Taking Control of You not Them

REBT encourages you to adopt the principle of emotional responsibility. This is the notion that other people provide us with an opportunity to experience upset. It is the beliefs we hold ABOUT what they do which lead to our emotional upset. In short you make yourself upset over the misbehavior of other people. Keep your values and desires but see that when you hold a rigid belief that others absolutely must treat you as you wish you will experience self-defeating emotional upset when they do not do so. 
     REBT distinguishes between healthy negative emotions and unhealthy negative emotions. Healthy negative emotions are consistent with the principle of emotional responsibility. When others treat you as you do not like or value, it is healthy and appropriate to be sad and sorrowful, highly displeased and disappointed, annoyed, and frustrated with what they do but not with them as people. Condemn what they do and what you do when you misbehave. That is condemn the sin not the person. The healthy negative emotions you will feel will enable you to feel motivated to try and change what you can change. As for that which you cannot change, your healthy negative emotions will enable you to have some happiness despite the presence of mistreatment by another person. You may want to think “I really wish significant others treated me as I wish they would but they are independent beings and there is no absolute law of the universe that forces them to act nicely, fairly, ethically, etc.” With this preferential philosophy you can with a clear head decide what is in your long term best interest to do in response to their behavior. Keep in the mind that the principle of emotional responsibility does not mean that other people get a free pass on their behavior. If they act poorly there may be all sorts of consequences. You may choose to accept them as people with their poor behavior and assert yourself that you want them to terminate such behavior. You may then decide that if they do not terminate such behavior not to relate to them or have less to do with them or have a different kind of relationship with them. So you have more choice in a sense when you embrace the principle of responsibility. You can choose how to react to their misbehavior in a productive way that does not make matters worse. REBT is a practical approach to living with fallible humans.

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