Impact Bias: The Lie That Says “You’ll Feel This Way Forever”
There’s a particular kind of fear that doesn’t come from the moment you’re in — but from the story your mind tells you about the future.
The breakup that feels like you’ll never breathe the same again.
The disappointment that convinces you your joy is permanently broken.
The anxiety spike that makes you believe this level of fear is your new normal.
The grief that whispers that life will always feel this heavy.
Impact Bias is the quiet belief that how you feel today is how you’ll feel forever.
That the sting won’t soften.
That the ache won’t loosen.
That the sadness won’t shift.
That the intensity won’t dim.
It’s the part of you that panics not because of what happened — but because you’ve secretly decided you will never recover from it.
But emotional pain doesn’t tell you the truth. It tells you about the depth of the moment — not the length of your future.
And yet we believe it.
We catastrophize it.
We build whole narratives around it.
Because when you’re hurting, it’s hard to imagine anything but the hurt.
Sitting With Psalm 30:5
“Weeping may last for the night, but joy comes in the morning.” — Psalm 30:5
This verse doesn’t deny the reality of darkness — it just refuses to let darkness have the final say.
God isn’t dismissing your pain.He’s reminding you that pain has a timeline.
It arrives, it stays, it teaches — and then it shifts.
Even if you can’t feel the “morning” yet, God is already holding it.
The promise isn’t: “You will never hurt.”
The promise is: “The hurt will not last forever.”
Faith doesn’t require you to pretend the moment feels light.
Faith just asks you to trust that the moment is not permanent.
God Himself designed life in seasons, not stuckness:
sunrise and sunset
winter and spring
sorrow and renewal
Nothing stays the same — not even the ache you’re in.
If God built change into the structure of creation, why do we assume our emotions are the one exception?
Walking With the Stoics
Stoicism teaches that emotions, by nature, are temporary weather patterns — not stable identities.
Marcus Aurelius wrote: “The mind adapts and converts to its own purposes the obstacle to our acting.”
The Stoics understood:
Pain moves.
Fear softens.
Anxiety peaks and falls.
The body recalibrates.
The mind reorganizes itself around new information.
Impact Bias is the illusion that we won’t adapt — that our current emotional weather is somehow permanent climate.
The Stoics would say: You are not feeling tomorrow’s feelings today.
You are only feeling today’s feelings today.
Your mind is catastrophizing a future version of you that does not exist and will not feel the way you do right now.
You are grieving with the emotional resources of the present moment — not the resources your future self will have, and your future self will have more than you do now.
The Inner Work
Impact Bias happens because your nervous system is wired for survival, not accuracy.
When you’re overwhelmed, your brain doesn’t project reality — it projects threat.
You’re not imagining the future — you’re imagining the worst-case scenario.
And in that state, your mind:
underestimates resilience
underestimates adaptability
underestimates the nervous system’s ability to recalibrate
underestimates how much you’ll grow between now and then
underestimates how time will soften the edges
Meanwhile, it overestimates permanence.
This is how emotional pain tricks you:
A breakup feels like permanent loneliness.
Anxiety feels like your new personality.
Disappointment feels like destiny.
Sadness feels like identity.
Grief feels like the end of colour.
But history — your own lived experience — tells a different story: You have felt other pains before.
None lasted forever.
Emotions are waves, not walls.
They move.
They shift.
They give way.
Impact Bias convinces you that the wave is an ocean.
But waves always break.
The Cost of Believing “This Feeling Will Never End”
When you believe your emotions are permanent, you start to:
make decisions in panic
reach for numbing instead of support
avoid vulnerability or connection
hold onto the wrong people for stability
catastrophize small disruptions
shrink your life to avoid future pain
lose trust in your own ability to cope
You begin to plan for a lifetime of hurting — when in reality, you are just navigating a moment.
Pain becomes scarier when you assume it will be eternal.
But feelings are not forever.
They are for now.
So What Does It Look Like to Break Impact Bias?
You don’t need to be optimistic.
You just need to be accurate.
You remind yourself:
“This is a feeling, not a forecast.”
“My body will adapt, even if my mind can’t imagine it yet.”
“I’ve survived the unimaginable before — and I softened.”
“Intensity is not permanence.”
“My nervous system won’t feel like this forever.”
Peace isn’t pretending everything is fine.
Peace is remembering that everything evolves.
That you won’t always be this tender.
That you won’t always be this overwhelmed.
That you won’t always be this raw.
That you won’t always be inside this chapter of your heart.
You are not stuck.
You are in a cycle.
A season.
A moment.
And moments, by nature, change.
A Moment for Reflection
Think about the feeling you’re carrying right now — the one that feels heavy, consuming, vast.
Ask yourself:
What evidence do I have that my emotions always stay this intense?
What moments in the past felt permanent but eventually softened?
How might my future self feel differently once I’ve rested, healed, processed, or grown?
If this feeling did shift — what would I want my life to look like on the other side?
Who am I becoming because of what I’m learning right now?
You might notice something: Every time you’ve felt certain that a feeling would last forever — it didn’t.
And this moment will not be the exception.
Because emotions are temporary visitors, not lifelong tenants.
You are allowed to feel deeply.
You are not required to feel forever.
🌿 Ready to Begin the Inner Alignment Work?
Whether you’re contemplating a big life shift or simply feeling the inner nudge that something needs to change, therapy can be where clarity, courage, and healing begin to take shape. If you’re feeling stuck—but also feeling called forward—I’d love to support you in that process.
I’m currently accepting new virtual clients across Ontario, Alberta, British Columbia, Saskatchewan, Manitoba, Yukon, and the Northwest Territories.
You can book a 20 minute complimentary consultation to see if we’re a good fit:
