ball caps. I bought one, it came in the other day.
Neil Robinson: That was awesome. How’s it going? How’s the quality look good. The quality is great. That’s always the question with those print on demand is like how’s the quality. Yeah. It’s what I’ve seen.
That [00:02:00] that place does a pretty good job. Yeah, it
Chris Gazdik: seems so. I haven’t bought the jigsaw puzzle
Neil Robinson: though, but that needs to be in your office for people, your clients to work. I think so. That’s a great idea. Have different sizes. Like I said, you get the shorter sessions, you get the smaller.
Chris Gazdik: Yeah, we need more that I could do with kids in an hour.
I am so gonna do that. Contact@thoughtatherapistseyes.com though is the way to contact us, obviously interact with us, let us know. I’m actually thinking about putting out on Facebook, a post that might be what we put out Saturday on the email list. Neil. I’d like feedback on what diagnostic show you’d like to get next.
I want to do one. I. Soon, and I don’t really do them very often. So recently we did one, a narcissistic personality disorder, and I’d like to hear from you. So reach out to us, let us know. Is there a specific diagnosis you’d like us to spend a little bit of time on? So that is a question to the listening audience.
This is coming out somewhere mid April. So thereafter, the end of April, we’ve met April.
Neil Robinson: So, and just keep in mind that, like I said, we have the Facebook [00:03:00] page. There’s a LinkedIn page too. So for those that are more on the professional side, look for us on, on LinkedIn. We do our reminders there and I think we’ll put up, we’ll post the same question there too, to see what people think, what they want to hear next.
And yeah, we want to build
Chris Gazdik: specific diagnostics. We have out there, depression, major depression. What is adding tie a, you know, post-traumatic stress disorder again, and we’ve talked about some of them. You know, there’s some new diagnosis for kids and some difficult things out there that you might be interested in.
So let us know this is the human emotional experience of which we endeavor to figure out together. So let’s kind of launch, I guess. No, let’s do a quick get to know Neil deal at rhymes. What do you do for fun? Something new that people might not know about you? What I can give you one of these stupid warmup questions, like, you know, what would be your dream vacation?
Something, what comes to mind that describes who this Neal is?
Neil Robinson: I don’t know. Probably a dream vacation would be some sort of a. Someplace with the really [00:04:00] cool hike or mountains, you know, I don’t know if it’d be a grand canyon hike. Cause I went there, but we did the little horseshoe thing. So we didn’t get, you don’t get the same hiking experience, but like, you know, Oregon, those with the green, that’s why I love North Carolina is because of that green, but we love to hike or even a week on the side of a ski slope.
I haven’t been skiing in so long, so long. That’d be, that’d be a framework
Chris Gazdik: are you more a skier Or more hiker
Neil Robinson: hiker because it’s cheaper.
Chris Gazdik: Absolutely. But if we not gone on a hike yet we need to be in the woods somewhere out. How has that not
Neil Robinson: happened? I don’t know. I think it’s cause like you, you read it like the day of it’s like, Hey, I’m going hiking today.
I’m like, ah, I got family stuff. Kind of guilty of that. I tell my wife, like if you gave me like two weeks notice I can plan it and we kind of work around it because are you a planner? No, but what happens is we just fill in the time we have so much stuff we need to be doing that. If you give me time, I can slot you in at that, that area.
And that’s how much time
Chris Gazdik: a day or
Neil Robinson: a week or two weeks, maybe. [00:05:00]
Chris Gazdik: I think it’s, it’s never going to happen, Chris and Neal with never hiked together.
Neil Robinson: It could be a week. It really just depends. If we’re doing like whitewater center, south fork, you know, Norman that’s, that’s not a big issue, so I can use my kids employee pass to get into whitewater center.
So, yeah. Oh,
Chris Gazdik: cool. That’s an awesome facility. That’s in the local area here. So we’re gonna do a quick current event too. I’ve been kind of thinking that I haven’t done enough mentioning or talking about the world events over in Ukraine. There there’s, there’s a whole lot going on in the dynamics of mental health here.
Obviously, you know, when, when, when I did talk about it, I’ve talked about the trauma impacts, which I mean, everyone kinda knows there’s trauma impacts. They are indelibly embedded in those that go through an experience where you’re in a war zone like that, I, I can’t speak from experience, [00:06:00] but when you’ve seen people die right next to you, and you know, there there’s a whole cultural overlay.
Now that a whole cohort has experienced this major event here in the states we have at a little bit with nine 11, everybody knows, you know, where you were when you heard nine 11, that is an indelible cultural layer. Like when John F. Kennedy was, was assassinated. I know I’m sure other countries or sectors of the world, all of Europe remembers when X happened.
You know, so we, we have this big cultural layer that’s happened now, and that’ll stick with people for the rest of. They’re there or our lives. So realize that that’s normal realize and understand that’s what human psyche does with things like that. But what isn’t normal are advanced signs of trauma experience, and we’ve done some shows on that.
So everyone’s going to have reactions. Some people believe it or not. We’ll be in the bombing in Ukraine [00:07:00] and have PTSD and some will not, they won’t have post traumatic stress. Does that sound crazy actually surprising as I’m talking
Neil Robinson: about this? No, I mean, we, we brought that up even with just dating, you know, when they break up, some people get highly effective at some people don’t.
I know, I know a guy who went to the Iraqi war, it didn’t bother him. You know, it was on the first one on the ground, but then you have other people that, you know, it goes through this, go through the same experience. It goes back. Everyone’s different, everyone.
Chris Gazdik: Yeah. And a big precursor to that is anxiety.
If you have anxiety prior to a traumatic reality, then you’re more likely to trigger, you know, flashbacks and nightmares and inability to relate to people well, isolating from them and elevated emotion with startle responses and triggered anxiety. It was a lot of things. So but not everybody will have.
Neil Robinson: Do you see people who have anxiety beforehand are more likely to have more severe PTSD? Yes. Okay. So it goes back to kind of personalities too.
Chris Gazdik: Not really personality. [00:08:00] What makes you say personality? Because they’re
Neil Robinson: just, there’s a difference because some people are definitely more high anxiety versus low anxiety, you know, high stress versus clinical you mean?
Yeah. I mean, definitely from my side is definitely nonclinical.
Chris Gazdik: Yeah, no I, and well, the reason why I ask that is that it, no, I’m talking about clinical anxiety. I’m glad that you said that. That makes sense. Yeah. This is, this is a clinical anxiety condition that is a precursor to post-traumatic stress or PTSD.
Yeah. That’s that’s interesting. See that’s, that’s why I need you, Neil. That’s awesome. Propaganda was the other thing I really wanted to highlight though, in a mental health social dynamic. You know, the, the world we live in now, wheat look, we’ve always had propaganda. I mean, that’s not anything new.
Matter of fact, I just watched a really cool documentary on Ben Franklin. It was really awesome expos a on his life. [00:09:00] And he was great with propaganda, man. You know what he’d do. He got a printing press and he’d do humor, satires against things that, that he was against. And he would just make jokes and laugh about it.
It sounds like a certain Zelinsky, right? By the way, credible leader, he’s demonstrating some serious leadership. But the information that you put out there in, in the world that we live in with cameras and, you know, satellite views and, you know, it’s, it’s, it’s tough because you can try to do your normal propaganda process that man has done since the beginning of the eons.
But you’ve got a contradictory system in place that I’m going to suppose to you as creating all kinds of emotional togging push and pull back and forth with people that are trying to propagate an issue or a belief or a stance and people that are taking cameras, videos in real time. [00:10:00] So pay attention. A lot of those things it’s going to be, it’s going to be a heck of a ride.
Neil Robinson: It’s a, it’s one of those things where the, the availability of the cameras and all that other stuff. That’s I think there, there are some huge benefit of that because some, you know, peop sometimes people can’t get away with things, but then also I think in the wrong hands or the way that it’s perceived, like you said, that emotional reaction.
That’s you’re missing the context, you’re missing the stuff. And like you said, that’s the balance you have to walk. And when we talk about propaganda, there’s a lot of things, a lot of pieces you got to figure out what’s right. What’s wrong. What’s what’s right. What who’s really telling the right story.
What’s going on in technology. What’s real. And what’s not real too. So there’s a there’s in today’s society. There’s so much stuff that can be developed. Videoed manipulated to make you go either way on any, on any story. You know, that’s the struggle that we have as people, not in the middle of it, [00:11:00] you know, do we really know what’s real?
What’s not. And you know, to me, the biggest thing is there’s, there’s unnecessary human loss going on. Right. And that’s, that’s the worst part about it. Yeah. I don’t, I’ve kind of stacked up which side right. Or wrong because I don’t know the bigness of politics, but I know that what’s going on is bad. Yeah.
Chris Gazdik: This one’s pretty clear. It’s not hard to figure out. I think, although there are a lot of angles to things and I agree, I’m not going to get into that either in any kind of comments or, you know, on this show, it’s about mental health and the emotional realities that people are going through. And the, the, the torture is tormenting traumas that are, that are occurring.
And that’s on both sides, you know, that’s, that’s just on a human, on a human perspective on a. Reality. So, you know, we’ll hopes and prayers and thoughts with anybody that knows somebody who is personally affected or has gone through losses, such as death of loved [00:12:00] ones or injuries and all the things going on.
It’s a crazy difficult time. So let’s get to the show topic. Why do we rationalize things so much? It’s not related to the current event that we just talked about for a little bit at all. I swear, as I said, that literally occurred to me like how that could be construed, you know, we’re rationalizing the different issues politically and the systems of the Ukraine now.
But what do you think about that title? I’m curious when you saw what we were going to talk about, just the idea of. What you think people go about with this? Like, I think this was one of the ones that I was really excited about doing, because, you know, I try to make the shows. We listen, we do, you know, apply to everybody, you know, their, their, their aspects of most issues we talk about, even if you’re not an addict, you know, we do a substance abuse show.
That’s going to impact a lot of people around that addict and whatever. So, but this is when we all do a lot.
Neil Robinson: Oh yeah, this [00:13:00] is, this is almost daily or multiple times a day for most people, you know, depending on the situations are in. Yeah. Yeah. This is something that I, I think everybody. Does or has done this whether they mean to or not.
This is something that, that human nature. I think this is something to me. It’s something that’s probably ingrained in the way we are. And I think it’s a survival tactic, I think, for a lot of stuff.
Chris Gazdik: So let’s just thought of an interesting question. I’d ask you at the beat gaining here, and then let’s try to remember at the end here and audience, you can, everyone listening can play along with us.
So if anything you think about in the beginning, I’m going to ask you is, is rationalizing things, you know, healthy or unhealthy, productive, unproductive, like, what would you say good or bad? Like, is this something, you know, and then at, at the end of the show, we’ll, we’ll talk about it and see if we can compare the two.
So is this a good or bad rationalizing?
Neil Robinson: To the
Chris Gazdik: extreme as back [00:14:00] to the extreme is bad. If you
Neil Robinson: rationalize everything to make it okay, it’s bad. That’s that’s my take on it.
Chris Gazdik: Interesting. Okay. All right. Yeah. Ask yourself in the beginning. Hear it at home. Play alone, you know, is, is, is rationalizing life around you rationalizing yourself, your oun actions, is that good or bad?
And we’ll, we’ll hopefully remember at the end to kind of look at like, well, what, what does that seem like now is as we go down through this, so go figure definitions, rationalizing, attempt to explain or justify one’s own and other, or another person’s behavior attitude with logical plausible reasons.
Even if these are not true or appropriate, it attempts to basically explain or justify again one’s own or another person’s behavior attitude. There’s I think lots of ways [00:15:00] to. define rationalization. I was interested because I do like words and words in way that they’re used in the way that they carry, meaning how some words seem the same, but are different.
I feel like there were a lot of different messages or ways to define rationalizing. And I’m just wandering about that out loud because it’s, I find that curious, most words don’t have as many different ways to look at what is a rationalization. There was a lot with this. I think it’s.
Neil Robinson: I guess I could see, because even the definition I can see where there’s a lot of different, like even this at logical plausible reasons, even if not true or appropriate.
So there’s all these like kind of these caveats to every, every way that your rational.
Chris Gazdik: Yeah. Right. You using a lot of different angles, which is a great segue on the [00:16:00] video, YouTube and Facebook live. You can see what I do in therapy office all the time. This is a brain, right, right. That is, it’s a brain.
I even do it with like a puppet, like with kids, like this is brain talking. Hello, but you got the frontal cortex, obviously an audio portion. You’re, you’re going to have to imagine right. Above your nose and your forehead. That’s that’s our thinker. Right. But if you pry that right up there, right in the middle of our brain, the brainstem right in the middle is our limbic.
And that is where all of our emotions systems operate, the amygdala, the fight or flight, the neurotransmitting systems, the, you know, the limbic system operates the flow of chemicals through our body, ultimately to the way that we feel. And, and this is our, our thinking component, abstract reasoning and our front or Cortext.
So there’s literally two different components of the brain. Which one do you think is [00:17:00] rationalization and thinking inside? Right. Right. The, the reasoning, the, the taking fact, a, B, C, D, E, and F, and combining them together to create a, a rational, logical thinking process. So our frontal cortex. Okay. So you got to understand the basic different components and what we’re really focusing on today is the frontal cortex, our thouight.
True. Cognitive behavioral therapists are loving this because that’s what we focus on is thinking, thinking errors, rationalizing that’s the system that we’re talking about today, or are we,
so this is where it gets really fascinating. I feel like, okay. I forget what episode it was, but we talked about implicit bias. I’ve I’ve, I’ve really commented about this show more than [00:18:00] once haven’t I you know,
Neil Robinson: it’s so ingrained in us. I mean, that’s one of those things it’s so like almost everything we do, that’s a piece of us.
It’s a
Chris Gazdik: fascinating topic. When we took a deep dive on that we were going to do it as one episode. I think I was talking about that with, with, with Matthew, when we ended up making it a part one, and part two was one that was recently done. Why do we do what we do? Why do we believe what we believe? I think for the titles of it.
And we decided to make it part two, because it was so depthy, and we’re not going to do that today with rationalizing things. But you think that we’re talking about the frontal cortex, however, a lot of what we actually do with our rationalization, guess what is conscious? That’s our thinking, but also subconscious, holy cow.
Now what did we just ramble around on with weight? Right? Like a lot of [00:19:00] rationalizations, we have our subconscious. So what does that mean? How does that work? Well, part of the brain does that even operate with, and I don’t know. I don’t know.
Neil Robinson: I feel like it’s almost kind of, it kind of straddles both like kind of your frontal and your limbic and it’s kind of this, cause I feel like part of it, when you think about rationality in your brain, it’s like, how emotionally charged are you in?
What happened that you take the time to rationalize it? You know, it’s kind of like, if you don’t care, you might not even care to think about it. But if it’s something that really strikes you and you have that more emotion behind is like, why did that happen? Why did that happen to me? Or why did I do that?
You know, because you know, like you said, w why did that person do that mean thing to that other person, which gets back
Chris Gazdik: to the definition a little bit in the intricacy of that, right? Like you’re describing, being rational is being rational. The same thing as [00:20:00] rationalizing. And I’m not so sure that it really is, like you said a little bit ago, it takes different little pieces around, like, what are you really doing here?
Because we’re going to talk about here in the next segment real quick, you know, this is a defense, a lot of, a lot of what is happening when we are rationalizing something is we are defending, but more on that in a minute, because right here, you got to understand what it is that you’re managing. If you’re going to manage the destructive components of rationalization, because there are some destructive components or some productive components as well.
That’s why, thus the question is as good or as this bad will, we’ll talk about it and see, because the subconscious oftentimes is driving our thoughts. And I don’t think we really understand the depths of how that happens. But the key thing to understand here is that in some ways that’s [00:21:00] automatic process.
And when that’s happening in ways that we don’t want our automatic process to go on with, you see what we’re after kind of gets back to the implicit bias, you know why do we do what we do? Why do we think what we think will cause some subconscious rationalizing oftentimes is going on? So to your point, I think a little bit, you don’t, you have to put some, some purposeful effort into identifying what it is that I’m thinking.
No, you
Neil Robinson: definitely do the, I think you definitely have to. And I think I’m, you know, I’m looking at what happens with, when something happens to someone what’s the reaction and do they think it’s okay or not based on their past. And then that goes back to if they think it’s okay, if it is do the Nita rationalize, if it’s not okay, but they’re still rationalizing it.
That’s where that’s the. When rationalizations kind of on the bad, when something bad [00:22:00] happens or something’s bad going on and you rationalize it to be okay. Right. Which goes back to that implicit bias or that subconscious of why in your subconscious are you going through and actually rationalizing something that’s not okay.
I think
Chris Gazdik: the thing is you, sometimes this is going on and you don’t know it and you don’t realize it until, and let me give you a tip. You really want to pay attention to your thought process and your rationalization of something. When you have something called cognitive dissonance, that’s a fancy, cool word, right?
Cognitive dissonance. We have several of these crazy things. This is the, but this is, this is really simple. This is cognitive, right? Your thought process, frontal Cortez dissonance, something that is rubbing Raul rubbing wrong. Right? So this is the discomfort caused to people by their awareness of their in’s inconsistent thought.
And that’s where rationalization can reduce the discomfort by explaining away the discrepancy. That’s in question. All right. So an example here that they popped [00:23:00] out, I thought it was cool when people who take up smoking, but after previously quitting just decided that the evidence for it being harmful, isn’t really that convincing, see, you’re, you’re a smoker, you quit and you start back up again and then you’re like, well, that’s okay because it didn’t really that bad for me.
I mean, there’s a reason it takes 20 years to add long problems. I must be okay for five, you know, some, something like that right there, but there’s, there’s dissonance. I, I thought that it was bad. And then, then I thought it wasn’t so bad and I’m not really sure if I’m doing something that’s really that, you know, bad, but is it bad?
You know, it there’s cognitive dissonance that is telling you, wait a minute, you need a back up. You need to really slow down. You need to really examine and go through a process to look at what is really going on with me. Because a lot of times, again, this is subconscious y’all and you’re not really going to be thoughtful or aware of that.
So this is a little bit of a, a little bit of a tip is that
Neil Robinson: it makes it it’s when you do [00:24:00] something that, you know, you shouldn’t, but you still kind of get yourself, you know, going back to that bad relationship, you know, alcoholics taking that drink gamblers who shouldn’t go to a casino, they know they shouldn’t, but they do.
Or the people that go eat fast food. When the note, you know, they have a bad stomach for that food or that the right, I think it was that one of those Eddie Murphy movies where the lady. I always went to go to like a red lobster though. She has sash shellfish,
Chris Gazdik: allergy
Neil Robinson: it’s that, and that I could see where there’s a lot of trauma and anxiety in that where your beat yourself up, that you’re almost having that grief of why am I, why am I doing this?
And then it goes back to thing is you feel so bad? Well you’re, to me, it’s that safety and Magnolia, that survival mechanism of well. Let me rationalize it. Yeah, no,
Chris Gazdik: you’re on point there. That’s really cool. I didn’t anticipate that or think about that, but listen, this is like you said, [00:25:00] this is a daily, chronic thing that we really all do intently and boy, you can beat yourself to a pulp.
You know, you are your own worst enemy, which is in a little bit of a section coming up. Maybe I stand corrected. I think I did think about that. But boy, we, we need to move on. Otherwise we’re gonna, we’re gonna, I want to go deep on some things. So let me get to some of this. So as I mentioned, this is examining rationalizing and the process for that.
And I thought about it in several ways. I thought about rationalization as a defense, as a justification and minimization, and then here’s interesting. Right? And then to develop understanding, and then I thought about it as an active form of anxiety, man. I wouldn’t think of that with rationalization, but it is, and we’ll get to that.
And then as protection, what, what does that mean? So we’ll get to that. [00:26:00] Okay. But the big thing here that I think people mostly think about in the functions that rationalizations occur to us is as a defense, it is a way to defend kind of ourselves from our own conscious or subconscious for that matter, beating us up, making us doubt that cognitive dissonance.
It has a lot of ways that that creates correct inadequacies, correct insecurities, that corrects doubts and fears that we have rationalizing them. So we often assess ourself as acting badly and inadequate in some way in our rationalizations. Turn that around to help us to feel better about ourselves. To help us to feel okay.
To get, you know, confidence built. That that all makes sense.
Neil Robinson: Yeah. I mean that, you know, like I said, it’s, it’s kind of that like set of survivor. You know, you think about the worst thing you can do to [00:27:00] someone is take away their hope. So when you rationalize it, you kind of, you, you lose some of that helplessness, you lose some of that stuff.
So you’re more likely to move forward, you know, cause that’s, you know, with your show’s about depression, like you really get stuck if you’re just depressed. And if you can’t rationalize your way out of it to find a way to move forward, it’s very hard. So I can see where that’s very important for us to use rationalization, to get us out of stuck out of the rut, you know, kind of like you’re on four by four to get out
Chris Gazdik: interesting metaphor.
Rationalizations are a four by four to get out of a rut. That’s kind of cool. It is. If you, if you follow that line of thinking, because otherwise we really will. I mean, if you’re listening as you’re like, I don’t think badly of myself and whatever. I mean, do you have to really dig, stop and pause a little bit because you’re, you’re missing.
You know, the reality of what we question and doubt about ourselves. I mean, that’s such a chronic, regular, everyday reality. [00:28:00] And, you know, to some extent, we need to defend ourselves from a lot of the negative criticisms that we provide ourselves and rationalizing things can, can, can help with that, but it can also make us miss all kinds of stuff.
So thus, you’ve got to realize that part of the defense prevents us from missing emotional growth. It, it, it helps us to miss a process of change. Remember that cognitive dissonance can create something good, but when you’re rationalizing things away and just sort of making things okay for the sake and purpose that you want to build your ego up and me be more self-confident artificially.
It’s an interesting word that occurs to me there. Then you’re really, really kind of, you’re creating that rut. You’re creating. That stuckness.
Neil Robinson: Yeah. Yeah. I was kinda think about like last night, my wife and I, we finally did a workout after awhile and I was very in my head. I was like, I can rationalize a [00:29:00] reason to not do my exercise.
Okay.
Chris Gazdik: But, but then, I mean, food, weight loss. Yeah.
Neil Robinson: But then it’s like, you know, but then if I go to the next as like, well, then I feel like crap because I didn’t do the workout. And one of the motivations this time was because we’re trying to get the kids to work out too. It was like, we need to start first.
And so you go back to rationalizing. I could easily rationalize not doing it, but then if I didn’t do it, which I did the before rationalizing that I had stuff going on the day before, but now I’m going to do it now. That’s where the that’s that balance of rationalizing stuff in the past. So you know that you can then make it to the next, but yet not rationalizing a continual avoidance or continual bad habits.
So I can see that both sides of it, where the defensive of. I didn’t do it, so, oh, shoot. I’m I’m worthless. I can’t do it. Well, I really had stuff I had going on yesterday, but now it’s like, okay, I’m going to do it. So to not avoid it, I’m not going to rationalize skipping out [00:30:00] and I’m just going to get it done.
So that, to me, that makes sense with your defense and why sometimes it gets too far.
Chris Gazdik: It’s funny, it just gets
Neil Robinson: convoluted. It really does like a circle, like a word corkscrew circle mess.
Chris Gazdik: You can live inside our head and just corkscrew and circle around like you just described. And that can be tormenting.
And there’s interestingly where sometimes there’s, there’s probably a continuum as with most things in my field. I feel like in mental health and the psychology room, we have continuums and there are people that probably internalize thinking more than other people that externalize thinking. And so when you’re an internalized processor, you’re probably going to run into rationalize.
Problems more often than if you’re externalizing your thought process. You, that might be a, a defense almost from the destructive kind of rationalizing. I hadn’t really [00:31:00] thought about that. That’s that’s new in the moment. Did that make sense? So is externalizing your thoughts, externalizing, your logic, even if nobody’s there and you just talking to the air or praying, you know, for instance to God or your creator, or then talking to a friend, of course, does that defend from rationalizing because it gets it non circular.
It gets it out. And I think that can give you a, it easier examination, certainly with feedback from somebody, but even just yourself, an E an examination of what it is that I just laid out there. I think that defends from rational.
Neil Robinson: I think it’s, I think, honestly, speaking out loud, speaking it out loud as a tool tool you use to rationalize it because does, like you said, I mean, how many times have you, I’ve heard this many times where you’re asked you’re you go to ask someone a question, as you ask it, you answer your own question.
Yeah.
Chris Gazdik: You wrote to me [00:32:00]
Neil Robinson: having it spoken out loud, even if it is just to yourself or whoever
Chris Gazdik: can be in itself, a rationalization
Neil Robinson: that can be a tool you can use to rationalize and actually get through the rationalization because sometimes sent out loud and you hear yourself talk versus just thinking it, you either can say, wait, I’m.
That’s BS. Why did I, did I really? And so actually to me, speaking out loud is probably one of the better ways to help move, move past the destructive rationalization cycle.
Chris Gazdik: Yeah. And that’s, I think that’s what I mean by is that a tool to defeat the negative components of rationalization? Maybe I didn’t say well, cause it’s true in the moment, you know, it just occurred to me and, and it sounds like you’re, you’re making the point.
Yeah. That’s actually a taught tool to do speak it out. And then examine what it is that you’re saying. I mean, we do that in written word. Write it out before you speak it to your spouse. It’s a really good idea sometimes,
Neil Robinson: but as an engulfment person, I don’t promote [00:33:00] that. Ah, ah,
Chris Gazdik: that’s funny, but here’s the thing that I would get to with this defense section right here.
Right? We do this stuff in therapy all the time. So in my therapy practice, in my process with people, we are really getting at these rationalizations, which is part of what makes the artificial environment of a therapy relationship, really effective. I can receive your thoughts, receive your line of reasoning about an event, about a person, a relationship situation, person, place or thing.
And just play that back to you with what I see in. And the clarity that we get to sometimes is amazing because we are really looking at what are the root motivations for what it is that’s going on in your life. And, and dynamically is why therapy relationship can be so [00:34:00] valuable. We’re also clinically looking at what are the clinical aspects of how mental health impacts that I probably won’t talk about that a whole lot tonight, but if you have depression, this is going to impact how you rationalize.
If you have bipolar, you can become hypomanic or manic and not really be in the right space to Rasha. So there’s, there’s real. So I’m going to be looking at the mental health aspect. I’m going to be looking at the real thing that you just gave me. And I’m also going to be looking at the historical factors in your life that psychologically are stored up in your system, primarily subconscious, quite possibly.
And I’m going to put that all together and give it to you to examine what really are the motivations here. Doesn’t. Isn’t it sounds thorough in like, I’m going to submit you almost kind of can’t do that, you know, for yourself. But
Neil Robinson: I think that goes also back, not only the importance of therapy for, you know, for people that need it, but also the importance of have a good relationship, whether it’s a spouse, a partner, a friend, [00:35:00] when you have those long-term relationships that you’ve, you’ve, you’ve been through all the different pieces of it and they know your history that really helps you properly rationalize something.
You know, why did you do that? You know, Chris, why did you do that? You know, I know you have this issue from 20 years ago, you know, so I understand. Why did you do it this way? Or, you know, that makes sense because of your past. And so, and that, like I said, that’s, that’s the importance of long-term therapy to me, if you really want to actually have effective therapy, you need to take the time to build a relationship
Chris Gazdik: with a therapist statement.
Yeah. Because otherwise, versus some of the short-term stuff that we have nowadays, it’s it’s as effective.
Neil Robinson: You’re just not going to get it. You know, the therapist, isn’t going to really know you. You’re going to be able to rationalize your, your statements by only saying what you think they want to hear.
The therapist might not get the ability to really know what’s going on. What’s going on there. Yeah. So, so I think long-term [00:36:00] relationships or vital are very valuable to a person, especially dealing with rationalizations and dealing with your subconscious and helping you become a better person for you and for your relationships.
Chris Gazdik: So I want to give some, some, some validity here though, and, and honor the idea that. This is precisely what makes it tough and scary to do a therapy experience in the first place? I mean, think about it. You’re going to be thinking through observing my mental health, my history, what I’m currently putting out here and let me get this right.
So you’re going to be in my subconscious telling me what the heck I’m doing and thinking, and I don’t even know it like that sounds creepy and scary as hell. I ain’t going I’m over about checkout. I’ll I’ll do it next year. Because that is intimidating, literally to be seen that way now what’s beautiful is it’s a non-judgment zone and I don’t have any dog in the fight.
So it makes it easier to do that in a therapy venue. Believe it or not. Can you think about trying to do that [00:37:00] sometimes with your spouse? Yo, hold on, hold the phone, slow down, stop. I’m out. Sometimes it’s scary to, to really go through a process of looking. This takes a lot of emotional maturity looking at the root.
At what am I defending? What is my motivational foundation here that leads to why I’m thinking this way and rationalizing things away. That’s, that’s a, that’s a hard thing to get into doing. Yeah. Right. So let’s move on then to seeing, you know, rationalizing as a justification or minimization. So this is another one that’s kind of edgy where like, as a defense, it can, you can be defending and missing opportunities to grow missing opportunities, to gain insight.
You can just rationalize things away. Well, in much the same way, we’re trying to battle our subconscious here. You know, we can, we, we can be battling [00:38:00] our subconscious by minimizing what we’re doing, justifying what our actions are like this. You know, I mean, yeah, I quit cause you know what, I didn’t really need quit and now I’m smoking again and you know, it’s okay because I work out more when I smoke it’s, you know, I’ll increase my workouts.
It’s okay.
Neil Robinson: I think he keeps me skinny. I gained weight when I stopped smoking. There you go.
Chris Gazdik: Is that it perfectly right? We, we rationalize, we minimize justify and that can result in all sorts of trouble spots. Look at, look at marriage for example, right? Yeah. I yelled at my wife. That’s right. I did.
But you know, cognitive dissonance comes in. Shouldn’t yell at my wife, but I did yell at my wife. Well, let me use my rationalization skills. Okay. Well, because she deserved it. I mean, she told me I was stupid. That it’s not cool. She shouldn’t be telling me that I’m stupid. So yeah. I yelled at her. Yeah, I did you see there’s a minimization in what it is that I did.[00:39:00]
Okay. A little bit of narcissism there too, you know, but nevertheless D do you see how we, we, we can spin something into actually justifying really bad actions sometimes. You know, I stole my neighbor’s chickens because I bent my, literally had my family starving. So I took the chickens. Yes. Now it might sound silly, but that stuff happens taking a hundred dollars or I don’t know.
What do you think? Lots of, lots of things.
Neil Robinson: I was trying to think of something that was kind of one of the lighthearted side, or not even light on the lesser side. No, I was just trying to think of like, you know, I’m thinking about my time with my wife and our relationship, and I was thinking about like, you know, where.
Something will really affect her. And then I say some snarky comment that really hurts her feelings. Yeah. And then I, then I try to minimize my reaction mirror, minimize what I say, even though [00:40:00] it really affected her. Like, it’s it wasn’t good because it affected her. I shouldn’t have minimize what I said.
I should have rationalized my statement because it obviously affected her. It affected her subconscious, whether it was serious or not, or is as bad as the next part we’re going to talking about. There’s still that reality of you have to understand what you’re doing and how is it affecting the other person.
So that minimization of me saying something that really affected her minimizing that well, how does that benefit our relationship? If I don’t really acknowledge the fact that that did hurt her
Chris Gazdik: X, you landed on something that a wise man said to me very recently, honestly. And it is it’s that’s, you know, when you’re interacting with another person, a very mature, appropriate, healthy difficult, though, I’m telling you, particularly in marriage and whatnot, to recognize I said this, I did this and that caused for you what you’re experiencing.
And I need, you need to recognize that process. It’s, it’s hard because you know, we’re so interrelated, we’d like to think, you know, we’re taught [00:41:00] independent, you’re an independent person, I’m an independent person. You’re responsible for your feelings and emotions. That’s right, right. Not me. You. Oh, yeah, I’m responsible for mine.
You’re not responsible for mine now. You know what things are so much more interrelated and move it around that way. And, and I like the point you landed on when you, when you rationalize your own actions, even if it’s a snarky, silly little thing, you are pulling away the reality of what that interaction is.
And it is just what, regardless of what somebody else is experiencing, it’s not necessarily fault, you know? Cause I could say something really nice. Like your hair is really kind of long Neil that’s that’s kinda cool. And you’re like, oh my God, my hair looks weird. I thought it was short. I, I need to get my hair cut.
Like that’s bad. I didn’t know that. I thought I was giving a compliment. Yeah. But I recognize that. Am I saying that to you, Neil must’ve caused you to feel a certain sort of way and that’s it. That’s very different than just, [00:42:00] oh, I didn’t say anything bad to you. I just made a comment. May I comment, but you know, this is building up in your rate.
I mean, you see on the, the flow of our conversation today, I mean, part of what I was building up with stealing chickens and taking a hundred dollars or whatever, like this can get serious such as in domestic violence, the, the level of rationalization can get so high that you punch your husband in the face with domestic violence and then come to a rationalization that actually makes that seem OKT.
And I th
Neil Robinson: I think the one thing is there’s rationally on an abusive relationship. There’s rationalizations on both sides. Yeah, we have it’s okay for that person to cause the them to be violent and it’s okay for the other person to stay there and accept it. So there’s rationalization on both sides and it’s not healthy rationalizations.
That other person deserved what I did to them. And then that person’s like, well, he, they were [00:43:00] just like upset. And because I said something, I shouldn’t have said, it’s my fault for doing that. I deserved, you know, there
Chris Gazdik: how powerful, powerful experiences where rationalization destructively is right in the middle of it.
Right, right. It’s is, it’s, it’s a big deal. What we’re talking about tonight, very common oftentimes is more simplistic with simple snarky comments and fun interactions, but it goes way deeper and bigger in powerful moments where you’ve been physically injured for your entire that’ll affect you for your entire life and
Neil Robinson: rationalizing.
Do you see Rasul rationalization as one of the things that happen before it gets too good? I think it was, was a lash. The show before we talked about resenting. When you start rationalizing your behavior and then it just keeps getting worse and worse, you know, I’m, I’m doing this to them because they did this to me six years ago and it’s just, it’s, it’s just irks you.
And so instead of actually really thinking through [00:44:00] what’s up with, does that mean that you have that rationalization of why your behavior is that way to that other person?
Chris Gazdik: Yeah. It’s interesting. What I think I hear you saying is our rationalizations are precursor to resentments and I thought about it, but in the moment with you figuring this out together, like we say, right?
Yeah. That’s kind of a cool thought. That’s a cool connection. Yeah. Good. Cause
Neil Robinson: I feel like, and I feel like the rationalization almost happens after the, the resentment happens because you do something because you resent the person, you have that resentment and then you rationalize why it was okay to have that.
And then, then you just do it again because you’re rationalizing it’s okay. Because this person did this to me and I just resent them. So because of that, I’m just going to keep doing it because I’m getting my I’m rationalizing. Why it’s beneficial to me. Well,
Chris Gazdik: that’s interesting then, because I could see it going both ways.
And I think maybe the, the connection there, because I was thinking, you know, you [00:45:00] rationalize something away, minimize it, defend against it, miss the growth and then a resentment is born. Right? Yeah. That makes sense too. But you’re kind of going at then the other side of that, where when the resentment is born, you continue to rationalize.
Then you get into the chronic state of resentment.
Neil Robinson: Right. And that goes back to the points of rationalization. And now it’s you walk that fine line that rationalizations not always a good thing,
Chris Gazdik: right? Well, sometimes I dunno. Interesting. Well, we’ll, we’ll go back to that’s where we began and where we want to try to end.
But there’s another side of it. So let’s switch gears a little bit, in a sense in the sense that rationalizing things can lead to an understanding. This is, this is what we do with cognition. We, we are thinking, you know, this is what we want to do. So rationalizing gets a bad rap. And I think that’s where you were talking about [00:46:00] with your definition in the beginning, you’re like you were kind of describing more of a, of a being rational in your thinking process rather than sort of rationalizing oftentimes with defense and destructive characteristics.
Being rational is being rational. Rationalizing, I guess you get asked, you know, because I think there’s different slants to this when you’re, when you’re using your thought process. I mean, this is what, again, in, in the therapy room, we use cognitive strategies. We examine these thought processes. We look at the thought process.
That includes permanency words, like all forever, always Neil, you never give me compliments after the show. And I always think you’re thinking, you know, write statements like that. Now he does it at those using these an example so that this can be a very effective component of [00:47:00] examining things and developing, understanding, and realizations that otherwise you couldn’t, you couldn’t ever become thoughtful about, you know, you couldn’t, you would miss a lot.
You know, if you don’t kind of spin a little bit, there are some people that are impulsive and movement and action oriented and don’t think, right. Not a good thing you want to have, you know, and kind of where we’re leading to the end years, really having a balance between those, those two things, but understand the challenge of this.
So when you’re thinking and trying to use cognitive strategies back to the brain, remember, so again, on YouTube and Facebook live, you could see, my hand is in the air. This frontal cortex process, they say is like a newer part of our brain and brain development. It’s theorized. But if you pry that up and you go back right there to the limbic system, deep in [00:48:00] our brain, in the center of our brain, right above our brainstem stem, you see right there, right?
Some say that that’s like the oldest part of our brain is theory. And it’s more connected and it’s super, super quicker. So scientifically we know Dahomey know the numbers, but we know that the amygdala, the fight or flight system and our brains do this, like 15 times faster than our frontal cortex.
Neil Robinson: It’s survival.
It’s it goes back. You know, when you show the brain, I was thinking about like the. The design of it, where you have the, everything you need to survive, that everything is in the middle and it’s protected around by everything else, what dies last. Right? Exactly. And so that goes back to the way we were designed, as far as your, you know, survival of the fittest, how do you live?
And so everything else is kind of like, as humans evolved, you can not, now more stuffs comes up more thinkings comes up more rationalizations come up, [00:49:00] but yet there’s still, like you said, fight or flight. That’s more important to have a faster reaction, which means your emotions are fast. So you said the, the limbic is your emotions, right?
So that’s why, when something happens, you don’t, you don’t get triggered by, oh, let me think about that. It’s this is how I feel. You’re
Chris Gazdik: just experiencing, you’re almost kind of along for the ride. So this, so the point here in this little segment is we want to develop an understanding. We want to use our rationalizing process to examine things, but boy, when you, when you do you’ve, you’ve got to understand that your body is added a game, you know, experiencing things very, very, very fast.
And so you’re going to have to catch up and you’re going to have to really learn I forget the statement, but in our trauma thing, they, they use, that’s where I got the and hand thing. That’s pretty cool. It’s a brain. Yeah. So they said in trauma situations, scared brain offline, something like that. So when you, when you get into a fear response, the fight or flight, this, this frontal [00:50:00] cortex just goes offline like that.
Like it’s not connected anymore. You’re not thinking you’re not rational. You’re not rationalizing. You’re just, it is literally like scared body, offline brain. I, I, I forget her phrase, but it was something like that. I know it’s crazy. Isn’t it? Boom. And then that’s just in charge because that’s all you need to operate brainstem and the emotion system.
I mean,
Neil Robinson: to me, as someone who used to wrestle, and then we’ve also talked about, you know, I think with a couple of different guests about the importance of training, you know, you want to take the thinking out of it when it comes to those types of things, because you want your body to react. And so there’s a training has to be done when you, when you’re dealing with these high stress situations, are you dealing with, you used to do that, so where you would go to traumatic situations and you were kind of the therapist on call, there’s a, that training, that training your brain to regulate and process.
And how did. You know, handle those emotional pieces is so [00:51:00] important and that’s why if someone’s impulsive and they never learned to not be an impulsive, it’s so hard for them to switch where someone who’s taken the time to be more on the stoic side, there’s a difference in how it’s handled. But that goes against our fiber of our being of our survivors.
Chris Gazdik: We’re really
Neil Robinson: wired. Yeah. So it’s hard,
Chris Gazdik: it’s hard to get to that point. It’s really challenging. And it takes, you know, kind of goes back to your long-term therapy model. I am, I am a little bit more of an advocate. I love that you were saying that and inside I was very gleeful cause I’m like, yeah. You know, like you, you have to have a relationship process, you know, with somebody to get at some of these things to really get at them.
I mean, I could make some quick changes with you in your life when you were talking about things, you know, five, six sessions in sometimes it’s like, wow, I didn’t really know, but that long-term relationship gets at some of these things that you’re kind of mentioning on that, on that depth year level. You know, there’s, there’s, there’s a lot more foundational things that we’re trying to, [00:52:00] to get at here, which, you know, it takes some time.
Yeah. And
Neil Robinson: I think in anything you, anything you do that if you want to have long-term success in it, you have to put the time in to begin with whether you’re learning, how to properly rationalize or you’re trying to lose weight. Still goes back to the same thing. If you don’t put the time in and spend the energy to do it, it’s still going to be hard
Chris Gazdik: for you.
That’s sometimes it’s oftentimes personal, purposeful, you know, I talk about that in my book a lot where you have purposeful choices that are done in a certain way. Not because you just fall into it because you purposely chose to turn into a different direction. So moving on here, rational rationalizing, I was thinking through it and I thought, you know, this can actively be a form of anxiety management.
So I said, we’re not going to be talking about specific, you know, mental health factors that affect us with diagnostics and stuff. But as an example of that, [00:53:00] we can use our cognition as a super effective tool, directing our brain frontal cortex thought process, directing our brain internally with the limbic system to operate differently, to change course, to stop a process.
And that’s something that we do in therapy. Again, cognitive therapy, cognitive behavioral therapy, that directly is some of the strategies, you know, we created. ’cause, you know, in anxiety, the brain is interpreting an active threat. It’s interpreting a risk somewhere, you know, the amygdala’s scanning around and, and when you see an active threat that rationalization can counter, wait a minute, this isn’t an active threat.
The germs are on the door handle. Yeah. But I mean, I can touch the door handle and not die. Rationalizing can catch that stuff. So mental health conditions can cause an imbalance at this [00:54:00] process, but you know, therapy and, and cognition is a way to, to balance that. So also then moving to justify rationalizations as a protection.
Okay. What do I think? I mean by that, when, when acting rationally, we can, we can defend ourselves better. We can, we’re more in management of the situation. So I like Navy seals as one of the things Craig and I have in common. You know, we like to think about things from that direction. And I was reading a book about Asam Bin Laudin, and then, you know, the, one of the guys who was on that, on that team, in that operation, they’re like, got a question.
The question is like, Hey, you know, what, what are you feeling like? You know, when even, but were you all amped up for you? You know, did you charge you and you just charge up, you know, when the guy was like, no, no, not at all. That’s the last thing you want. That’s the last thing you want. And what he said is you do not want to be all amped up and run into a gunfight.
It’s where you get killed. He’s like, no, we [00:55:00] took a step up the stairs and assessed as we’re going where the next step was and the next step and kind of peered around the corner and took the next flight out. This is almost seamless. It took them five minutes ago, flight of stairs.
Neil Robinson: Well, I think Chris Lowrance talked about that in his police training.
You know, the idea that the more you put yourself through something. And the more, you can add more logic to it or more rational relation to it. And you, you take out a lot of the emotions to it. You do perform better. You do get to the point. That’s why, you know, with Craig and his ju jujitsu with anyone who does any types of martial arts or self defense, the more they train when they get into that position, one, they don’t have the anxiety or the stress that their body freezes up with its natural instincts.
They can, they can think while their body’s reacting. It’s so important to better perform.
Chris Gazdik: For instance, scares me, you know, like of gun owners that aren’t familiar with gun owning in this situation and stuff. I [00:56:00] mean, it is downright dangerous because your emotional system takes charge. I feel
Neil Robinson: like gun owners and people who drive should almost have like routine.
Like you have to make sure you’re driving this much. You have to use your gun this much because it’s just, it is rough. You know, we, we saw the, with our 16 year old, you know, he got his license now and like he hated driving and you know, just him not driving for like a week at first, like we knew that. I CA the way he drove was like, did you forget how to use a steering wheel?
Like my look, but now, now that he’s been driving to school every day and he’s, it’s, it’s different. So it is important that, like you said, if you are a gun owner, you should go to the range and you should shoot and you should be comfortable handling it, holding it. And you know, that way, when you get in those situations, it’s better.
And that rationalization of why did I buy a gun? What is it for self-defense, you know, it’s protects me. It makes me safer. You know, there’s, there’s a lot of stuff with that that people should do. It should follow
Chris Gazdik: when you’re rational [00:57:00] and rationalizing things you can protect and defend yourself better, such as, even in the extreme situation of domestic violence.
You know, one of the things we said a little bit ago is you fall in to some traps of literally believing things that aren’t true. I think you were brought that up and when. Back off of that type of negative rationalizing and minimizing. And you begin to think through and purposely catch that you can catch the idea that my husband said, I’m a loser person who can’t make friends.
Like you got to catch those thoughts because if rationalizing just continues to perpetually go without any check, you will literally believe that I am a stupid person, that can’t make friends. That’s the power of perception. And so you can defend yourself better. You can [00:58:00] protect yourself better when you are aware of the rationalizing process that goes on, or even to a lesser degree, just when there’s emotional turmoil, you know, it creates these engulfment and abandonment insecurities.
Well, they can layer harder, meaning be stronger in your life. If that doesn’t get checked. No, the abandoned and fear I’m going to be left. I’m going to be alone. I’m not valued. I’m not important. Those are fear based statements. Well, if you don’t check those fears and insecurities and you rationalize, you’ll find all sorts of ways that prove your spouse did these things that just proved your fear to be true.
Neil Robinson: Yeah. Cause that’s how you’re, that’s how you’re rationalizing it. Yeah. It’s not
Chris Gazdik: true when it’s not true. So positive being rational through a thought process can help you defend your fears yourself from your fears better. It can be a powerful tool. We just protect ourselves with the defense segment.
This is what we were talking about with defense. [00:59:00] So we can truly be our own worst enemy, you know, when the rationalizations demoralize us. So it’s really like, I, like I alluded, you know, the goal kind of gets to developing. The balance between how we operate through defending ourselves through protecting ourselves, you know, there’s good and bad in it.
So let’s revisit it. Yeah. It’s rationalizing good. Or is it bad? What have you thought about in your car? Well, how would you come to conclusion with that? Is it good or is it bad? Know what are you thinking?
Neil Robinson: I think rationalization is a good thing. I just think you have to, like, based on everything we’ve talked about, the one thing that struck me at the end is you have to rationalize with the reality.
You have to it, you have to click a quote. You have to compare your rationalization to really what, what is really going on. What really is the reality of the situation.
Chris Gazdik: I love [01:00:00] that we need to get cohost quotes have like a list.
Neil Robinson: Wish I remember what I just said.
Chris Gazdik: What you said is we have to rationalize with reality and I think that is true.
I think that is absolutely true. We have to rationalize with reality. Otherwise, you know, it, we, we can get run over, you know, but how you go about that? I think, I think what I really wanted to do with this topic when I was thinking about it is, you know, blow up the myth and stereotype that rationalizing is bad.
I think that’s where people tend to land on. And I think they go
Neil Robinson: to that extreme. They go to that extreme case of that domestic abuse person who’s who keeps going back to that person. They rationalize that behavior with the addict that rationalizes getting back in and you’re right. I think there is a negative connotation to that.
But in reality, like you said, I think rationalization, when it comes to relationships is [01:01:00] is almost necessary to help you have empathy or understanding for the other person too. I think, you know, if you, if you can help rationalize why they did something, you have a better understanding of, do you know how to help them?
You think about why? Why did, why does John keep going back to the bar to drink every night? Why does Susie keep going back to her partner? What’s really
Chris Gazdik: going on and yeah. And you added a new layer of, of understanding, not just yourself. Other people.
Neil Robinson: Yeah. Yeah. And so, so I do think rationalization as a, as a, you know, after, after talking to going through all the pieces rationalization as a is something that we’ve developed because it’s important to, to our lives is it’s important to our survival.
It’s and of course, with the shifted in society, we’re now no longer hunting, gathering and being chased by wooly mammoth and saber-tooth tigers. So the rationalizations now become more important than it was in the past. So, but I think that they
Chris Gazdik: have the second part of that is they’re not, they’re not really all bad at all, but they have to be in balance [01:02:00] because there are, I mean, I’m, I’m telling you particularly you know, people that are arguably, mentally unhealthy can really get stuck and.
Right over their selves over and over and over again, deeply rooted, deeply engraved beliefs about yourself because of the rationalization has taken over in a negative direction. And that just gets, I mean, think, think of it this way, that the, the, the reason why we really need to have this imbalance is this way.
You know, how you take an ink pen on a piece of paper, you just write a line. Well, what happens when you trace that line?
Neil Robinson: It’s never the same, right? And the more you trace
Chris Gazdik: it again and again, and again, it gets darker and darker and bolder and bolder, wider, and wider. You can’t, it’s not the same. It’s, it’s more pronounced.
And that’s the fearful [01:03:00] thing that I get concerned about. Sometimes I have people that have been having a repetitive thought their entire life and never realized it. And they’ve layered it so deep that it’s hard to dig out of it. It’s hard to kind of, you know, work with what is the motivation here what’s going on.
And so that’s why it’s really important to have, you know, some balance with all of this process and a lot of good can come from it. So I don’t know. Pretty cool. A very cool thoughts, questions taxing in to get out of here. I think
Neil Robinson: I thought of really with your aligning to that. Well, the one thing I thought it’d be in a computer person is like, imagine having a story and you manually have to re-type that over and over again.
How often do you type exactly that. And then after about 50 copies, are you actually still have the same story? You know, you start with a paragraph and then it to be simply so, and I think that rationalization Riyadh reality is [01:04:00] saying, okay, I typed it the first time. This is what has. And then after 10 times, cause you’re not, we’re looking at, you’re kind of just going what you think.
Take that time to go back and reread that first one and really compare your rationalization from the last 10 things. You’ve thought to really what happened if you do
Chris Gazdik: that over a period of time
Neil Robinson: and that’s the story goes completely different with your own thoughts. Yeah, exactly. You know, Susie bought me a candy bar too.
She hit me with her car. Like how did that even happen?
Chris Gazdik: Yeah, no, it’s, it’s like the telephone game. When you, when you, that you play with little kids, we literally do that with ourselves and interesting that you would come to that Neil and I hope you stay tuned to this because here at the end you bring up literally a therapy strategy.
Like that is something that we will do from time to time. It’s actually going to be in part of a sexual abuse class that we’re designing right now. That’s part of what you can do at home to manage your, your harmful traumatic story is you write it and then you rewrite it and then you rewrite it and you, you, you can actually reframe your understand.[01:05:00]
Of literally what happened, the facts don’t change, but your understanding your rationalization changes and
Neil Robinson: you can go back to see really how destructive the first ones were. Oh yeah. You know, we talked about it earlier, talking out loud, even writing. It can be that way. You kind of take that.
Chris Gazdik: I really say that.
Do I really think that
Neil Robinson: way? Oh my, you know, when you hear your recordings, like, does that really? How are you saying?
Chris Gazdik: Oh yeah. When I listened to transcriptions and listen to the show, sometimes I’m like, oh, I didn’t mean that. Now we haven’t done any editing. I’m usually, usually,
Neil Robinson: yeah. We’ve actually been pretty good about it.
Chris Gazdik: So usually not too concerned. So listen, we’re going to get out of here today. I hope I’m glad you hung out with us. Appreciate you being with us. Be careful about rationalizing, but use its ability to change your life. Because when you’re really on top and purposeful of what is my rationalizations, what are my thoughts, particularly in a therapy experience, but maybe in line with the objective third party, or even as Neil’s talked [01:06:00] about a few times today in his teaching moments, they’re very valuable.
Write them down in your own, in your own story so that you can really get through to the idea of what am I really motivated by? How am I really. Operational in my life. Thoughts and relationships, actions, thoughts, and behaviors. So stay tuned to us. We will see you next week. Take care, have a good week.
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