{"id":4502,"date":"2017-01-29T15:12:32","date_gmt":"2017-01-29T20:12:32","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/mindfulnessmatters\/?p=4502"},"modified":"2017-01-29T15:12:32","modified_gmt":"2017-01-29T20:12:32","slug":"feelings-not-facts-trump-truth","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/mindfulnessmatters\/2017\/01\/feelings-not-facts-trump-truth.html","title":{"rendered":"Trump and the Truth: Feelings are not Facts"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"truth\"
By Lbeaumont – Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0, https:\/\/commons.wikimedia.org\/w\/index.php?curid=54783200<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

President Trump does not appear to have the ability to distinguish between fact and fiction, or he just doesn’t care to. For him, truth is whatever he says it is. The New York Times <\/a>recently\u00a0published a sobering piece on the falsehoods promulgated in his first week in office.<\/p>\n

Trump might be an extreme and very public example of a process that we are all vulnerable to. It’s called emotional reasoning. The “logic” of emotional reasoning goes like this: If I feel something strongly enough, it must be true.<\/em><\/p>\n

For Trump, he felt the energy of the crowds at the inauguration and he believes he is important, historic, and popular and these feelings conspire to become a belief that he had larger crowds than President Obama. The photographic evidence that contradicts this belief is irrelevant because feelings prevail.<\/p>\n

Yet, simply because it “feels” true, doesn’t mean that it is true. In the world of post-truth, false news, and alternative facts the formula feeling=true<\/em> may be more acceptable but no less dangerous.<\/p>\n

Likewise, in the Times piece he says that lots of other people “feel” the same way he does about losing the popular vote due to illegal immigrant voting. Again, no evidence other than his feelings exists to support this claim.<\/p>\n

In psychology, emotional reasoning is a cognitive distortion–a glitch in the mind’s operating system\u00a0that biases\u00a0reality. They are\u00a0almost always implicated in\u00a0\u00a0anxiety, depression, or other mental afflictions, but here in the body politic, it is being used as a tool for influence.<\/p>\n

This doesn’t explain all of Trump’s falsehoods. He might not be subject to emotional reasoning at all since he could just be lying\u00a0but I don’t want to speculate on his motives.<\/p>\n

Trump, his followers, and the public at large do not seem to understand that opinions are not facts, which is not all that surprising, if still dismaying. This country suffers from scientific illiteracy, poor critical thinking skills, and a lack of epistemological development–the capacity to, among other things, distinguish between facts and fiction. The education system teaches students what to think and not how to think<\/p>\n

I wonder if mindfulness can help? We can think of mindfulness as integral to the personal quest for truth. That is, by practicing mindfulness we seek to cut through the distortions of the mind to have a more accurate picture of reality, one not as tainted by the biases of the mind.<\/p>\n

But the utility of mindfulness is a hopeful conceit on my part. I’d bet money that Trump will never practice it and his supporters are not the mindfulness demographic. Instead, I’ll continue\u00a0to use my own mindfulness practice to help to cope with\u00a0whatever is happening (and you can too!).<\/p>\n

Of course,\u00a0uncertainty\u00a0is always the case. The new administration ratchets up the uncertainty–they don’t create it.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

President Trump does not appear to have the ability to distinguish between fact and fiction, or he just doesn’t care to. For him, truth is whatever he says it is. The New York Times recently\u00a0published a sobering piece on the falsehoods promulgated in his first week in office. Trump might be an extreme and very…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":268,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[15,9],"tags":[1141,1144,1143,1142,1140,1139],"class_list":["post-4502","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-media","category-mindfulnesss","tag-alternative-facts","tag-cognitive-distortions","tag-emotional-reasoning","tag-fake-news","tag-post-truth","tag-trump"],"yoast_head":"\nTruth and Trump: Feelings are not Facts<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Trump and the truth. 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Dr. Kozak's ability to translate ancient healing traditions into pragmatic applications suitable for modern lifestyles through the use of metaphors have made him a strong voice in healthcare and business. Beginning with a journey to India in the 80\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s where he took the Bodhisattva vows from His Holiness the Dalai Lama, Arnie Dr. Kozak began his lifelong practice in mindfulness meditation. Intent on finding a way to bring the practical healing attributes of mindfulness he began incorporating these techniques in his private practice. In 2002 Dr. Kozak created Exquisite Mind in Burlington, Vermont as a vehicle that could expand his wisdom to larger audiences beyond individual psychotherapy to professionals and corporations, health care providers, public groups and, most recently with Exquisite Mind Golf, amateur and professional golfers. His award-winning new book, Wild Chickens and Petty Tyrants: 108 Metaphors for Mindfulness (Wisdom Publications, 2009) is a thoughtful, funny, and inspiring translation of mindfulness practice through the inventive use of metaphor applicable to our daily lives. In addition to his work with Exquisite Mind, Arnie Kozak, Ph.D., Licensed Psychologist\u00e2\u20ac\u201dDoctorate has been a Lecturer in Psychology at the University of Vermont and is a Clinical Instructor in Psychiatry and Medicine, University of Vermont College of Medicine. He has studied and practiced clinical psychology, meditation, and yoga for more than 25 years. He has studied with several meditation masters, including S. N. Goenka, Larry Rosenberg, Gurumayi Chidvilasananda, and His Holiness the Dalai Lama. After receiving his bachelors degree with honors from Tufts University, he was awarded a Presidential Fellowship to get his Ph.D. in clinical psychology from the University at Buffalo. He completed his training as a Psychological Fellow at the Harvard Medical School. Prior to founding the Exquisite Mind in 2002, Arnie worked ten years in the private sector for the PKC Corporation consulting on mental health content for this revolutionary software company.","sameAs":["http:\/\/exquisitemind.com"],"url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/mindfulnessmatters\/author\/akozak"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/mindfulnessmatters\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4502","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/mindfulnessmatters\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/mindfulnessmatters\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/mindfulnessmatters\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/268"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/mindfulnessmatters\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4502"}],"version-history":[{"count":12,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/mindfulnessmatters\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4502\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4515,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/mindfulnessmatters\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4502\/revisions\/4515"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/mindfulnessmatters\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4502"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/mindfulnessmatters\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4502"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/mindfulnessmatters\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4502"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}