Freedom from Harmful, Negative, Thinking

What’s a belief? It’s something that you accept as true. However, some realities differ from what you believe. At one time most people on the planet believed that the world was flat. Some believed that ships that venture outside of the sight of land would fall off the edge of the earth and into the waiting mouths of terrible monsters. Today, some believe that they can be safe and secure only by acting perfect. That’s a formula for insecurity.

Let’s take a cook’s tour into the world of beliefs. Perhaps you’ll find a way to discover and neutralize false beliefs that inhibit you. Perhaps you’ll find a way to build on a helpful belief system that feels emotionally freeing.

Can Two People See Things Differently?

Because we don’t always share the same beliefs, one person’s reality about a situation can different from that of another:

• A socially-oriented person seeks opportunities to converse with others--even strangers in a grocery store. This person assumes that people are interested in carrying on casual conversations.

• A socially-anxious person pretends not to notice an acquaintance in a grocery store. This person feels apprehensive about rejection, and expects it.

Whose belief is right? Maybe a better question is which belief is more likely to be helpful and which belief is more likely to be harmful?

Although the grocery store situation is the same for both the socially-oriented and socially-anxious person, each has a significantly different set of beliefs about connecting with people in the store. It is a relatively safe bet to say that beliefs that lead to social anxiety are likely to do more harm than good.

Your Beliefs Are Guides

Dr, Albert Ellis, who pioneered rational emotive behavior therapy, proposed that we live our lives in three main ways: cognitively, emotively, and behaviorally. These factors blend together. Each influences the other. That means,

• How you think (what you believe) affects how you feel and what you do.

• What you do can result in changes in your thinking and emotions.

• How you feel can trigger thoughts that fit with how you feel and extend into actions that fit your emotions and thinking.

• Changes in one area will, in one degree or other, affect what happens in the other areas.

Beliefs shape perspective. Some erroneous perspectives can get you into emotional hot water. Ellis prefers the word “irrational” to describe these harmful beliefs.

How do you know if a belief is irrational? That’s a controversial issue. Here is one angle. A belief is irrational if it:

• Interferes with the achievement of your constructive goals and interests. (You want to complete a degree but procrastinate on applying your talents to get it. Maybe you believe that studying is too frustrating for you to do.)

• Is unreasonable, unrealistic, and illogical in the context where it occurs. (You think that society has it in for you, and you expect to be disadvantaged.)

• Is grounded in false assumptions. (You have a lower back pain and believe that this means that you have a fatal disease that your physicians have yet to detect.)

• Negatively affects your relationships. (You think that others should adore you for whatever you do, and you demand it.)

There are more specific forms of thought that suggest an irrational belief, such as overgeneralizations (i.e. everyone thinks I'm incompetent), magnifications (i.e. making a big deal over small matters or "mountains out of molehills"), or excess suspiciousness (i.e. expecting your friends to betray you and watching for clues to support this belief; inventing them even when there is no basis in fact for your suspicion).

If you are irrationally getting in your own way of achieving your most meaningful and attainable goals, there are alternative ways of viewing a situation that better fit the facts and reality. Finding those alternatives, and believing them, is part of the solution.

Recognizing Irrational Thinking

If your belief interferes with seeking treatment for a life-threatening but curable disease, it’s irrational and harmful. However, not all irrational beliefs are harmful. If you believe that crickets chirp chants they learned from monks, there is no proof for this. It may not cause you any meaningful harm.

To combat harmful irrational thinking patterns, you may first have to recognize when you are engaged in harmful irrational thinking. How do you recognize an irrational belief that feels real and true that is actually false and harmful?

Some situations evoke recognizable irrational patterns, such as where your performance is on the line and you feel flooded by anxiety. For example, you have an upcoming written test. You fear failure. You procrastinate excessively and use procrastination as an excuse for falling short of what you can capably do. The obvious rational alternative is studying in lieu of procrastinating. That's logical. However, irrational thinking that subverts logic prevails until changed.

If you dig a little deeper into why you have a pattern of fearing failure, you may find that practically any time you expect to fall short of your standards, you worry and feel anxious. The specter of failure threatens your self-image and sense of worth. An alternative is to separate your global self-worth from any specific individual performance--you can rate your performance but you don't have to rate your entire self.

Another way to identify harmful irrationalities is by their consequences. Here are three examples of irrational thoughts, consequences, and alternative ways of thinking:

• You feel anxious and depressed. You view yourself as powerless to change. You do nothing meaningful to change. Is it possible that powerless thinking is a detour from taking steps that can make a positive difference? (In the following section, the self-efficacy method is a alternative to the powerless thinking and inaction connection.)

• You believe that people don’t like you—even people you’ve yet to meet. Believe this, and you’ve burdened yourself with a painful assumption that you can’t prove. Nevertheless, you actively avoid social situations. Is it possible to give others the benefit of the doubt?

• You can’t stand not knowing what will happen next in your life. Believe that you must have certainty now, and you’ll suffer from the anxiety of uncertainty. You act as if you were risk-aversive and you play it too safe. Is it possible to accept that uncertainty is a normal part of life and that you’ll cross many unexpected bridges?

Changing harmful irrational belief systems—and their accompanying emotions and behaviors--is something you can do if you choose to self-improve.

Changing Irrational Belief Systems

If irrational beliefs can negatively affect how you feel and what you do, can you strengthen your rational beliefs and reverse this effect? It depends on the belief.

Stanford University professor, Albert Bandura, describes self-efficacy as the belief that you can organize, coordinate, and regulate your thoughts, feelings, and behaviors to achieve meaningful goals. Bandura’s self-efficacy theory enjoys strong research support.

Like most things in life, how you execute a self-efficacy solution makes a difference. For example, consider using self-efficacy as a psychological homework assignment where you work to change your thinking by changing your behavior. Pick a constructive goal, such as defeating powerless thinking. Work at executing a self-efficacy belief. You may show yourself that you are not powerless. For example, when you believe you are powerless to act, and you do act following a self-efficacy belief, you have an incongruity to resolve. You either are totally helpless or you can take corrective actions.

Let’s reverse our sample criteria for an irrational belief and create a rational, action, perspective. The purpose of this reversal is to provide helpful guidance in strengthening your rational belief system.

Does your belief:

• Support the achievement of constructive goals and interests?

• Sound reasonable, realistic, and logical in the context where it occurs?

• Fit with facts or testable assumptions?

• Support positive relationships with significant others in your life?

If your belief reflects the above, great! If not, then what can you do to substitute a rational perspective for an irrational one?

For more examples and exercises on combatting irrational belief systems and developing rational ones, click on The Cognitive Behavioral Workbook for Anxiety (Second Edition).

Photo: A Crack Between Worlds by Dale Jarvis

This blog is part of a series to celebrate the 100th and 101st year anniversaries of Dr. Albert Ellis’ birth. Ellis is the founder of rational emotive behavioral therapy and the grandfather of cognitive-behavior therapy.

Albert Ellis Revisited (Carlson & Knaus 2013) is the Albert Ellis Tribute Book Series centennial book. The publisher, Routledge, offers a 20% discount on the book. Control click on this link: Albert Ellis Revisited. Type the code Ellis for the discount. The book qualifies for free shipping and handling. Bill Knaus’ royalties from this book go directly to the Denan Project charity. When you buy the book, you are helping yourself by learning ways to live life fully, and you are helping bring irrigation, crops, and health care to destitute areas of the world.

For more information on rational emotive behavior therapy, click on Albert Ellis’ official website: Albert Ellis Network: http://rebtnetwork.org/

For other articles in this centennial (and beyond) Albert Ellis tribute blog series, cut and paste any of the below http links to your server's http request header:

You Can’t Always Get What You Want: http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/science-and-sensibility/201411/you-can-t-always-get-what-you-want

Do One Thing and Stop Procrastinating: http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/science-and-sensibility/201410/do-o…

Steps to Overcome Public Speaking Anxiety:http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/science-and-sensibility/20140...

When It Comes to Love and Romance, What's Fair? What's Not? :http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/science-and-sensibility/20140...

Three Core Anxieties and How to Calm Them:http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/science-and-sensibility/20131...

12 Key Ideas for Self-Liberation: http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/science-and-sensibility/201406/12-k…

Ten Commandments to Stop Quick Ejaculation:http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/science-and-sensibility/20131...

13 Tips to Make Self-Help Therapy Work for You:http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/science-and-sensibility/20140...

Escape the Guilt Trap: http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/science-and-sensibility/201312/thre…

5 Mental Traps Relationships Can't Escape:https://cdn.psychologytoday.com/blog/science-and-sensibility/20140...

Six Calming Tips for Parenting Teens:http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/science-and-sensibility/20141...