The Five Mental Games With Anna Lang | Ep. 77

• Anna explains that mental games are played to justify what's happening in our heads and make it true. They allow us to be right, avoid change, or avoid responsibility. The five games are: deletions, distortions, generalizations, personalizations, and dehumanizations.

When we play mental games on ourselves, they're games we play to justify whatever's going on in our head and make it true.

• Deletions involve literally deleting pieces of information we don't want to see. Generous attribution means thinking the best of what's happening; ungenerous attribution means only seeing the negative. People tend to give generous attribution to those they like.

What is the story I'm telling myself about the meaning this thing has and then what information am I not letting in?

• Distortions involve tweaking, deliberately misinterpreting, or altering information to get the answer we want. Deletions and distortions often work together. Anna shares a personal story about distorting her daughter's actions to avoid responsibility for a comment about breakfast.

The second you feel a charge is when the ego is kicking in and the need to be right surfaces.

• Generalizations are labels we slap on things to quickly categorize. While useful for survival, they become problematic when we use them to avoid thinking—like 'all men are narcissists' or 'my husband never picks up.' They disempower others and give them no option to behave differently.

When I say my husband never picks up, my kids always do this, we are disempowering them and giving them no option to do anything else.

• Personalizations involve taking neutral information and building a story of unworthiness or rejection. Walking into a room and assuming laughter is about you, or interpreting a partner's purchase as evidence they don't value you, are examples. This pattern isolates us from others.

It's using the information in front of you to build a story of unworthiness, lack of value.

• Dehumanizations justify treating others differently by believing they don't deserve the same life experience. We dehumanize corporations, coworkers, and even family members. The more human we make something, the less able we are to harm it. Anna notes we dehumanize spouses and children to justify controlling behavior.

If you truly believed that your six-year-old or your 18-year-old was really and truly worthy, you wouldn't seek to change them.

• Anna recommends Brene Brown's question: 'What is the story I'm telling myself?' This creates space between stimulus and response, makes the story not absolute, and invites curiosity. When used with others, it prevents permanent declarations about character and opens dialogue.

As soon as you feel the charge... ask yourself this one question: what is the story I'm telling myself?