“Everyone is entitled to their own opinion, but not their own facts.”

-Daniel Patrick Moynihan

Are you thinking more positive and accurate?  Hasn’t this been an amazing series!  I have learned so much from you my readers in this discussion.  You  have helped me to better train my mind in the areas of accurate and positive thinking.  Thank you!  Just a few more thinking errors to discuss.  Don’t forget that as we learn these errors it’s crucial to replace them with accurate thinking when you catch them.  Your attempts at first my be a little weak, but with practice you will become a pro at accurate thinking.

In reality, a positive attitude is one of the foundations for accurate thinking.  However, working to eliminate thinking errors and replacing them with accurate thinking certainly helps you to think positive.  They both go hand in hand.

If you feel something does that make it true?

- I feel like you did that on purpose.

- I feel like he hates me.

- I just feel like this is right.

- I feel like this is what I am supposed to do.

- I feel like everyone is against me.

- I feel like no one believes in me.

- I feel like no one cares about me.

- I feel like I’ll never make a difference.

- I feel like I don’t mean anything to you.

Join me as we discuss this next thinking error.

13.  Emotional Reasoning:  If it’s felt then it must be so.

While it may be true that you actually “feel” a certain way, feelings are not necessarily true and are a very poor determinant of whether something is right (or true) or not.  A person with accurate thinking will evaluate the facts of a situation and determine his or her response based on these

facts, not feelings.

Consider this: Two different people can feel two very opposing ways about a certain situation and both feel that they are right.  So how do you determine which one is right?  - It’s got to be based in facts.  What are the facts of the situation?

Emotional reasoning could even be disguised by words like:  “I just know I’m right.  I just know I am.”  The question is:  How do you know?   What are the facts?  In this case someone is likely confusing the words “know” and “feel.”

I learned early on in my relationship with my husband (even back before we got married) that this was not right.  I tried the “I feel like…” statement several times and luckily he called me out on it and I learned to never say it again.  My “I feel like” statements were always followed by something negative and judgmental.  That is not always the case for emotional reasoning statements, but often it is.

“There is a way that seems right to a man, but it’s end is the way of death.”  -Proverbs 14:12

Often people use their feelings as a guide or justification for doing something.  You’ve heard the statement:  “If is feels good, do it.”  Consider this: What if I feel like stealing your credit card and charging things on it?  What if I feel like shooting you?  The truth is that prisons are filled with people who did what they felt like.  Terrorist even feel like they are doing what is right.

Tips:

When identifying this thinking error look for the phrase “I feel like…”

Next time you feel compelled to use emotional reasoning consider that what you are feeling may not be right and then make an effort to look for the truth.

Ask yourself:  Do I know for sure if this is right or could it just be that I feel it’s right?  Step back and look for the facts.

Your turn:

Have you (or someone you know) used emotional reasoning?  How has it effected you?

To learn about the other thinking errors we have discussed follow these links and learn to Change Your Life - One Thought at a Time:  Using names or labels and jumping to conclusions, filtering out the positive and polarized thinking, overgeneralization, mind reading and personalization, maximizing and minimizing,  blaming,  self pity, gloom and doom, and controlling.

Coffee of the Season:

Santa Caws

(Click the picture for more details.)

“Oh that I had the wings of a dove I would fly away and be at rest.”  - Psalms 55:6

Last weekend I attended the funeral of my husband’s grandma.  It was a sad occasion, but also a happy occasion as we released her on into her heavenly home.  She was a beautiful Christian lady with a very positive attitude.  She was ALWAYS happy and encouraged  others to be as well.  She signed all cards that she sent everyone with “Be happy” at the end.  She knew that happiness was a choice.  I gained a whole new appreciation of her and her influence on her family and specifically my husband while I was at the funeral.  She possessed the attitudes (positive attitude and humility) necessary to remove emotional pain and it was evident in her happy life. Because she possessed these attitudes then the skills to remove emotional pain also naturally fell into place - thinking errors being one of them.

At the funeral I saw something I had never seen before.  The funeral director released some white doves into the air.  They released three doves first.  They circled around.  These were to symbolize those who have already passed from this life.  Then another was released.  This dove represented my husband’s grandmother.  All the doves circled around for a while and then they all flew home.  This represented her spirit going home to heaven to meet with those who went before her.  It was a very beautiful event.  To learn more about this, I found this website about white dove releases and funerals.  There are other sites as well.

After this event the thought rang clear in my head - when we release emotional pain from our lives it is as though we are taking on wings of a dove and flying away to be at rest.  We are leaving our burdens behind and are freed from the baggage.  We are lifted up.  Removing thinking errors from our lives is such a huge part of this.  With each thinking error we remove we become lighter and lighter and take on our wings.

Join me as we discover a new thinking error to shed from our lives so that we can take on our wings.  This error is one of the biggest sources of frustration we can bring upon ourselves:

12.  Controlling - attempting to control others, events and situations.

The two greatest misconceptions carried into a marriage is the woman believing that the man is going to change, and the man believing that the woman is not.

Burdened and frustrated is the person who tries to control the thoughts of others and events that are outside of his control.  Wise is the person who can distinguish between what he can control and what he can not.

Undoubtedly, trying to control things that I can not control has been a stressor in my life and I have witnessed it be a huge stressor in the lives of others.  It’s an easy trap to fall into before we even realize what has happened.

Tips and Pointers:

* Wayne Leeper notes in “God’s Way….” that, “We only have control over our own [thoughts], feelings and actions.  We can not make another person see what he doesn’t want to see, hear what he doesn’t hear, or feel what  he doesn’t want to feel. We can only conduct ourselves in such a manner as to elicit the response we desire on the part of the other person.”  (But their response is ultimately their choice.)

* Trying to force someone will only bring about resistance or the opposite response of what you are trying to elicit.  Trying to force someone to love you will only push them away.  The same holds true for trying to control situations over which we have no control.

* If you find yourself burdened or stressed it’s a good idea to ask yourself if you are burdened or stressed about something that you can not even control or have no business controlling. If your answer is yes then it’s time to start letting go.

* Letting go is very rewarding.

* Do not tell someone what to do or how to do it unless asked to do so.

I used to try to tell my husband how to do things.  It drove me crazy that he did things different than I did.  Finally, I learned to celebrate our differences and allow him to do things his own way.  It greatly improved our marriage (and my frustration level).  I appreciate him and his uniqueness more now.

photo:  This is a dove I sculpted a few months ago.

Your turn:

Share some examples.  Have you used the thinking error of controlling?  How has it effected your life?  How did you change it or are you planning on changing it?

Have you witnessed others using this error?  How did it effect their lives?

Coffee of the Season:  Santa Caws

“All the days of the afflicted are evil.  But he who is of a merry heart has a continual feast.”        - Proverbs 15:15

I’m pitiful.

There’s just no hope.

Nobody loves me.

I’ll never amount to anything.

I’m just stuck in this pitiful ole’ life of mine.

Nothing will ever change.

Well, I guess that’s just the way things are going to be for me.

That’s the way the cookie crumbles.

That figures.  That’s just my luck.  Nothing’s ever in my favor.

Have you ever told yourself anything like this?  I have.  And I believed it too.

11.  Poor me thinking:  self pity, gloom and doom is the thinking error/lie that is next in the series on Change Your Life One Thought at a Time.

(To check out the other thinking errors you can access all of them in the last post on blaming.)

This could also be referred to as a martyr or victim mentality.  Feeling that you are stuck in a situation is a pretty good sign that you are participating in the poor me thinking error. There are few times that we are actually stuck in a situation (jail is about the only one that comes to mind right now), but even if we are stuck, we can still choose our attitude.  “Stuck” is simply a matter of perspective.

“Poor, pitiful me” is a very easy lie to fall prey too.  It even seems to come more natural with some personalities.  But nonetheless it can be conquered.

My husband and I became the king and queen of self pity for a long time in our marriage.  It was quiet a pity party - our whole life.  Poor me this, poor me that.  We doomed ourselves to this life over and over again throughout the day.  We literally thought we were doomed to live a pitiful humble life all of our lives.  (Not that humility is bad, but when mixed with pitifullness it is.  Excuse the grammar, but it is bad wrong.  As a matter of fact that is not humility.)

picture by:  corsinet

Finally, a book,  “Secrets of the Millionaire Mind,” was recommended to me for some reason and I decided to read it.  While I certainly didn’t agree with all the teachings in this book, it really opened my eyes up to the fact that we were doing this to ourselves and that we would always be poor and pitiful because of what we were telling ourselves.  Thankful for this new found knowledge, we began changing our self talk and it was wonderful.

And then we learned the SFT Awareness material and our eyes were opened and lives changed even more.

It all comes back to this truth:  What you focus on expands and is your reality.  Focus on self pity and you get self pity.  Focus on blessings and you’ll get more blessings.

The truth of the matter is we were not made for self pity and misery, but for greatness, as Lance reminds us in his post about fear.  We will never reach our potential if we are stuck in self pity. Changing our mindset and attitude to greatness and reminding ourselves of our worth will reap many blessings for us.  (I’m not talking about money here, I’m talking about our mindset and our every aspect of our lives.)

Wayne Leeper, in his excellent book, God’s Way for Finding Every State Contentment, notes that, “It is easy to get down in the dumps, but staying there is a matter of choice.  We can choose to live a life of self pity, gloom and doom or we can choose to live a life of optimism and joy” (just as the wise man Solomon noted in the opening quote, above.)

Have you fallen prey to the thinking error of self pity, gloom and doom?  How is it or how has it affected your life?  Or how have you seen it effect others’ lives?  Do you have a success story of overcoming self pity and choosing a life of joy?

Coffee of the Week:  Deadman’s Reach

We have taken quite a long break from our thinking error series because there were other things that I wanted to write about.  We’re coming back to this very powerful series because it is just that - VERY POWERFUL - if learned and mastered.  Somehow when I really see these for what they are - LIES - that really helps me to avoid them.  I think to myself, “Why would I tell myself a lie and make myself miserable?”  It just doesn’t make sense.  A lot of the time that’s all it takes for me.  Not all the time, but often.

Changing my reality to see the truth changed my life so dramatically that I wonder why I ever told myself lies to begin with.  The truth is that I did not know better.  I’m so glad that I now do.  And when the lies do pop up now, I can recognize them and then tell myself the truth.  I’m human just like everyone else - Sure the lies still try to present themselves to me, but not as often and having the skill to recognize them is priceless - absolutely priceless!!

Photo by: loufi

If you take the time to master accurate thinking you too WILL see incredible changes in your life.  But IF, and only IF you take the time to master it.

If you have missed the first few posts in the thinking error series be sure to check out these posts:  Labeling and Jumping to Conclusions, Filtering out the Positive and Polarized Thinking, Over Generalization, Mind Reading and Personalization, and Maximizing and Minimizing.

So now let’s take a look at another thinking error that many people engage in:

10.  Blaming - Placing blame on others or things and finding fault.

We hear it from children all the time:  “He started it.”  “No, she started it.”  But, do we really grow out of it as adults?

I would like to pass along something that I learned after many years of living in constant blaming mode:  I became a MUCH happier person when I took responsibility for my life, feelings, thoughts and actions and did away with blaming. It wasn’t easy, but I was determined!

Of all the thinking errors that I learned to recognize and change to accurate thinking, I believe that blaming was the one that had the biggest impact on my life.  Before learning about blaming, I was heavily engaged in this error.  I blamed my husband a lot.  I blamed others.  I did almost anything not to take responsibility for my thoughts, actions or anything that happened.  Often, it would even be obviously clear that they had nothing to do with what happened, but I still did it.

After learning about the thinking error of blaming I went on a mission to eliminate it completely from every part of my life.  It has been SO liberating!!  In fact, out of this mission was born my favorite quote:

“You can blame others (or things) for your unhappiness or you can be happy.”

Examples:

Blaming is typically seen a lot in the work place.  Something goes wrong and the fingers start pointing - whether it be another person or another department - the blame is passed around.  No one wants to take responsibility.  Have you ever seen this happen?

In my family when I was growing up, somehow everything was my brother’s fault.  For some reason, he got blamed for things he had absolutely nothing to do with, continually.  Fortunately, he has turned out to be a wonderful man.  A lot of times this happens in families.  One person is picked to place the blame on for everything.  It is just so easy to not take responsibility and pass it on to someone else.

One of my favorite examples of blaming is found at the very beginning of the Bible.  Adam and Eve are in the garden.  God had told them not to eat the fruit of a certain tree.  Satan lied to Eve and said it was okay.  Eve ate it and gave some to Adam to eat as well.  When God asked Adam about what he did, he said, “It was that woman that YOU gave me.  She told me to eat it.”  So Adam blamed God AND Eve immediately.  Then when Eve was confronted she blamed Satan - i.e. - “The Devil made me do it.”  Ever heard that one?

Your turn:

How do you currently see blaming in your life?

I’d love to hear how blaming has affected your life or how you have seen it effect others.  What are some examples you can share?

This week, count the number of times you place blame.

Coffee of the week: 

Organic Peruvian Gold

It has long been accepted that Napoleon Hill is the expert in personal development.  I came across this video by Napoleon Hill himself.  It is so profound that I wanted to share it with you.  You might come to the conclusion that I’m saying that money is necessary for inner peace.  If you watch the whole video I think you will discover something different.  This video makes a great follow-up to my post on realities.

What are your thoughts?

“A man who does not think for himself does not think at all” - Oscar Wilde

Do you ever just stop to think?

I have a confession to make.  I have a bad habit. It’s called thinking. Well okay, it’s not really a bad habit, but I sure do a lot of it these days. I used to just take everything as I “knew” it to be.  Now, I’m constantly thinking - thinking about how to improve my life, improve my thinking.  Everything I do originates with my thoughts so improvement must start there.

Last week after writing my last post on the realities we create for ourselves and after attending the last lesson of another SFT seminar simply to hone my skills, I went into deep thought and decided to conduct an experiment.  I began to think about how we all view the world from our own set of rose colored glasses.  This can be good, bad or neutral.  Every time we see something or someone, every time an event happens or we hear about something we don’t actually see it as it is.  In other words, we don’t just see the facts. We add our on “stuff” - thoughts, opinions, experiences to the facts and it actually becomes different to us than it really is.

This led me to conduct an experiment with myself.  I decided that for two weeks that I was going to work at only seeing the facts in every thing, event, story, and person - or to see it for what it really is.  I decided to try to remove all thoughts, ideas and opinions of my own and just observe things as neutral.  Realizing I have a choice as to whether I see everything in a positive light or negative light, after these two weeks I was going to then purposefully attach a positive meaning onto everything.  I have come a VERY long way as far as removing negativity from my thinking, but still I saw room for improvement.

I had many purposes for this experiment or things that I wanted to gain from it.  Among them were:

To do a mental cleansing.

To finish removing all negativity, filters and preconceptions from my thinking and see things objectively.

To become a better listener.

To see people as they are at the core - as God intended them.

To make myself even more aware of the choice I have to see things as negative or positive.

Some results of the experiment:

This experiment started out pretty good.  I did start to see things very different and be more open.  I worked hard to only name the facts about everything.  That was good and it did open my eyes.  One problem was that sometimes I would recognize a thought and change it to a more accurate thought, but sometimes I would just try to ignore it.  Tension collected in my jaws and shoulders as a result of the ignored thoughts and feelings and not dealing with them.

I was exhausted.  Normally, all my thoughts are just automatically mixed in with the facts.  It took MUCH concentration to ONLY name the facts or to see things only as they were.

Some conclusions from the experiment so far and some things I learned:

I decided the experiment could be conducted in a better way.  These are just some of the ways I observed that it could be better:

* Instead of simply trying to see the facts, it seemed better to simply separate the facts from my thoughts instead of just trying to ignore my thoughts.  It seems to work better if I ask myself,

“What are the facts here?” and then ask myself, “What are my thoughts and feelings?”

“Are these neutral or accurate thoughts?”  If not, “how could I make them accurate?”

If someone else is involved, “What are their thoughts and feelings?  Based on their their experiences and reality (or what their reality could be), what do they mean or what could they be saying?”

“How can this be good? (or what is good about this?) and what can I learn from it?”

(Some of these questions may not apply to everything.)

What else did I learn?

It’s good to pause and then think if at all possible.  I learn a lot that way.

I must replace things and thoughts that are not good with ones that are good!  It’s a powerful lesson we teach in SFT Awareness and I was reminded of it’s importance first hand.

I was reminded of the importance of determining a mindset for life ahead of time.  I was reminded of the importance of having a humble, positive attitude at all times always seeking truth and good.  I learned Jarrod’s post on awesomeness first hand:  When you seek to see things as they are you experience awesomeness automatically.  (It’s a must read.)

Experiences were given to us for a reason - to learn a lesson from them and to draw good from them and use them for good.  This was not anything I didn’t already know, but was reminded of it’s importance.

I see things much more objectively and listen better.

* To learn more about negative thoughts to avoid, take a look at the thinking error series.  You can access all the thinking error posts (that I have blogged about so far) from this post about maximizing and minimizing.

What about you?  Have you ever conducted an experiment on your thinking?  Did you learn anything from my experiment?

Photos by:  buildscharacter and ARTS

This post was helpful. How can I contribute something in return?

By purchasing from the coffee shop or bookstore. (It’s for a good cause.)

“The more you believe in something, the more you will experience it.  For instance, if you think people are generally evil and the kind who will take advantage of you, well, then you will experience that!  If you believe the world is mostly made up of good, honorable people, then that’s what you’ll have in your life.  It’s an energy thing - like attracts like.” - Stephen Hopson

I began writing a post yesterday (actually now, it was day before yesterday), but my thoughts and experiences led me to write this one instead.  I was already in the process of writing about this when I came across Stephen Hopson’s comment (above) on my interview at his blog.  Was that coincidence???  It just fit so well with the whole point of this post.

Things are exactly/precisely the way we perceive them to be - the way we have created in our minds that they will be - the way we have told ourselves they are or would be. We naturally or automatically look for/see and listen for/hear things that confirm our thoughts and intentions. “That’s it!” (usually when we’re focused on the positive) or “Aha, just as I thought!” (usually when we’re focused on the negative)   (I wrote this paragraph before reading Stephen’s comment above!)

It works both ways exactly the same.  If we tell ourselves negative things we believe that and find things to prove or validate that.  If we tell ourselves positive things we believe that and find things to prove that.

photo by:  Brymo

In regard to others:

Example: I saw a perfect example of this over the weekend.  Someone was convinced that I was always doing something for a certain reason (Only sometimes do I do this bad habit - yes, I admit that maybe sometimes I do, although not intentionally - something else for me to work on ).  They heard me say something and got upset with me because they interpreted it as a confirmation of my bad intentions (which did not even exist.)

In regard to ourselves:

How it works:

*  If we convince ourselves that we are “good for nothing” then we communicate that message (usually subconsciously) to others.  They typically react accordingly since that is the message we give them.  Then that confirms our thoughts.  We conclude, “Well, I was right.  They think I’m a nobody too.”

However, often times, the person is not even reacting to us.  In reality, they are simply saying something or doing something and we perceive in a distorted way.

*  The opposite is true as well.  If we believe that we are a beautiful person on the inside we communicate that to others.  They react accordingly since that is the message we give them.  Then that confirms our thoughts.  We conclude, “Well, I was right.  I am beautiful, aren’t I?”

But hey, so what if the person is not actually reacting to our positive vibes?  If we perceive it in a good way, is that harmful?  It’s certainly better to perceive good than bad.

Example: Just yesterday I was reminded of someone that I know very well.  She has convinced herself that people are evil with evil intentions and that everyone is against her and out to get her and cause her harm.  She is also convinced that people don’t want to be around her.  Almost very literally, everything is a confirmation of these thoughts and beliefs that she has.  Subconsciously she even pushes people away and then her thoughts are confirmed…. “Just as I thought.  No one wants to be around me.”

Principle:  A person sees exactly what they tell themselves is real.  A person creates their own confirmations based upon what they have already told themselves is true.

* Note: I am not saying that there is no reality.  Only that we often create our own reality based on our perceptions of the world (or should I say preconceptions?).  The negative realities we create have as their foundation thinking errors, which we have at least partially discussed.

How to apply this principle:

We are in control of exactly what we find and how we perceive things.  We find exactly what we tell ourselves we will find.  If we are open to and believe there is good in everything then we find good.  If we are open to and believe there are answers we find answers.  If we are open to and believe there are solutions to problems, we find solutions.  If we are open to and believe our dreams will come true, we look for and find ways to make our dreams come true.  If we tell ourselves it’s possible then our minds will find a way.  This was a profound truth I took away from one of my favorite books, The Magic of Thinking Big, by Dr. Paul J. Schwartz.  (This was the first personal growth book I ever read many years ago.  I couldn’t recommend it enough!)

Food for thought and discussion:

What reality have you created?

Are you in control of your thoughts and what you are focused on or are your thoughts and focus in control of you?

Are you looking for confirmation for negative thoughts or positive ones?

What examples of this have you witnessed either in yourself or others?

This post was helpful.  How can I contribute something in return?

By purchasing something from our coffee shop or bookstore.  (It’s for a good cause.)  (I know there’s AT LEAST 20 coffee lovers who have enjoyed this post and at least that many people who love to read.  Go ahead… Click on the links.  They won’t bite. )

Be looking for my regular weekly post here in the next couple of days…

photo by: sparetomato