Introduction
– How do we know which are the ten dumbest mistakes?
These are mistakes that inflict all manner of needless emotional suffering.
We
are talking about very specific mistakes in thinking that
create problems for us, worsen our existing problems, or make it more
difficult to find problem solutions.
It
is precisely when you are not thinking straight that you
develop and deepen feelings of anxiety, misery, guilt, anger, and
stress.
Cognitive
therapists differ from other schools of therapy in the emphasis
placed on the role that “thinking straight” plays in relieving
emotional suffering.
The
debate centers on what matters most: feelings, actions or
thoughts.
Undoubtedly,
the way you feel is important.
Experience
has shown that it is possible to learn how to behave in more
productive ways – and still feel miserable.
What
sets cognitive therapy apart is that it combines all the pieces.
No
matter what others have done to you in the past, you don't have to
punish or forgive them to allow yourself to move on.
It's
always tempting to blame others … you have to say: “It's up to
me.”
You
can change the way you think about the events in your life.
Our
emotions and our actions are not separate from our thoughts …
Thinking is the gateway to our emotions.
Different
thoughts produce different emotions.
The
way you think about your situation determines how you feel about it.
You
sometimes think in ways that hurt you (No matter how smart you are)
What
all the mistakes described in the chapters of this book have in
common is:
1.
They occur in our thought processes
2.
They cause us great difficulty
3.
They make us feel miserable
4.
They are relatively easy to avoid
5.
They are reactions we would avoid if we thought about them in a clear
and reasonable manner
Most
of us posses sufficient common sense to deal with life's crises and
challenges.
To
avoid making these common thinking mistakes we need a set of smart
thinking tools that enable us to push back on that emotion and return
our common sense.
Many
actions we take seem like a good idea at the time.
Not
so long ago, a researcher asked a group of people who had been
treated for skin cancer if they would now avoid sitting outside in
the sun. Many replied: “What? And lose my tan?”
What
these techniques can do is combat those misjudgments and missteps you
make only because you are not thinking clearly at the time.
These
are the kinds of mistakes that can cloud your vision and distort your
decision-making abilities.
(These
mistakes) are dumb not because scientists have labeled them with that
admittedly unscientific term, but because that is how most people who
make such mistakes describe them to themselves.
This
book will enable you to become aware of your own patterns of
thinking.
Chapter
One – Knowing Better
You
hear about famous people who, given their position in life, must be
pretty smart, doing incredibly dumb things that ruin a valued
relationship, sink a business, cost a bundle, wipe out a chance for
an important government office, cancel a lifetime a effort, or simply
embarrass that famous someone all over the front page and the evening
news. And you wonder: What were they thinking about?
One
might assume equal wounds would cause equal pain. The difference lies
in the way the two groups think about the wound … Anxiety increases
pain.
It
was not the event (divorce) that was determinative, but rather the
way the individual involved saw the event.
Your
frame of mind can change, quite literally, from one moment to the
next.
Each
of us has a stress threshold below which we operate quite well and
beyond which our circuits begin to misfire.
People
with stress thresholds at the low end of the scale tend to be quite
anxious.
When
you cross your threshold, your nerves and muscles seem to rise in
protest.
These
automatic modes are known as fight, flight, and freeze, and it's easy
to understand how these may well have protected humankind in
prehistoric times.
When
you cross your stress threshold, your system is protectively reacting
to a saber-toothed tiger, which means that, one way or the other,
your brain is no longer under your voluntary control.
If
you can decrease the occasions when you cross your stress threshold,
you will increase your control over the events of your life.
Fortunately, this is not hard to do.
You
have a grinding headache or you didn't get any sleep the previous
night or you have recently suffered a death in the family.
Ordinary
stresses that Amy normally takes in stride now seem like personal
insults.
Factors
that result in lowering your stress threshold are known as
vulnerability factors: situations that make you more vulnerable to
stress … HALT: Hungry, Angry, Lonely, and Tired … Others include
pain, illness, lack of sleep, substance abuse, a major loss, and a
major change of any kind – even one for the better.
You
may fall victim to mistakes in thinking when you feel lonely or when
you have a headache or when you are rushed or when you have had too
much to drink.
Break
through those patterns and regain control.
Recognition
is the first step to getting these troublesome reactions under
control.
You
may well argue that an insistence on perfection is a virtue. It is –
sometimes. But, sometimes an insistence on perfection can become a
vice, a trap.
Something
only becomes a mistake if it gets in the way of what you want to do
instead of helping you, or if it causes emotional pain.
You
can literally unleash your brain to come to your rescue in times of
stress.
This
is a matter of making better use of our ability to reason, not of
improving our ability to make excuses (something that most of us do
only too well now).
There
are times when your instincts need some help from your brain.
We
have good and bad habits in the way we think.
You
acquire your own particular schema by incorporating some or all of
the rules to live by that you are taught.
Because
we grow up believing that our particular schema is simply “the way
things are,” we tend not to question it.
This
is the bottom line: Harmful habits can be broken. You can break a bad
habit of thought, just as you can break a bad habit of action.
Stop,
look, and listen, and change
What
this book can promise is that it will show you how to gain greater
control of your own brain power and minimize these very common
errors.
As
often as not, several factors will intertwine … The twenty-five
specific techniques in this book will help you … Many of these
techniques are best when used in combination.
When
you use the information this book provides, you will not only know
better, you'll be able to live better, too.
