From Self-defeat to Rational Living

[karmakoma]

From Who Controls You?

1. I need love and approval from those significant to me - and I must avoid disapproval from any source. Love and approval are good things to have, and I'll seek them when I can. But they are not necessities - I can survive (even though uncomfortably) without them.

2. To be worthwhile as a person I must achieve, succeed at what ever I do, and make no mistakes. I'll always seek to achieve as much as I can - but unfailing success and competence is unrealistic. Better I just accept myself as a person, separate to my performance.

3. People should always do the right thing. When they behave obnoxiously, unfairly or selfishly, they must be blamed and punished. It's unfortunate that people sometimes do bad things. But humans are not yet perfect - and upsetting myself won't change that reality.

4. Things must be the way I want them to be - otherwise life will be intolerable. There is no law which says that things have to be the way I want. It's disappointing, but I can stand it - especially if I avoid catastrophising.

5. My unhappiness is caused by things outside my control - so there is little I can do to feel any better. Many external factors are outside my control. But it is my thoughts (not the externals) which cause my feelings. And I can learn to control my thoughts.

6. I must worry about things that could be dangerous, unpleasant or frightening - otherwise they might happen. Worrying about things that might go wrong won't stop them happening. It will, though, ensure I get upset and disturbed right now!

7. I can be happier by avoiding life's difficulties, unpleasantness, and responsibilities. Avoiding problems is only easier in the short term - putting things off can make them worse later on. It also gives me more time to worry about them!

8. Everyone needs to depend on someone stronger than themselves. Relying on someone else can lead to dependent behaviour. It is OK to seek help - as long as I learn to trust myself and my own judgement.

9. Events in my past are the cause of my problems - and they continue to influence my feelings and behaviours now. The past can't influence me now. My current beliefs cause my reactions. I may have learned these beliefs in the past, but I can choose to analyse and change them in the present.

10. I should become upset when other people have problems and feel unhappy when they're sad. I can't change other people's problems and bad feelings by getting myself upset.

11. I should not have to feel discomfort and pain - I can't stand them and must avoid them at all costs. Why should I in particular not feel discomfort and pain? I don't like them, but I can stand it. Also, my life would be very restricted if I always avoided discomfort.

12. Every problem should have an ideal solution, and it is intolerable when one can't be found. Problems usually have many possible solutions. It is better to stop waiting for the perfect one and get on with the best available. I can live with less than the ideal.


I spent a large part of my life with thoughts swirling around my head that existed without any evidence to prove that they were real. "You must be perfect", "People from your background follow this path", "Relationships should be like.....", etc etc. I have managed to whittle away at these beliefs and replace them with something a little more realistic. Still battling some biggies, though, many relating to societal expectations and beliefs rather than parental/peer.

So what beliefs do/did you hold that weren't working for you and what did/can you do to change them?

[Mair]

I was always told as a child to do as I was told, no questions just do it, i rarely stood up for myself as a child and took this with me into adulthood. Probably plays a big part in my codependancy. What i did to change this?? I grew some testicles!!!!(sorry). Welcome back Karma

Mair xx

[karmakoma]

In addition, from Psychological Aspects at Overcoming-Depression.org

1. ALL-OR-NOTHING THINKING: You see things in black and white categories. If your performance falls short of perfect, you see yourself as a total failure.

2. OVERGENERALIZATION: You see a single negative event as a never-ending pattern of defeat.

3. MENTAL FILTER: You pick out a single negative detail and dwell on it exclusively so that your vision of all reality becomes darkened, like the drop of ink that discolours the entire beaker of water.

4. DISQUALIFYING THE POSITIVE: You reject positive experiences by insisting they `don’t count” for some reason or another. In this way you can maintain a negative belief that is contradicted by your everyday experiences.

5. JUMPING TO CONCLUSIONS: You make a negative interpretation even though there are no definite facts that convincingly support your conclusion.
1. Mind Reading: You arbitrarily conclude that someone is reacting negatively to you, and you don’t bother to check this out.
2. Fortune Telling: You anticipate that things will turn out badly, and you feel convinced that your prediction is an already established fact.

6. MAGNIFICATION (CATASTROPHIZING) OR MINIMIZATION: You exaggerate the importance of things (such as your goof-up or someone else’s achievement) or you inappropriately shrink things until they appear tiny (your own desirable qualities or the other person’s imperfections). This is also called the `binocular effect’.

7. EMOTIONAL REASONING: You assume that your negative emotions necessarily reflect the way things really are: `I feel it, therefore it must be true’.

8. SHOULD STATEMENTS: You try to motivate yourself with `shoulds and shouldn’ts', as if you had to be whipped and punished before you could be expected to do anything. `Musts’ and `oughts’ are also offenders. The emotional consequence is guilt. When you direct `should’ statements toward others, you feel anger, frustration and resentment.

9. LABELING AND MISLABELING: This is an extreme form of overgeneralization. Instead of describing your error, you attach a negative label to yourself: `I’m a loser’. When someone else’s behaviour rubs you the wrong way, you attach a negative label to him: `He’s a jerk’. Mislabelling involves describing an event with language that is highly coloured and emotionally loaded.

10. PERSONALIZATION: You see yourself as the cause of some negative external event, which in fact you were not primarily responsible for.

Reference: Burns, David D.(1981) Feeling good, the new mood therapy. Penguin Books, USA (pages 40,41) ISBN 0-451-16776-7
I found this book to be extremely helpful. It is probably no longer in print and has been replaced by The Feeling Good Handbook, Penguin Books (ISBN 0-452-26174) written by the same author.

[anvilhead]

i do still rather wish things would just go my way......sigh.

i'm not sure where it fits in the list but classifying things in the ALWAYS and NEVER categories comes to mind.....and using LOVE as the excuse.....as in "........but i love him so much" - so it all sounds like a Kathleen Woodiwiss Romance Novel..........

[karmakoma]

Anvil - the always/never is classic black and white thinking and, from what I see is very common on both sides of the alcoholic fence. Life is lived in the shades of grey - although I prefer to color those bits in with lovely crayon.

And the "But I love him" probably fits in the "emotional reasoning" category - tis one of my pet hates, so I shall refrain from extrapolating.

[anvilhead]

see? i tried to make them MINE and not have them fit into the other categories!!! is terminal uniqueness on there too??

i guess my one of my biggest personal achilles heels would be NOT GOOD ENOUGH. not measuring up. being found lacking or unworthy. passed over. left in the dust. that one pops up now and again.........

and being a chronic incomplete with perfectionist tendancies...boy howdy, that one will drive ya nuts.

[karmakoma]

Me too.

You are in good company :rof

[anvilhead]

i'll do ALL the dishes.......except.....the silverware.
i'll clean the entire house, but not put the vacuum away.
do the laundry, fold the socks, but not put them in the drawer.
it's a sickness i tell ya!

[denny57]

I believed if I couldn't do something well, then I shouldn't do it at all. Today, if I immediately reject something, I try to figure out if it is because I truly don't want to try it or I'm avoiding failure.

[FormerDoormat]

I prefer to color those bits in with lovely crayon.

This phrase immediately brought the following picture to mind:

A lovely box of 64 Crayola crayons--all with perfectly pointed tips--just waiting for me to choose one to color my world. I choose periwinkle.

Sorry, I digress. Back to you Karma...

[Barbara52]

Originally Posted by anvilhead

i'm not sure where it fits in the list but classifying things in the ALWAYS and NEVER categories comes to mind......

I'd add the word SHOULD to those 2. I'm still working on getting rid of that word from my vocabulary except in term of inanimate objects (that faucet should work now that I fixed it).

[abcdefg]

Originally Posted by anvilhead

i do still rather wish things would just go my way......sigh.

i'm not sure where it fits in the list but classifying things in the ALWAYS and NEVER categories comes to mind.....and using LOVE as the excuse.....as in "........but i love him so much" - so it all sounds like a Kathleen Woodiwiss Romance Novel..........

:rof

that is HILARIOUS! nice to know i'm not the only one who read those books!

[BayAreaPhoenix]

Karma - thanks so much for the mindgym site! I went there today. I love the idea of cognitive therapy!
For me, I have "always" felt (and I use this word usually only in reference to myself) that my reactions or thoughts were probably not right - what everyone else did or said was appropriate and I could never seem to get it right. It also felt like people seemed comfortable in pointing out to me what wasn't correct or appropriate when I didn't see them do it to anyone else, so I figured, I must be "wrong".
"Normal" is another big one for me. I spent my early adulthood trying to be "normal". By my mid-30's I did figure out there was no such thing, but it was hard to let go of, and the other thing I had to do was learn to define what parts of "normal" that I liked and wanted to keep and those that were just trying to fit in and I didn't like. I have surprisingly found that there are a lot of things I've taught myself for the wrong reasons that I'm glad I have now for the right reasons (for me)!
Thanks for making us think!