Albert was very direct and sometimes said that emotional upset could be thought of as whining and complaining about the adversities of life. We all do this from time to time. The wiser among us acknowledge we are doing this and take steps to curtail our whining and complaining and start problem solving shortly after this acknowledgement. Some mental health professionals disliked this frank description and some patients did as well. Albert’s point of view was not popular with people who thought that the world should be a certain way. Undeterred by the mental health establishment he kept showing people that the world is as it is and no amount of whining and complaining about it will change a thing.
In REBT I try to show people that they create their self-pity and low discomfort tolerance and that these are a deadly combination. When we demand comfort and our life is hard we tend to whine and complain about this discomfort and create our low tolerance for discomfort. This leads us to seek to escape the problems of life. When we create and experience self-pity we often believe we deserve life conditions to be a particular way and that they must be the way we think they should be. When we have this combination of low discomfort tolerance and self-pity we tend to not work on our problems and feel sorry for ourselves while our problems mount.
Fallible humans can do what is difficult and choose to go against the grain and fight the human tendency to experience self-pity when life is uncomfortable. We can fight the tendency to whine and complain that life is not as it is “supposed to be”. When we push ourselves to accept that life will often not be as we deserve it to be we begin to think rationally and have a far better chance of finding the emotional strength to change what can be changed. When we stubbornly refuse to whine and complain and do what is difficult and best in the long run we greatly increase the probability of making headway in solving our problems.
REBT is a no nonsense therapy just like Dr. Albert Ellis was a no nonsense psychologist. If you want to achieve your potential and change what you can change and be reasonably happy despite the ongoing existence of problems in your life then learn Rational Emotive Behavior Therapy. Read this blog and website, listen to my free audios on it, and read books on REBT which are linked to it. You can teach REBT to yourself or come in and see me and I will teach it to you. One way or the other learn REBT and use this powerful, liberating philosophy. You too can learn that it is well within your power to stubbornly refuse to be miserable about anything, yes anything!