Emotional reasoning is assuming that because we feel a certain way, it must be true. You might think things like: “I feel anxious, so something terrible must be happening.” Or “I feel stupid, so I must be stupid.” Or “I feel overwhelmed, so my workload must be impossible to complete.” This type of reasoning plays a role in almost all depression. Some aspects of Emotional Reasoning are:
This can affect your timeline of completing projects or goals: it leads to procrastination. You want to start eating healthier, but every time you consider trying new recipes, you think “It will be too much work for me to make meals, and I’ll never be able to learn them.” Finally, a few months later, you start making a few new recipes, and you find it to be easier and more gratifying than you had thought. Your negative feelings got in the way of acting, because your habit of negative thinking guided you instead of the evidence.