Why Your Brain Loves Turning Opinions Into Facts

Your brain would rather be certain and miserable than curious and free.

If you’ve ever caught yourself thinking something like “They don’t value me,” “I don’t matter here,” or “This is just how it is,” you’ve felt this phenomenon firsthand. Those sentences don’t feel like thoughts. They feel like reality.

And that’s not a flaw.
It’s your brain doing exactly what it was designed to do.

Certainty Feels Like Safety

Your brain is not optimized for truth.
It’s optimized for safety.

Safety, to the brain, means predictability. It means knowing what to expect. And one of the fastest ways the brain creates predictability is by turning an interpretation into a conclusion—and then treating that conclusion as a fact.

A Simple Framework for Understanding What’s Actually Happening

This is where The Model comes in.

The Model is a simple framework for understanding why we feel the way we feel—and why certain emotional and behavioral patterns repeat, even when circumstances change.

At its core, The Model shows us this:

Our experiences don’t come directly from our circumstances.
They come from how we think about our circumstances.

Here are the basic components:

• Circumstances (C):
  Facts. Events. Things that happened. Circumstances are neutral and observable—things multiple people could agree on.

• Thoughts (T):
  The sentences our minds offer about those facts. Interpretations, judgments, conclusions, and opinions.

• Feelings (F):
  Emotions created by our thoughts.

• Actions (A):
  What we do or don’t do when we feel those emotions.

• Results (R):
  The outcomes we create—often reinforcing the original thought.

Most of us were never taught to separate these pieces. So they blur together, and it feels like our emotions are simply caused by “what’s happening.”

The Model invites us to slow down and sort.

Let’s look at an example.

Imagine this situation:

A manager doesn’t respond to an email.

That’s the circumstance. It’s a fact. No meaning yet.

But almost immediately, the brain fills in the gap:

• "They don't care." 

• "They're deciding how to reply with a reprimand." 

• "My work isn't important."

Those aren’t facts. They’re thoughts.

The problem is that they don’t sound like thoughts. They sound definitive. Final. Certain.

And when a thought sounds that firm, the brain treats it like reality itself. And from there, it shapes how we feel, how we act, and what results we create.

This is where people get stuck—not because of what happened, but because of what their brain decided it meant.

Separating What Happened From What You Decided It Meant

When you can see the difference between an event and your interpretation of it, something powerful happens.

Instead of:

“They don’t care”

You can see:

• C: My manager didn’t respond to my email.

• T: I’m thinking they don’t value me.

Nothing has to change yet.
You don’t have to argue with the thought.
You don’t have to replace it with a more positive one.

You simply regain awareness.

And awareness restores choice. That choice frees you to decide how to take the best action. 

Use the Model Regularly

The Model is a great tool to dissect how you think and start to see patterns. Carry a notepad with you (if you're the paper-loving type) or keep a note open on your phone where you can model at any time. It's a great way to get down to the reality of any situation. You can start anywhere in the model and work through it, asking things like: 

• I feel really anxious. Why? What got me here? And what am I going to do with it? 

• What result do I want? What thoughts are going to best serve me to get there?

• Is this a circumstance or a thought?

Use the model as a powerful resource to get to the heart of your thoughts and how to work with them.