Change Your Experiences by Changing The Way You Think

What’s different about those two scenarios? In the first one you created what you anticipated would happen by your behavior and attitude. In the second one you didn’t create a negative self-fulfilling prophecy, rather you created a positive experience and you’re happy that you didn’t waste time on negativity.             This description of an experience is just an example. You can apply the same principles to any situation you’re in. Notice yourself and whether or not you’re experiencing cognitive distortions like “He/she is never any fun so I won’t have fun tonight.” You won’t have fun because you don’t expect to and your energy, attitude, and behavior will reflect that and you’ll create what you already thought would happen before it even happened. 2.  What you believe about something is what will cause the consequence not the action.             This is part of Albert Ellis’ theory of rational emotive therapy. He called it the A B Cs of Rational Emotive Therapy.             He believed that it wasn’t the action (having to change your shirt before you went out) that caused the consequence. He said it’s what you believe about the action that will cause the consequence. In other words, if...

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MARRIAGE IS NOT A SOLUTION

You’re in a relationship; mostly it’s good, even great but about once a month or more the two of you have screaming, “I hate you,” fights. And the fights are often about the same things although each couple has their favorite: “Why don’t you tell your mother to stop calling all of the time?,” “Why didn’t you pay the bill before it was 30 days late?,” How come you never initiate sex?,” I can’t stand it when you get drunk and act like an ass,” “You have more fun with your friends than you do with me,” “We never go out anymore,” “Why didn’t you answer your phone/text?” You get the drift. In between those fights you get along and makeup sex is great, almost worth the fight, almost. Then one of you has a really bad idea, “Let’s get married.” Yes, a really bad idea because once you have that piece of paper between you that says no one is going anywhere without a big legal and financial hassle, there is a kind of guarantee so it’s easier to fight, say what you think, pull out all the stops. He/she isn’t going to just leave me so I’ll tell...

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WHO ARE YOU?

Here's an interesting article about a link between chronic stress and psychological problems such as anxiety disorder. How would you know if you're experiencing chronic stress? You probably read that question and thought it was a dumb question because doesn't everyone know if they're experiencing stress and wouldn't anyone know if the stress they're experiencing is chronic? Yes, a person knows what their subjective experience of their life is and was but people are also easily influenced and the placebo effect is around fifty percent. I often hear people admonish other people to "slow down," "take a break," "get rid of some of the stress in their life," "learn to relax," and so on or, even more exciting, are the people who suggest to other people that they're going to have a heart attack or a stroke or some other unpleasant life event if they don't get rid of some of the stress in their life. That means that someone could actually be feeling good as they're working hard toward a goal or juggling several life events at once or working long hours and a well intentioned observer (read family member or close friend) will offer an admonishment like the...

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ANXIETY A SYMPTOM OF DEPRESSION?

Yes, anxiety and irritability are common symptoms of depression. People are surprised when I suggest they are depressed because they don't feel lethargic or sad but feel restless and anxious. Read more about it here:https://www.adaa.org/understanding-anxiety/depression/symptomsAll posts unless reposts are copyrighted by MJ Klimenko and can't be duplicated or copied without permission of the author.

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SOCIAL ANXIETY

If you know twenty people you know someone who suffers from social anxiety. That’s when a person has anxiety or fear about being judged by others or rejected by others when in some sort of group activity. People with social anxiety often feel like other people are looking at them and thinking negative thoughts about them. Sometimes social anxiety can be so severe it can lead to agoraphobia, a fear of going out of the house at all. Most cases of social anxiety involve avoiding social situations if possible or showing up late and leaving early. It’s a rare person who talks about having social anxiety because they already feel “weird” and out of place. They don’t want to draw any more attention to the fact that they’re counting the seconds until they can leave and escape the discomfort of the situation or that they have a heart beating closer to the way a rabbit’s heart beats than a human’s or feel nauseous or have sweaty palms or all of those symptoms. Social anxiety can be so severe a person can actually get sick before having to go somewhere and often this results in the person not going after all....

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