If you are like some people, you may have difficulty with change. We tend to think of the world and life as being static in quality and ourselves as having a fixed quality. Many of us may consider our personalities set and conclude we do not evolve. However, in REBT, we have a process view of life, the world and of people. We often remind people that the only constant is change. Therefore, if we wish to adapt to the changes in life, whether we mean aging, climate changes, cultural changes, relationship changes, and our death and the deaths of those we love, we need to adopt flexible attitudes. Change is ongoing and those who do not handle change well suffer emotionally.
REBT is a Scientific Outlook
REBT teaches you to adapt to life by adopting a scientific outlook. Science is against dogma. Science is flexible. Scientists observe reality and revise their conclusions about reality at any given time. Science encourages us to adjust our attitudes and beliefs to predict and adapt to our world, which is constantly changing. REBT teaches you to examine and revise rigid and extreme attitudes that undermine your ability to adapt to change, leading to emotional suffering. REBT helps you acknowledge but not suffer in response to the inevitable losses, disappointments, failures, betrayals, transgressions, burdens and changes we all face at different points in life.
Life as an Ever Changing Process
Our human senses are limited. We cannot directly observe the process of change. We see a series of differences and infer change has occurred and wrongly believe life is static. This inference appears incorrect, and it is better to view life as a process. Everything appears to be in a constant state of imperceptible change. However, we are often inclined to hold static views and rigid attitudes about what unfolds. Our rigid attitudes make adjusting to life’s inevitable changes difficult. We suffer needlessly without a flexible, scientific, open-to-revision stance towards change.
Rational Emotive Behavior Therapy (REBT) has a prescription for assisting you in adapting to change. REBT theory shows you that as a result of holding rigid attitudes, often the human mind will then manufacture extreme evaluations that further cripple your ability to adapt to change. In REBT, we show you how you come to life’s inevitable challenges and changes with rigid implicit attitudes. We help you identify those rigid attitudes. We teach you to examine your attitudes like a scientist. We then show you how to revise your unhealthy attitudes to transform your self-defeating emotions into self-helping negative ones that will motivate you to change what you can change and allow you to accept what you cannot.
Let’s look at a few rigid attitudes that undermine our ability to adapt to inevitable life changes. Compare these attitudes to flexible and non-extreme attitudes REBT encourages you to adopt as shown below:
Antiscientific, rigid attitude: I (absolutely) should have the things I most want.
Scientific, flexible alternative attitude: I want the things I desire and see other people have. Life is not fair. The hand of fate makes it more challenging for some of us to have what we want. Life does not have to be fair or easy. I will accept this, revise my thinking, and keep desiring I have those things I miss. I will work hard and do what I can to obtain them. Perhaps through my efforts things will change for the better.
Antiscientific, rigid attitude: I must maintain the youthful characteristics I once enjoyed.
Scientific, flexible alternative attitude: I wish it were possible to maintain many of the youthful features I once enjoyed, but sadly this is not how life evolves—all living things age. I do not have to like these changes, but I had better accept that although I may slow them through diet and exercise, the aging process will happen to everyone. Humans change in many ways, both physically and emotionally, as we age.
Antiscientific, extreme attitude: I cannot bear the changes brought on by aging.
Scientific, flexible, non-extreme attitude: I may find it hard to bear the changes brought on by aging, but when I look at the evidence, it is clear that they are not unbearable. I will adapt better if I stick with the observable evidence and acknowledge I can bear the changes brought on by aging even when they are inconvenient, uncomfortable, and dispreferred.
Antiscientific, rigid attitude: Climate change must not occur.
Scientific, flexible attitude: Climate change may threaten our way of life, which is very bad, but it does not follow that climate change must not occur. Decide to face climate change with healthy concern and then attempt to figure out what is best to do about it. We will likely deny it if we are anxious about its associated changes and implications. Furthermore, we will be better able to accept the observable data that it is happening if we give up the idealistic notion that climate change must not occur. We tend not to see and acknowledge what absolutely must not happen.
Antiscientific, extreme attitude: Climate change is totally bad.
Scientific, non-extreme attitude: Climate change is likely exceptionally bad, but life is complex, and some good could come from it. The possibility that some good could come from bad is not a reason for inaction, just something to be aware of, since good can come from bad. Take the awful out of the exceptionally challenging situation and do what you can to help transcend it. Remain open to change!
Antiscientific, rigid attitude: Cultural changes must not occur. Practices like how we work, play, and relate must never change.
Scientific, flexible alternative attitude: I may prefer that cultural changes not occur, but it does not follow that cultural change must not occur. Cultural changes will happen whether I disturb myself about them or not. I can prefer traditional forms of working, playing, and relating, but in the end, cultural practices evolve and change, and I have a choice: bend or emotionally break. There is no stopping change.
Antiscientific, rigid attitude: Relationships must remain the same. Our feelings for one another must not evolve.
Scientific, flexible attitude: I might want relationships to remain the same, but sadly they may not. Relationships, like all processes, begin, evolve, and end. People are processes, so how we interact and feel about our interactions change as well. We had better accept the process nature of our interactions with friends and family. Just like you cannot step in a river twice because the river changes, the two people in a relationship change; therefore, it stands to reason that their relationship will change. What it will become is almost impossible to know. Remain flexible, and you will adapt to relationship change.
Antiscientific, rigid attitude: Those we love must not die and leave us.
Scientific, flexible alternative attitude: I wish death was not a part of life and those we love did not die. Sadly, through observation of plants, animals, and people, it is clear that all living organisms die. I will revise my rigid, antiscientific attitude and hold a flexible one consistent with the observations I make in life. I will accept that we evolve and then die. I do not like that my friends and family will die, but I will accept that they do not have to be with me forever.
Antiscientific, extreme attitude: It is unbearable to live after the death of certain people in our lives.
Scientific, flexible, non-extreme attitude: When our loved ones die, it is extremely painful. However, if you look around, there is ample evidence that people tolerate and transcend the death of loved ones. It might be very challenging and may take time, but this does not mean it is logical to conclude it is impossible to adapt to such a painful loss. We will adapt more quickly if we acknowledge that none of us are special, with special rules that apply only to us. All living organisms eventually die. Death comes to some sooner than others, but it is inevitable. Acknowledging death’s eventuality is not to say we like it, but we had better accept it. Acceptance of death is the only way to get emotional leverage over losing loved ones.
Antiscientific, extreme attitude: I must not die. I cannot handle acknowledging my death will come one day.
Scientific, flexible, non-extreme attitude: I am unique, not special. I may not like to die, but there is no reason to believe I must not die. I will accept the finiteness of my life and make the most of the moments I have to live right up to the end. Thinking scientifically and flexibly, as REBT prescribes, will enable me to savor life until I take my last breath. It is emotionally challenging to acknowledge my death will occur one day, but it is not unbearable to recognize this. Now go and use your REBT to have a joyful life!
Takeaways:
- Adopt a process view of reality. Life is not static, and everything changes. Those changes may be imperceptible, but they are occurring.
- A static view of yourself, others, and life will lead to suffering.
- A flexible view acknowledging that everything is in a state of change will help you adapt to those changes.
- You can revise your rigid and extreme attitudes when you feel you are suffering emotional upset rooted in rigid and extreme attitudes.
- Use the scientific method. Seek to observe things in a fair-minded way. Use this data to determine if it proves your rigid and extreme attitudes are false to the facts.
- Revise those attitudes that are false to the facts and lead to your suffering.
- Keep your wishes, wants, desires and preferences but give up your dogmatic attitude that life must be as you want it to be.
- Work to change what you can change and accept what you cannot. This adaptive attitude will enable you not to suffer and have pleasure even when life is not as you want it to be.