Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) focused therapists refer to the gap between reality and your perception as cognitive distortions. One central tenant that concerns CBT is the idea that emotions are directly correlated to the meanings we associate with events. Essentially, feelings of anxiety or worthlessness can be directly correlated to some event that your brain interprets as proof of this feeling. It is important to note that the issues that arise from negative feelings are not imaginary; they cause interpretations of bad events that exacerbate unhelpfully critical thoughts and beliefs that make them harder to manage.