 So it was just announced that the charges against Jussie Smollett have been dropped and it is seemingly dividing a nation. So in this video, we're gonna be talking about it, but hopefully along the way, we'll learn some things that can improve our own mental health. What is up everybody? This is Chris from the Rewired Soul, where we talk about the problem, but focus on the solution. And if you're new to my channel, my channel is all about mental health and sometimes what I like to do is blend some social commentary into mental health to see what we can learn from it. So if you're into that stuff, make sure you subscribe and ring that notification bell. So it was just announced that the charges against Jussie Smollett have been dropped. Now the FBI, as well as the Department of Justice are going to be looking into it. And that's a whole thing in and of itself. But anyways, in this video, I want to talk about how our own minds play these tricks on us throughout life. And it can be very difficult for our own mental and emotional well-being. So first let's start out with all the twists and turns that this Jussie Smollett case has taken. All right, I'll give you a brief TLDR of the situation. So for those of you who don't know, Jussie Smollett, he is an actor on the show Empire Over on Fox. And it was, I believe what, a month ago where he was walking to a subway to get himself a two AM sandwich. And yeah, all of a sudden he was confronted by two men allegedly wearing MAGA hats and they jumped him. And they said, this is MAGA country and they beat him and assaulted him. They even tied a rope around his neck. And some things just started to not line up. Jussie Smollett reached out to the police. I believe it was like 45 minutes later, something like that. And he still had the rope around his neck, all that type of stuff. And Jussie Smollett was getting interviewed about this. So I want to take some pauses in this because we're going to be talking about a very important subject of confirmation bias. So when this happened, right? A young black man, a young gay black man was jumped by supposedly Trump supporters, okay? People were like, aha, got it, right? And they were like, this is what I thought about these people, this is what happened. From there, the police started doing an investigation. They started looking at different cameras to follow the situation. And what they found was the two men were actually African-American men. And these two men turned themselves in. And there were two brothers who were actually, one of the brothers was actually on the show, Empire, and they were released pretty quickly. And the story came out that Jussie Smollett actually paid these men to jump him so he could sell this story that he was jumped by Trump supporters and things like that. And everybody on the other side was like, aha, we knew it. You guys, your side was trying to set us up, right? So that's what happened. And then eventually, Jussie Smollett turned himself in to the authorities. He maintained some level of innocence throughout it. You know, Fox, you know, they were gonna get rid of him off the show and so many different things happened. But then it was just announced yesterday that he was being released and all the charges were dropped. He forfeited a $10,000 bond. And this is where we're at now and people are very divided and people are freaking out. So you have, even like, I believe it was the mayor of Chicago, one of the police chiefs of Chicago, very disappointed in what happened with this case, you know, based on, you know, the evidence they had and everything like that. And there's still not a full story behind it. But then you also have people like Jussie Smollett's coast, one of his, you know, co-stars on that show, Empire, Taraji P. Henson, she made an announcement like, thank God, truth prevailed, right? And so we have to look at this and think about how we're constantly looking for things to confirm an opinion that we already have. And what happens is, is even in the face of facts, it can put us in a state of denial, right? And that's one of the reasons why everybody's divided so much. But I wanted to use this as some context to get into a conversation about how this is affecting me, how it's affecting you, how it's affecting a lot of people on an everyday basis. So I pulled this clip from Psychology Today and it talks about motivated reasoning, which is confirmation bias. So check this out. Human beings are not always, in fact, probably not often the objective, rational creatures they think they are. In the past few decades, psychologists have demonstrated the many ways people deceive themselves every step of the way through the process of reasoning. Indeed, cognitive faculties are a distinguishing feature of humanity, lifting humankind out of the caves and enabling the arts and sciences. Nevertheless, they're also rooted in and subject to influence or bias by emotions and deeply ingrained instincts. One of the most significant ways information processing and decision making becomes warped is through motivated reasoning. The bias towards a decision that confirms to what a person already knows and it occurs outside of awareness that anything sneaky is going on. So what's that talking about? What are these psychiatrists talking about, okay? We get a belief ingrained in us and we are not the logical reasoning creatures that we believe we are. What they're talking about in that article is our prefrontal cortex where our cognitive thinking comes from, our ability to reason, okay, and have logic and look at evidence. That is what separates us from the rest of the animals. That's how we rose to the beautiful top of the food chain. But the problem is, is that we often don't access that prefrontal cortex in the face of evidence. We allow our emotions to tell us what is or isn't true, all right? So when we're looking at the Jesse Smollett case, like we are seeing this back and forth, back and forth, back and forth with confirmation bias, but you and me are doing this thing every single day with ourselves, with the people in our lives. So let me give you some more context of what I mean and I'll use myself as an example and maybe you can relate to it, all right? So the first example, think about depression. So my depressed mind, right, it will tell me things that absolutely aren't true. It'll have negative self-talk. Chris, you're not good enough. Chris, nobody likes you, nobody loves you. You're never gonna be anything, right? These are the things my own mind tells me. But if I look at the facts and the evidence, I do have people in my life who are very supportive and who love me and things like that. Think about anxiety. I was diagnosed not only with depression, but a generalized anxiety disorder. My anxiety disorder takes these small things that are not dangerous or life-threatening and can blow them out of proportion. It'll say, Chris, that thing's dangerous. Chris, that thing might kill you. Chris, you're never gonna get through this thing, right? Chris, this thing is equivalent to the end of the world, right? And like we need to start realizing how our minds are one of the least trustworthy things out there. Like we lack trust with other human beings, but what I like to do, what I try to do with my mental health and what I try to teach others is, we need to start figuring this thing out first before we go around worrying about who we can and can't trust. Speaking of trust, our brains come up with all sorts of cognitive distortions and put these blanket statements on people as a whole. For example, my brain will tell me, Chris, this person screwed you over. Therefore, all people are not trustworthy, right? So think about that for a second. Is that true? Of course not. But our minds have this problem separating the truth from the false. And when it comes to confirmation bias, it can put us into a state of denial and something that I've opened up about on this channel before, I've been in some terrible relationships, not the one I met now, but in the past when I was a teenager in my early 20s, I was in a terrible relationship. So a real quick story time. This is a weird story, I'm gonna condense it. But the first time that I was actually cheated on. So this is back in the day, early 2000s before we all had cell phones and can text each other and everything like that. But I was dating a young woman. And yeah, she had her own issues, she had a drinking problem too and things like that. But those are the type of women I used to be attracted to. And there was one night when we didn't hang out and a day or two later, I got a message. I think it was on AOL or AOL Instant Messenger, whatever we were using back in those ancient times. Somebody reached out to me and was like, hey man, I just wanna reach out to you. I saw your girlfriend at a party and she slept with another guy. And she's like, I just wanna let you know that. And I'm just like, okay, what? Like no, right? I love this girl. There was no way that she did this, right? And then when I was in this state of denial, one of my friends, one of my best friends came up to me and he's like, Chris, that was me. That was me who reached out to you. I was at that party, I saw it happen, right? So even though my best friend who has never lied to me in my entire life told me about this, I was in this state of denial because of my own bias towards the situation, right? I didn't wanna believe the facts and evidence that he was presenting to me because of this. And yeah, after my own mind was just eating me up, I finally confronted her about this. And guess what? She cheated on me, all right? And yeah, and that was like one of my first instances where I realized like, oh my God, like I stayed in denial, even though the evidence was there and it was affecting me. So with this whole case that we're looking at with Jesse Small-Ed, even though for the most part it doesn't affect us on a personal level, I want you to take these things happening in society and think about how they are affecting you in your personal life, right? How does it affect who you judge and what you think of other people and where your trust issues are? Like I was talking about with our own anxiety and depression, the tricks that our own minds play on us, right? Our brains have this issue separating the truth from the false and it affects us on a daily basis. These are the things that I want you to think about. So what's the solution for it? Me, I'm in therapy, all right? My therapist talks to me a lot about cognitive distortions and what my mind is telling me and separating the truth from the false. This is also something I work on in 12 step programs and everything like that. So if this is something that you're like watching this video and you're like, yo, I got some problems with this too, like find a therapist. See if you can work these things out. Even if you can't find a therapist or you don't have the money for a therapist, something that I did quite a bit before I started therapy was in a notebook I would separate the truth from the false. So what I would do is if a friend or like a coworker or somebody did something to me and my mind started racing and telling me all these lies, I would take a notebook and I would write down the situation. I would write down what is true about this situation and what is false about this situation. Typically I start with the false and it's like this person hates me. This person doesn't care about me. This person, right? And then I would write down the truth. Oh wait, no, my best friend has always been there for me. My best friend does care about me. All these other things that I can sit there and objectively look at it on paper and say, huh, mine playing tricks on me again, all right? So anyways, let me know if you're somebody who struggles with this confirmation bias and maybe what you do to work on it and let's have a conversation down below, all right? But anyways, that's all I got for this video. If you liked this video, please give it a thumbs up. If you're new, make sure you subscribe and ring that notification bell because I make a ton of videos. And a huge, huge thank you to everybody supporting the channel over on Patreon. You are all amazing. And if you would like to become a patron and get involved in our monthly Q&A at some other perks and benefits, feel free to click or tap right there. All right, thanks again so much for watching. I'll see you next time.