Sometimes our interpretation of events has nothing to do with reality. I’ll give you an example to show how our thinking affects our behavior. Here you are texting with a friend, and she stops answering you or suddenly changes the topic. You think, for example: “Is she ignoring me on purpose? Does she want to make me uncomfortable?” Or “She’s just not interested in me. And she’s probably not the only one.” Or “I probably offended her with something.” After this, you experience, say, irritation, sadness or guilt. Perhaps you are talking about your feelings to a friend and finding out why she missed your line. But it happens that you choose a different tactic. For example, in the first case you think: “Yeah. She deliberately ignores me - now I’ll answer her something unpleasant, let her know.” And a quarrel occurs. Or in the second case: “Since no one is interested in me, I’ll go and please myself. I’ll eat a bun.” And you eat away the sadness. Or in the third case: “Maybe I offended her with something - if I refuse her request now, we’ll finally quarrel.” And you do what you didn’t want to do, out of a sense of guilt. There may be different options for the development of events, these are just examples. Have you noticed what’s happening? The situation is the same - interpretations are different, emotions and behavior are different. And although you are usually quite confident in your interpretation, it can sometimes be far from reality. Perhaps your friend really did not respond to your comment on purpose. By the way, also for various reasons: the topic is difficult, she was angry, upset, etc. Or maybe she didn’t answer because she didn’t see your message. Got distracted. I missed it. You never know. Or I thought that you weren’t expecting an answer and the question was rhetorical. Etc. If you knew this or simply assumed that the reason might be this, and not you personally, you would easily return to the topic that is important to you, clarify the situation and that’s it. But since you are confident in your thoughts, then you act based precisely on your interpretation. So our thoughts, behind which there are certain beliefs, become the cause of our behavior and experiences, which sometimes cause us a certain discomfort. In communication with loved ones, with friends, with colleagues, with clients, etc. What do you think : Do you often interpret events based only on your thoughts and beliefs??