1. Your beliefs matter. They have consequences. When Adversity strikes you bring Beliefs to the Adversity and there are emotional Consequences. This is the famous ABC model of Emotion pioneered by Albert Ellis.
2. Rigid and Extreme beliefs are at the core of emotional disturbance while Flexible and Non-extreme beliefs are at the core of emotional health and resiliency.
3. Rigid beliefs are expressed with words like absolutely should, ought, must, have to, need to…
4. There are three foci of Rigid Beliefs (the self, others, and life conditions)
5. There are three general categories of Extreme beliefs: It is awful (more than 100% bad), It is unbearable, I am a loser
6. There are three general categories of Non-extreme beliefs: It is bad but not awful, It is uncomfortable and difficult but not unbearable, I may have lost, failed or been rejected but I am not a loser, a failure, or an inadequate, rejected person. No I am just a fallible person who acted insufficiently for my particular goal.
7. People largely construct their emotional reactions to Adversity. We disturb ourselves about what happens. This is the Principle of Emotional Responsibility.
8. People have the capacity to think Rigidly and Flexibly but it is far easier for people to think rigidly. We are born and reared to think irrationally (Rigidly) and rationally (Flexibly)
9. We can think about our beliefs and question them. We can then create new philosophies that help us respond resiliently to adversity and help us change what can be changed.
10. Keep your wants, wishes, preferences, values, and goals but see that your demand that you get these fulfilled is a myth. Keep your wishes but give up your demands.
11. Although we can reflect on our thinking and question our beliefs this takes work and practice. If we do not continue to work and practice rational thinking we will backslide as humans tend to slip back into old self-defeating habits. This is the human condition.
12. There are two fundamental human disturbances, Ego disturbance (e.g. I am a loser) and Discomfort disturbance (e.g. It is unbearable to cope with this, to work for this)
13. Happiness is a product of having a vitally absorbing interest or interests (e.g. building a business, building a family, political activism, creating new knowledge, creating new art, disseminating useful knowledge like REBT, etc.)
14. Life is an opportunity to have pleasure. If you live your life to prove yourself you will not lead the life you want so much as lead the life that proves to the world you are not worthless or proves you are great. This is a big mistake.
15. Maximizing pleasure in life is having a healthy balance of short and long term pleasures. If you live only for today you will get less pleasure and more pain. Live only for tomorrow and the future and you will miss out on pleasure and meaning. Strive for a healthy balance of living for the future but also enjoying today to some extent as well. This is the philosophy of long term hedonism which REBT encourages.
16. There are no superhumans or subhumans just fallible humans.
17. There are no awful things only bad events that people wrongly define as awful. All bad events can only be validly rated on a scale from 0-100% bad. This is the badness scale. Awful is beyond 100% bad, it is off the scale. All events, no matter how bad, fit somewhere on the 0-100% badness scale. This is because no matter how bad an event is there can always be another event that is worse than it. So you really cannot get to 100% bad unless you destroy the entire universe.
18. REBT is simple to understand but hard to implement. It can be applied to a very wide range of problems, goals, and self-defeating behavior.
19. Healthy relationships are result of emotionally healthy people and disturbed relationships are a function of emotional disturbance within people. If you have a problematic relationship look within for the solution to making it better. Look for your disturbed emotions and behaviors and change them instead of trying to change the other person.
20. There are no utopias, no perfect situations, performances, or people. All situations and courses of action have advantages and disadvantages. Choose your path and do not upset yourself about the disadvantages and the price of going down the path you have chosen. Strive to do better and better but see that perfection, like utopia does not exist.
21. Uncertainty is a part of life. Teach yourself to tolerate uncertainty by thinking rationally about it. We live in a world of probability where no guarantees exist. Too bad.
22. Emotional disturbance can be thought of in one sense as taking yourself, others, or life itself either too seriously or not seriously enough.
23. Learn to push yourself. As Ben Franklin said “There are rarely gains without pains.”
The Two Fundamental Human Disturbances
12/27/2015
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In REBT, we argue there are two fundamental human disturbances. One is called ego disturbance and the other is called discomfort disturbance. Ego disturbance has to do with self-rating. Here you rate something you that you have done or failed to do as bad or regrettable and then you rate yourself. This rating of the behavior and then the person leads to downing of the self. When you put yourself down you tend to have beliefs like “I am a failure.” You think, “I am not where I am supposed to be, I have not done what I should have done, I have not lived up to my own and other’s expectations and therefore I am a failure.” This type of overgeneralized thinking is very counterproductive and leads to needless suffering. All humans are fallible and complex. We are all in a state of evolution. Although we may have sometimes failed, acted regrettably, or wish we had done things differently this never makes it valid to say the person is a failure. In REBT, we help to liberate you from needless suffering by teaching you to reflect on and rate what you have done, what you could have done, and your positive and not so positive personal characteristics but to stop your ratings at that level of analysis. This then leads to healthy feelings of disappointment, displeasure, frustration, and concern all of which help you to change future behavior so you make life better.
The other fundamental human disturbance is discomfort disturbance. This is where we think in a self-defeating way about the price to be paid to achieve some goal. All humans aim to remain comfortable. Then when we become aware that some goal requires discomfort or life conditions make for discomfort we hold unrealistic, rigid, self-defeating beliefs about this discomfort. Here are a few beliefs that reflect the presence of discomfort disturbance:
1. I must get what I want quickly, easily, and on the terms I demand.
2. I must achieve my goal or else I will make myself depressed about not getting what I want.
3. I cannot stand or tolerate the effort or waiting to get what I want. I have to have it now!
All people come into the world with no discomfort tolerance and no frustration tolerance. As time goes on, we learn to wait and work for what we want. However, sometimes there are areas of our lives where we have low frustration tolerance/low discomfort tolerance. We then have a choice. We can change the beliefs that lead to discomfort disturbance and choose to avoid disturbing ourselves about the discomfort, frustration, time, effort, etc. of getting what we want or philosophically accepting these things and working towards what we want with healthy feelings of displeasure and frustration.
Most humans have both ego disturbance and discomfort disturbance. REBT will show you how to identify the rigid and extreme beliefs that lead to each of these fundamental human disturbances so that you can liberate yourself from the suffering of each. The goal is to teach you to accept yourself fully and unconditionally and then to decide on what you want to achieve going forward and to tolerate the discomfort and frustration involved in pursuing those goals.
How to Enjoy the Holidays
12/23/2015
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Remember you never have to disturb yourself over how another person acts or treats you. People surely will act in an annoying way. Perhaps it might help to even expect this to some extent as the best predictor of future behavior is past behavior. If you avoid demanding that people be as you want them to be and if you avoid condemning them as people you will never get disturbed about another person’s obnoxious behavior. Take back the control and see that you disturb yourself over other people’s behavior. Then see that their behavior is far from awful, terrible, or unbearable. It may be sensibly rated as bad or obnoxious on the 0-100% badness or obnoxious scale but awful, terrible, and unbearable is beyond 100% bad. Nothing is more than 100% bad. If you choose to think as I am suggesting you will have a far more enjoyable holiday season when your fallible relatives start to act badly and obnoxiously. Take back the control and let know one disturb you regardless of how badly they act.
Bottom-line to Repeat & Rehearse: I have a choice. I do not have to get upset over anything, yes anything!