Question your beliefs. Choose your reality.
Confirmation bias or "My-side bias" is simply our tendency to seek out and interpret information that aligns with our existing beliefs. These days it's easy to find resources to support just about any opinion or theory. That's why it is so important to be aware of the power we have over our thoughts and the environment we create to protect them. How we process our world matters.
"OPEN YOUR MIND BEFORE YOU OPEN YOUR MOUTH"
Being open-minded is the ability to consider another way of thinking, and it is an extremely underrated skill. It has very little to do with intelligence which is the ability to acquire and apply knowledge while having everything to do with the way we interact with ourselves and those around us.
The "My-side bias" makes it difficult to practice compassion with ourselves and others because it overrides logic. We are only interested in receiving information that is in agreement with what we understand to be true - anything else is scary, and makes us feel unsafe. Even if the thoughts are self-destructive or unkind.
"WHAT WE SEE DEPENDS MAINLY ON WHAT WE LOOK FOR" - JOHN LUBBOCK
Let's check this out from a personal development standpoint. If someone has low self-esteem and believes they are unlikeable, they can easily pick up on cues in their environment to confirm that this is true. Any reaction, inaction, or lack of response, can be interpreted and stored as evidence proving their case. The truth is that we see whatever it is we are looking for, and sometimes what we find is trash.
One way we can challenge our negative personal biases is to intentionally seek out information that confirms the opposite to be true and write it down. The exercise I'm familiar with from my own experience in therapy, suggests doing this for a week but even if you do it for a day I think you'll be surprised to learn how much evidence you've been ignoring that supports another way of thinking about yourself.
Being narrow-minded when it comes to how we see certain things outside ourselves confines us to an environment that limits our ability to positively impact the world. We become a prisoner of our beliefs - trapped in a system we have designed to make us feel comfortable. To be truly free, we have to be brave enough to challenge what we think we know to be true. That is how we grow and how we find peace in our relationships with each other.