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by
Dr. Glenn R. Williston
Every day of our lives we are thinking. Shutting off thoughts is certainly difficult, but we can be aware of our thoughts. When we begin to recognize that we are thinking, we begin to take back the control of our lives. We then begin to realize that thoughts are just thoughts and not reality. Many emotional problems are based on this lack of awareness and differentiation.
When we recognize thoughts as thoughts, we begin to notice patterns in our thinking. Many thoughts are negative; we see what is wrong and what is missing, rather than what we have and what is right. This is called negative thinking and the various types of negative thoughts fit into categories which I call Negative Thought Traps. Below are the most common ones and a brief explanation of each.
Automatic judgment of self and others. Preoccupation with others judging you. Gossip!
A setup for judgment. Seeing oneself as defective, comparing self to others and aspects of one's life to other's. Using a select example rather than a broad field for comparison. Example: you see your son as lazy because he spends a great deal of time with his computer. You think he is lazy because, "You don't see your friends sitting at their computers all weekend." Here the only "sample" are a couple of friends.
Drive to be perfect and do everything perfectly. Nothing less will do. Focus on the goal only and missing life as a result. Only end results are important.
Seeing everything in terms of extremes only. Everything is wonderful or terrible, right or wrong, good or bad, now or never, never or forever, etc.
Distorting facts for effect, attention, approval, etc.; includes deceit and telling "white lies."
Fear causes the ego to put people into convenient known categories, not considering uniqueness.
Predicting outcomes (future thought) with a lack of information and/or distorted reasoning. Expectation and disappointment often follow.
Letting emotions (overreactions) give a "picture" of "reality" and believing that picture as truth. Emotions give us signals and do not give us the full picture or even an accurate picture of reality... only one small part, how we feel, and when it is taken as reality or gets out of control, it becomes emotional reasoning.*
Expecting negative (or positive) results based on fantasy or fictional thinking. Expectation is never accurate.
Rejecting positive statements or experiences by insisting that they "don't count" for whatever reason. Helps to maintain a victim position.
Variations include "shoulda, woulda, coulda." Works like a whip against self and others to reinforce guilt and shame. Weakens self-esteem.
Seeing flaws in others that are really within self. Focusing on others through thoughts and gossip. Consider statements about others as important information about self.
Not seeing something because of the habits of assuming that facts (the truth) are painful, and wanting to avoid pain.
Accepting fictional thoughts about self or others as true without consideration or examination.
Convinced that others' comments and actions (or lack of) are directed towards you. You see yourself as the cause of all problems and take more responsibility that you should. Guilt, fear, and shame result. Often indicates a victim position, a lack of boundaries, and suggests passive/aggressive behavior. Your best friend forgets to send you a birthday card and you spend time thinking about it, getting wound up in drama over it, and plan a strategy to make the person suffer or at least be very aware of the "insult."
You assure yourself that what you think and do is correct or the best you can, and you know you are not being honest with yourself or others. Similar to rationalization and intellectualization.
Automatic thoughts and fantasias that paint a picture of the future that are unexamined. You automatically believe them as if a psychic prophesy.
Thoughts that produce "no-win" situations and have "no" solutions create double-binds or dead ends. These produce imprisonment in tension and set the stage for emotional and physical problems. For some people, dead-ends become a primary style of thinking to the point of obsession. Difficulty making decisions, feelings of helplessness, hopelessness, low energy, and depression often result. Types of dead-ends include:
(1) Unanswered question, UNFINISHED THOUGHT -- "What am I going to say to her?"
(2) YES, BUT;
(3) PERFECTIONISM;
(4) COMPLEXITY AND COMPLICATION;
(5) CIRCULAR THINKING;
(6) STUCK IN A RUT, WORRY -- REHASHING AND THRASHING when you already have the answer or solution or when you do not have enough information to make a decision or find the solution.
* Emotions are electrochemical events in the body that produce altered states of consciousness. Sometimes emotions are purely "chemical."; that is, they are caused by various small and large chemical deficiencies, imbalances, uptake problems, and receptor site problems, especially related to hormones.
Emotions give us important clues about our physical health, about our needs, about signals, about our lives. Perhaps most importantly, emotions give us vital information about our thoughts. Thus some emotions act as red lights about the way we are thinking, while others act as green lights about our thoughts and about our lives.
Some emotions help and heal us and some emotions hurt and hinder us. Even our most important physical asset, our immune system, is helped or hindered by our thoughts and our emotions.
Emotions affect us directly because of the interconnectedness among all cells of the physical body. All cells communicate with all cells. As organisms, we communicate with other organisms, not only with words and gestures, but with emotions that are behind the words and the gestures. Additionally, emotions set certain nonphysical energies in motion which affect all people present as well as everyone else on the planet. Helpful emotions help bring peace on Earth, while hurtful emotions support conflict and destruction.
Emotions are meant by nature to inform us and to empower us. When they hurt or hinder us, we can suspect that the ego is producing them, setting us up to be victims of some person, place, situation, circumstance, environment, or thing (to drive us into isolation and "safety").
We have a responsibility to ourselves, to others, and to the planet to know what emotions we are experiencing at all times. Thus, self-observation of emotions is as important here as it is in all areas of our lives.
First we must discover whether the emotions are chemically based -- illness, PMS, endogenous depression, hypoglycemia, etc. -- or whether they are thought based, as most are. If they are chemically based, we must take a low profile, think as little as possible, meditate, make no important decisions, and seek professional health care.
All victim (ego-based) thoughts automatically produce destructive emotions. These include feelings of resentment, boredom, frustration, being overwhelmed, hopelessness, helplessness, inadequacy, protracted or chronic anger, annoyance, anxiousness, apathy, bitterness, condemnation, confusion, defeat, despair, being distraught, dividedness, embarrassment, guilt, shame, emptiness, jealous, fearfulness, exhaustion, foolishness, franticness, furry, greed, hate, intimidation, loneliness, meanness, misery obsession, being overwhelmed, panic, persecution, spitefulness, pressure, quarrelsomeness, rage, rejection, righteousness, being rushed, resentfulness, shame, spite, stress, stupidity, tenseness, terror, threat, being trapped, being troubled, ugliness, worry.
Helpful, healing emotions include feelings of joy, happiness, contentment, affection, awe, bliss, bravery, calmness, capability, captivation, being challenged, charm, cheerfulness, cleverness, creativity, being delighted, peacefulness, being refreshed, relaxation, relief, being rested, rejuvenation, silliness, solemnity, sureness, confidence, being settled, reassurance, wonderfulness.
Some emotions, such as feeling competitive, eager, excited, infatuated, lustful, angry, or shy can produce positive or negative affects depending on the individual, the situation, and the type and speed of resolution.
We must remember that all emotions are valuable because they alert us to problems; they give us information; they provide us with valuable signals; they provide us with opportunities for understanding self and others; they set the stage for growth; and they are life!
We must also remember that emotions should never be denied, repressed, or subverted, even those produced by ego thoughts. All negative emotions must be recognized and resolved.
Remember, too, that Guidance and intuition often speak to us through emotions... even victim emotions, sometimes. Fear, for example, may be a message from the nonphysical dimensions of reality rather than from the ego. The two instances of fear, however, are quite different to an astute person involved in self-discovery with a goal of mastery.
What this means is that fear (produced by thoughts or fantasies) can be a legitimate intuitive warning of danger or it can be an all-too-familiar debilitating action of the ego.
Know your emotions as a part of knowing yourself. Learn to distinguish among the subtleties of emotions. Discover what thoughts and fantasies produce what emotions. Find the patterns. Find the themes. Find the triggers. Discover how and where and under what circumstances you are vulnerable to particular emotions. Some people need to begin the process of self- discovery and personal empowerment with observation of emotions rather than directly with thoughts in order to know thoughts and mind pictures.
To be fully free, you must be fully invested in understanding yourself and creatively resolving all limitations.
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