Fact-Checking
What might be the most important skill. Ever.
As a foundation for much of what we talk about when remapping our neural pathways, I want to dive into the concepts of cognitive biases, distortions, and fact-checking. A cognitive bias is a subconscious, systematic tendency in thinking that skews how we interpret information and make judgments, while a cognitive distortion is a habitual, inaccurate thought pattern that reinforces negative emotions or beliefs. For our purposes, I’m going to lump them together quite a bit, because we’re making broad strokes here.
Cognitive biases and distortions are some of the most common ways our minds mislead us. These include personalization, catastrophizing, black-and-white thinking, emotional reasoning, and many, many more. They’re not just mental quirks—they’re deeply ingrained neural pathways shaped by experience, emotion, and survival instincts. Left unchecked, they can distort how we see ourselves, others, and the world. Each Friday, we’ll explore one of these distortions in depth—fact-checking the stories we tell ourselves and learning how to respond with clarity, intention, and compassion.
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Cognitive Biases and Distortions are Neural Pathways
Cognitive biases and distortions aren’t just random thoughts we pull out of the air. They’re automatic, unconscious patterns—mental shortcuts shaped by our past experiences, emotional states, and cultural conditioning. They’re the brain’s way of making sense of the world quickly, but not always accurately.
These distortions often feel true because they’re familiar. They’re the grooves worn deep by repetition. And unless we learn to recognize and challenge them, they quietly shape how we interpret events, how we feel, and how we behave. They’re neural pathways to remap.
When we don’t know something, our minds rush to fill in the blanks. This is a deeply human impulse. We want to make sense of things. We want certainty. And when we don’t have it, we often create stories to explain the unknown. These are the stories we tell ourselves.
On a macro level, this is the birthplace of mythology and lore, like deciding that lightning struck a village because Zeus was angry. When people don’t understand what’s actually going on, they find ways of “understanding.” On a micro level, it’s also the birthplace of many cognitive distortions. We similarly make up how we “understand” things, often to our detriment.
Fact-Checking to Remap Ourselves
In Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT), one of the core skills for challenging these distortions is called “Check the Facts.” It’s a structured way to pause, examine the evidence, and ask whether our emotional response fits the reality of the situation. In other words, I’d say it’s a psychological version of critical thinking, really. Fact-checking helps us to:
Identify assumptions
Separate fact from interpretation
Reality-test our thoughts
Consider alternative explanations
Other modalities offer similar tools:
Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) uses thought records and Socratic questioning to test automatic thoughts against evidence.
Rational Emotive Behavior Therapy (REBT) teaches clients to dispute irrational beliefs using logic and reframing.
Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) encourages cognitive defusion—stepping back from thoughts and seeing them as passing mental events, though not necessarily addressing the accuracy of them.
SMART Recovery leans heavily on cognitive-behavioral tools rooted in REBT and CBT as mentioned above, using structured exercises to identify irrational beliefs, dispute them, and revise their thinking.
Twelve Step Facilitation (TSF) encourages reflection through practices like Step Four’s personal inventory, where people review their beliefs and behaviors with honesty and openness, often in conversation with a sponsor or group.
This concept was the one that helped me see how much each of these modalities has in common with each other. When I did Step Four, I remember flinching when asked what my part was in a particular negative situation or problem...it made me fact-check to be sure I didn’t just slough it off onto others. That stuck with me. It was so effective. And when I learned about fact-checking in group therapy decades later, I had a light-bulb moment where I saw that the connection between the Twelve Steps and psychology—something that was incredibly important to me. In fact, each of these approaches shares a common goal: to help us see our thoughts more clearly, and to respond to them with intention rather than reflex.
Why It Matters: Avoid Making Things Worse
Fact-checking isn’t just a psychological skill, it’s a survival tool. Without fact-checking, we respond to what we think is happening—not what is happening—which can result in:
Misinterpreting others’ intentions
Making decisions based on fear or shame
Reinforcing harmful beliefs about ourselves
Escalating conflict or withdrawing unnecessarily
Engaging in coping behaviors that don’t serve us (e.g., overeating, restricting, drinking, isolating)
And, really, you name it…we do it
When we act on distorted thoughts, we risk hurting ourselves, straining our relationships, and undermining the very stability—emotional, physical, or practical—that we’re trying to protect.
The Bright Side of Fact-Checking: Making Room for Self-Compassion
One of the unexpected gifts of doing fact-checking exercises is that it gives us a chance to practice self-compassion.
When we pause to ask, “What else might be true?”, we’re not just challenging a distortion. We’re interrupting a cycle of cognitive distortions ruining the party.
This is where healing begins.
Instead of blaming or assuming fault, we begin to see context. Instead of doling out judgment, we begin to offer grace. Instead of reacting with shame or from guilt, we begin to respond with care.
Fact-checking isn’t just a cognitive skill—it’s an emotional one. It’s a way of saying to ourselves that we deserve clarity, understanding, and self-compassion. Because we do.
And when we do this regularly, we start to rewrite the stories we tell ourselves—not with grandiosity or self-delusion, but with honesty, humility, and compassion.