The Four Forms of Distortion

Distortion is anything that bends you away from your own signal. It rarely announces itself. It arrives dressed as virtue, safety or common sense.

The four forms

1. Avoidance — postponing the conversation, the decision, the truth.
2. People-pleasing — outsourcing your yes and no to other people's comfort.
3. Overthinking — using analysis as a hiding place from action.
4. Self-abandonment — knowing what you need and choosing against it anyway.

Working with them

You don't defeat a distortion by fighting it. You name it. Naming returns choice. Once you can say I am avoiding, you are already half out of it.

Pick the one you know best. Watch for it this week. Just watch — that's the whole practice.