Self-Help Review:
Feeling Good: The New Mood Therapy
1980
By David D. Burns, M.D.
There is a sense among some people that, when it comes to certain ideas involving our personal and emotional lives, the older way of doing things is better. I remember watching "Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure" and having the scene with Ted being analysed by Sigmund Freud sticking in my head. I thought, and I'm sure a ton of other people thought, "Wouldn't it be fucking awesome to be analysed by Freud?" Well, now I know that no, it sure as fuck WOULDN'T be "awesome" to be analysed by Freud, for the same reason that it wouldn't be awesome to have Henry Ford work on my Toyota. The field of psychology is still pretty new, and there is always rapid progress being made in it, from gimmicky, scientifically unproven techniques such as Neurolinguistic Programing (made famous by Anthony Robbins) to Cognitive Therapy, the technique taught in the book "Feeling Good." For Freud, if someone truly believed that they were a worthless, fucked-up piece of shit with no real reason to live, then "he must surely be right in some way." This way of thinking among therapists has thankfully disappeared, and Cognitive Therapy seems to be the best approach to fighting depression that I have yet seen.
Cognitive Therapy deals with the idea that thoughts control our moods, and not the other way around. This means that depression does not come before depressing thoughts, and even though you may not be able to control your emotions, you sure as fuck can control your thoughts, talk back to them, challenge them, and change them. By changing the way you think about a situation, it follows that your emotions will then change as well. When I first read that I thought that while it did make sense, there had to be certain situations which would prove that this idea was horseshit. To my surprise, Burns answered every single one of my criticisms, addressed them directly, and made me a believer.
There is a sample test early in the book to monitor what level of depression you're at. If you are even slightly depressed, it is recommended that you read the book, because depression, unless actively fought against, will not just "go away" on it's own. This is because thoughts create mood, and a low-level of depression is a sign that the patient has at least some cognitive distortions. A cognitive distortion is an error in thinking which causes depression, and every one of them can be proven false. There are ten listed in the book, and it is necessary that you memorize all of them so that you can immediately spot one once it shows up. Here they are, almost exactly how they appear in the book, but with my typical asshole examples included:
1. All Or Nothing Thinking: If you are working on something and it doesn't come out perfect, then you judge it to be a complete failure. "There's a typo on my otherwise flawless research paper. I therefore will probably flunk and deserve to be shot."
2. Overgeneralization: One negative event happens, and suddenly it is yet another part of a never-ending pattern of defeat. "I forgot to give him back his ten cents in change! I ALWAYS FUCK UP SOMEHOW!!!"
3. Mental Filter: You take a single negative detail and focus on it exclusively, ignoring any positive details and letting the negative color everything else. "My dick has an odd curve. It's ugly. No woman would ever want to fuck me. I'm disgusting. I'll always be alone and I can't bear the loneliness, so I might as well kill myself."
4. Disqualifying the Positive: Rejecting positive experiences by insisting they "don't count," so you can maintain your low self-image.
Her: "You got me so wet last night."
Him: "Anyone who isn't a complete retard could have done that. I'm nothing special."
5. Jumping to Conclusions: Making a negative assumption with no real facts to back it up. There are two examples of this one:
a. Mind Reading: You assume someone is thinking negatively of you, and don't bother to ask if there's a problem. "That homeless guy didn't smile back at me. I must be so horrible not even a bum would be my friend."
b. The Fortune Teller Error: You anticipate that something will turn out badly, and convince yourself that it's a fact. "I will definitely shit in my pants if I tell my boss that I need to take the weekend off."
6. Magnification and Minimization: Exaggerating the importance of things you fuck up on or shrinking the things you do right. "I had a booger hanging out of my nose...everyone in the club is going to think of me as the booger guy and now I'll never get a girlfriend" or "Everyone says my peach cobbler's are great, but they're just being nice. I know they really taste like possum asshole's coated in sugar." Also goes by the delightful name "The Binocular Trick."
7. Emotional Reasoning: Thinking that your negative emotions reflect the way things really are. "I feel like crap, therefore I AM crap."
8. Should Statements: Using "should," "must," or "ought" statements to try to motivate yourself. In reality, they are just a form of self-punishment. "I should stop eating so much pie. The fact that I don't makes me worthless."
9. Labeling and Mislabeling: An extreme form of overgeneralization. It's using a label such as "loser" or "fuck-up" as an estimation of your total self-worth, rather than addressing the actual error or mistake that took place. "I dropped her burger on the floor...I'm shit."
10. Personalization: Seeing yourself as the cause of some negative external event that you were not responsible for. "I asked her to pick up some stamps and she didn't. I'm a horrible friend who she obviously has no respect for."
The book suggests becoming as familiar with these distortions as possible, since being able to quickly and easily bust one out everytime you start thinking stupid shit will give you a powerful tool to pull you back into the real world. These are especially helpful if you decide to use some of the recommended charts and diagrams in the book, such as the "Daily Record Of Dysfunctional Thoughts", where you list something that bothers you, say how angry/sad it makes you on a scale of 0-100%, write down what thoughts automatically popped into your head when it happened, list whatever distortions are in those thoughts, write out a rational response to your automatic thoughts, then record your final degree of anger/sadness. Needless to say, this is some powerful shit, and psychologists using cognitive therapy recommend it to patients they are treating, along with a lot of the other techniques listed in this book.
The book is over 700 pages long, and there is a lot to digest. The most eye-opening section for me was the Prevention and Personal Growth section, where you take a 35 question test to pinpoint certain areas in your life which need work, and there are chapters dedicated to five of the seven areas specified. They are Approval, Love, Achievement, Perfectionism, Entitlement, Omnipotence, and Autonomy. The test shows just how much you depend on other's approval, love, etc., and how independent you are. There are no chapters dedicated to the Omnipotence and Autonomy sections, presumably because being deficient in either of these isn't as pressing as being a perfectionist or walking around feeling like you are entitled to certain things. What really opened my eyes was the analysis of people who are perfectionists. Perfectionists are basically setting themselves up to constantly be losers, since perfection does not exist. Even the most seemingly flawless and perfect thing in the world can be improved in some way, so by demanding perfection you are guaranteeing failure in everything you attempt.
Another thing which is addressed is the idea of "realistic depressions." Burns makes it very clear that sadness and depression are not the same thing, and that sadness is a perfectly normal and healthy reaction to certain events in our lives. Depression is NOT normal, not safe, and needs to be immediately taken care of. There is an interesting section regarding a dying woman suffering from depression. Even though there was no cure in sight for her sickness, and she would definitely die a painful death, her depression came from a cognitive distortion, and not the reality of her situation. Shockingly, her depression was cured and she lived out the remaining six months of her life freed from it. Reading that made all of the problems in my life seem excruciatingly petty, and if someone who knows they are going to die can be cured from depression, then I have no doubt in my mind that anyone can.
I have often entertained the thought of "If I could go back and tell myself something," or "If I could go back and give myself something," what would it be? I have come to the conclusion that my life is exactly the way it is supposed to be, however, one thing which certainly would have made my life easer would have been reading this book when I started that awkward transition from child to teenager. Since I wouldn't have had the patience at that time to actually read the book, I would also give myself the threat that if I didn't read it, I would have my balls shot off with a shotgun at the end of the month. Most Self-Help books are cheesy, slogan-filled pseudo-science which only pumps you up and leaves you stranded. This book actually has the research to back it up, and it stands as probably the only book that I have ever considered buying multiple copies of to give to certain friends and family members of mine. It's that good.
There is a sequel to this book, called "The Feeling Good Handbook." From what I've seen it's a larger book crammed with tests, charts, and other shit that you can fill out to solve your problems on your own. I may or may not read it, but the very nature of it seems to make a review pointless. Both of these books, by the way, came at the top of a study to determine whether or not Self-Help books actually worked. This kind of therapy has a name...it's called "Bibliotherapy," and since I like being independent and have a strong personal loathing of therapists, I feel that I should promote this. Anyhow, "Feeling Good" was the number one recommended book by therapists to their patients to help them cure their depression faster. This, in combination with one-on-one Cognitive Therapy and antidepressants, has had amazing results.
Finally, a confession. I did not read the last chapter. Sorry. It is just a list of every single antidepressant drug on the market at the time of the book's writing, and the author states that it is intended as a reference, not as a straight-through reading. I fucking hate pills and have no intention of ever taking an antidepressant, so I had no problem in skipping it.
A very interesting thing happened to me as I was finishing this book. I began to realize that there were real cures for a lot of shit that goes through people's heads. When someone finally has a dump truck come in to scoop away the mountains of bullshit piling up in their heads, what comes next? After thinking about it for half an hour it hit me that we will never reach an endpoint in our personal development. No matter how many of our problems we take care of, and no matter how many goals we achieve, there is always further to go. We will never, ever reach a point where we can stop and say "I have arrived." When that thought sunk in I was filled with the kind of excitement I can only compare to when I knew I was about to finally get some head after a long dry spell. Since the only endpoint we have in our lives is death, and since everything on our way there is just part of the "path," it doesn't make a whole lot of sense to be bothered by a lot of obstacles and setbacks on our way there. I can be great in a lot of things, but all of it is just practice. Everything we do is just a backstage rehearsal before death. I find absolutely nothing morbid about that. The only thing that took me down off of the high I experienced from that realization was when I had to deal with more crap at work, and that just reminded me that I still have a long way to go.
As if I have not made it clear enough, I recommend this book. Even if you're not a frowny son-of-a-bitch, it is still a fascinating psychology book with loads of interesting stuff to make your intellectual penis hard. It gives the reader a glimpse into the world of therapists, their relationships with their patients, the kind of stress they go through, and just how lazy a lot of them can be when they have the authority to simply write a prescription for an antidepressant. It does not make the bold, retarded statements like "there is never a reason for anger" like I've read in other books, and takes a hard, realistic stance when it comes to happiness and how to attain it. Psychology has come a long way since Freud, and there is finally proof that no matter how fucked up your life is, it is never entirely hopeless. The book hammers that point home, is well-written, and keeps you interested while helping you get your shit together. It's just a damn good read.
Too bad the title kind of sucks.
Thursday, March 29, 2007
Wednesday, March 14, 2007
Self-Help Review 7: Feel The Fear And Do It Anyway
Self-Help Review:
Feel The Fear And Do It Anyway
1987
By Susan Jeffers, Ph.D.
In our evolution from hairy apes to slightly less hairy apes, fear was one of our main tools for survival. If something shot out of the lake, or if some other cocksucker ape chucked a bone at us, it was our automatic response of fear that got us to move quickly and instinctually away from danger. Our sense of fear helped us know intuitively if we were in a dangerous area, and kept us extra-alert to the environment for potential dangers. There are books such as "The Gift Of Fear" which show how it benefits us today to feel a strong sense of fear, and that if we feel weird about someone to trust that intuition. However, fear is also a paralyzing force which blocks us from experiencing life and taking risks, and people often stop themselves from taking risks due to unrealistic fears about the outcome. This usually has more to do with self-esteem issues and a shitty outlook on life than with any real dangers involved. In "Feel The Fear And Do It Anyway" Susan Jeffers lays out a convincing argument that fear is still a gift, but that we have been using it in the wrong way.
Fear is a persistent force in our lives, and no matter what we do or how much we accomplish, it will never go away. There is no way to get rid of a survival mechanism, and to do so would put us at an incredibly disadvantage in life. Besides, everyone, no matter how confidently they go about their lives, experiences fear. When fear is looked at from the point of view of doing or experiencing, and not from life-or-death threats, it almost always indicates an area of personal growth. When you're afraid of doing something, it usually means that you are doing the unfamiliar, and by doing the unfamiliar you increase you knowledge and grow as a person. This is why you feel fear; because you are stepping out of your personal boundary and testing the unknown. According to Jeffers, at the bottom of every fear is the belief "I can't handle it!" But the fact of the matter is, unless it's a truly life-or-death situation, we CAN handle it, we just choose to avoid the potential pain because it makes us uncomfortable.
The book lists five "truths" about fear, and here they are:
1. The fear will never go away as long as you continue to grow.
2. The only way to get rid of the fear of doing something is to go out...and do it.
3. The only way to feel better about yourself is to go out...and do it.
4. Not only are you going to experience fear whenever you're on unfamiliar territory, but so is everyone else.
5. Pushing through fear is less frightening than living with the underlying fear that comes from a feeling of helplessness.
The book contains a ton of exercises, techniques, affirmations, and advice on how to deal with fear and become a happier person. The best part is the "pain-to-power" vocabulary list, which lists words or phrases that we use which keep us feeling a sense of dread and helplessness, and alternatives which make us feel stronger. Much of what we say directly transmits the message "You're a loser" to your subconscious mind, which then takes this information and validates it. Your subconscious mind is not a filter, and will take whatever information you give it and act on it. If you ask yourself why you're such a lousy piece of shit, you can be sure that you will receive a flood of answers. If you ask yourself why you're such a sexy motherfucker, you will also receive a flood of answers, though your inner "Chatterbox" will more than likely try to intercept. Words such as "should" or "can't" always carry the baggage of helplessness, and while it will be hard to stop using them, it is for your own good that you try. The replacements recommended for those two words are "could" and "won't," just so you know.
I mentioned the inner "Chatterbox," and should (goddamn it!) elaborate on it. The inner Chatterbox is the voice in your head which goes on and on, doubting your abilities, examining every aspect of a situation, seeking out the negative, over-analyzing trivial utterances, etc. It's the voice that asks "Why haven't they called me? Does that mean my interview went poorly? I knew I should have prepared better. I answered all those questions wrong. Either that, or I dressed shitty. No, wait, it's not that, it's because I kept looking at the floor. No, wait, I didn't make eye contact. Or did I make too much eye contact? I'm such a piece of shit. If the phone rings, I'm not going to answer it."...when three days have passed since you interviewed for a job and have not received a phone call yet. This voice will never go away, but it can be drowned out by taking on a positive, "Pollyanna" attitude. This takes a shitload of work, and you will default to the negative if you stop working on it, but that's life for you.
The idea of having a Pollyanna attitude might seem unrealistic, but Jeffers points out a study that 90% of what we fear is going to happen, doesn't. This means that having a "realistic" negative attitude means only being correct 10% of the time. The difficulty with positive thinking is defaulting to the negative, but Jeffers likens developing a positive attitude to working out a muscle or keeping a sharp mind. If you stop working out or studying, all of the benefits will start to deteriorate, meaning that anything worthwhile in life takes constant work. This is a slap in the face to lazy people, but the most depressed son-of-a-bitch I'd ever met just sat around their house doing jack shit all day, so it makes perfect sense to me.
Another idea that I liked was that of a no-lose decision. No matter what happens in life, we gain something from it. By playing the victim and bitching about how shitty life is to us, we get the secondary pay-offs of sympathy and people giving us attention, but these pay-offs will eventually wear off and people will get sick of being around you. The victim attitude is a hold-over from when we were infants and depended on our parents to run to us and give us attention and love when we cried. It's amazing how this can carry over into adulthood, and the key to maturity is recognizing it and doing away with it. By recognizing that you benefit from any decision you make, even if it doesn't go the way you wanted it to, you take responsibility for your life and aren't leaving your future to chance. Taking responsibility is probably the single most important thing a person can do in their life, and no matter how often it's repeated in these fucking books that I'm reading, I will never tire of hearing it because it is THAT important.
Finally, I will mention her idea of saying "yes" to the universe, because right now this is of particular importance to me. No matter what life throws at you, it is a must that you nod your head and say "yes" to it, because by denying what happens you will fall back into negative thoughts and a pity-me attitude. Those who know me know that this past weekend something really fucking bad happened, and that damn near everything in my household is going through some kind of change now. More than ever, I am forced to be more adult, more mature, and more responsible than possibly at any other point in my life. Would I have preferred circumstances to be different? By all means, yes. But nothing can be changed about what has already happened, and I accept it. Despite how exceedingly shitty this situation is, there is a lot of good in it, and there is a possibility that in time, everyone involved will be better off than they were before. That's about as personal as I'm going to get on this review.
The book ends with a section on the "Higher Self," and it can either be God or whatever the hell else you think a "Higher Self" can be. It didn't make all that much sense to me, and it seemed more like an endorsement of meditation and shutting up the Chatterbox, but I liked the idea of doing guided visualization to get images from the subconscious, and forgetting problems because the subconscious will come up with the solution without being forced. This is part of the basis for intuition, and Jeffers recommends reading books on being able to better develop your intuition. If you're not all that up on spiritual shit, you probably won't like this part of the book, but I still think you should read it because there is some good information in it.
The idea that fear will never go away will probably disappoint people who come to this book hoping to kill their fear, and Jeffers understands that some readers will not be too thrilled about that. However, the advice in this book was much better than I expected, and it is a valuable resource in the field of Getting Over Your Inner Bullshit. It can be fluffy at times, but overall it is a really good book that should be read by anyone who's too scared to take action in their lives. Love your fear, goddamn it! It hurts a little at first, but after a few thrusts you'll learn to enjoy it.
Feel The Fear And Do It Anyway
1987
By Susan Jeffers, Ph.D.
In our evolution from hairy apes to slightly less hairy apes, fear was one of our main tools for survival. If something shot out of the lake, or if some other cocksucker ape chucked a bone at us, it was our automatic response of fear that got us to move quickly and instinctually away from danger. Our sense of fear helped us know intuitively if we were in a dangerous area, and kept us extra-alert to the environment for potential dangers. There are books such as "The Gift Of Fear" which show how it benefits us today to feel a strong sense of fear, and that if we feel weird about someone to trust that intuition. However, fear is also a paralyzing force which blocks us from experiencing life and taking risks, and people often stop themselves from taking risks due to unrealistic fears about the outcome. This usually has more to do with self-esteem issues and a shitty outlook on life than with any real dangers involved. In "Feel The Fear And Do It Anyway" Susan Jeffers lays out a convincing argument that fear is still a gift, but that we have been using it in the wrong way.
Fear is a persistent force in our lives, and no matter what we do or how much we accomplish, it will never go away. There is no way to get rid of a survival mechanism, and to do so would put us at an incredibly disadvantage in life. Besides, everyone, no matter how confidently they go about their lives, experiences fear. When fear is looked at from the point of view of doing or experiencing, and not from life-or-death threats, it almost always indicates an area of personal growth. When you're afraid of doing something, it usually means that you are doing the unfamiliar, and by doing the unfamiliar you increase you knowledge and grow as a person. This is why you feel fear; because you are stepping out of your personal boundary and testing the unknown. According to Jeffers, at the bottom of every fear is the belief "I can't handle it!" But the fact of the matter is, unless it's a truly life-or-death situation, we CAN handle it, we just choose to avoid the potential pain because it makes us uncomfortable.
The book lists five "truths" about fear, and here they are:
1. The fear will never go away as long as you continue to grow.
2. The only way to get rid of the fear of doing something is to go out...and do it.
3. The only way to feel better about yourself is to go out...and do it.
4. Not only are you going to experience fear whenever you're on unfamiliar territory, but so is everyone else.
5. Pushing through fear is less frightening than living with the underlying fear that comes from a feeling of helplessness.
The book contains a ton of exercises, techniques, affirmations, and advice on how to deal with fear and become a happier person. The best part is the "pain-to-power" vocabulary list, which lists words or phrases that we use which keep us feeling a sense of dread and helplessness, and alternatives which make us feel stronger. Much of what we say directly transmits the message "You're a loser" to your subconscious mind, which then takes this information and validates it. Your subconscious mind is not a filter, and will take whatever information you give it and act on it. If you ask yourself why you're such a lousy piece of shit, you can be sure that you will receive a flood of answers. If you ask yourself why you're such a sexy motherfucker, you will also receive a flood of answers, though your inner "Chatterbox" will more than likely try to intercept. Words such as "should" or "can't" always carry the baggage of helplessness, and while it will be hard to stop using them, it is for your own good that you try. The replacements recommended for those two words are "could" and "won't," just so you know.
I mentioned the inner "Chatterbox," and should (goddamn it!) elaborate on it. The inner Chatterbox is the voice in your head which goes on and on, doubting your abilities, examining every aspect of a situation, seeking out the negative, over-analyzing trivial utterances, etc. It's the voice that asks "Why haven't they called me? Does that mean my interview went poorly? I knew I should have prepared better. I answered all those questions wrong. Either that, or I dressed shitty. No, wait, it's not that, it's because I kept looking at the floor. No, wait, I didn't make eye contact. Or did I make too much eye contact? I'm such a piece of shit. If the phone rings, I'm not going to answer it."...when three days have passed since you interviewed for a job and have not received a phone call yet. This voice will never go away, but it can be drowned out by taking on a positive, "Pollyanna" attitude. This takes a shitload of work, and you will default to the negative if you stop working on it, but that's life for you.
The idea of having a Pollyanna attitude might seem unrealistic, but Jeffers points out a study that 90% of what we fear is going to happen, doesn't. This means that having a "realistic" negative attitude means only being correct 10% of the time. The difficulty with positive thinking is defaulting to the negative, but Jeffers likens developing a positive attitude to working out a muscle or keeping a sharp mind. If you stop working out or studying, all of the benefits will start to deteriorate, meaning that anything worthwhile in life takes constant work. This is a slap in the face to lazy people, but the most depressed son-of-a-bitch I'd ever met just sat around their house doing jack shit all day, so it makes perfect sense to me.
Another idea that I liked was that of a no-lose decision. No matter what happens in life, we gain something from it. By playing the victim and bitching about how shitty life is to us, we get the secondary pay-offs of sympathy and people giving us attention, but these pay-offs will eventually wear off and people will get sick of being around you. The victim attitude is a hold-over from when we were infants and depended on our parents to run to us and give us attention and love when we cried. It's amazing how this can carry over into adulthood, and the key to maturity is recognizing it and doing away with it. By recognizing that you benefit from any decision you make, even if it doesn't go the way you wanted it to, you take responsibility for your life and aren't leaving your future to chance. Taking responsibility is probably the single most important thing a person can do in their life, and no matter how often it's repeated in these fucking books that I'm reading, I will never tire of hearing it because it is THAT important.
Finally, I will mention her idea of saying "yes" to the universe, because right now this is of particular importance to me. No matter what life throws at you, it is a must that you nod your head and say "yes" to it, because by denying what happens you will fall back into negative thoughts and a pity-me attitude. Those who know me know that this past weekend something really fucking bad happened, and that damn near everything in my household is going through some kind of change now. More than ever, I am forced to be more adult, more mature, and more responsible than possibly at any other point in my life. Would I have preferred circumstances to be different? By all means, yes. But nothing can be changed about what has already happened, and I accept it. Despite how exceedingly shitty this situation is, there is a lot of good in it, and there is a possibility that in time, everyone involved will be better off than they were before. That's about as personal as I'm going to get on this review.
The book ends with a section on the "Higher Self," and it can either be God or whatever the hell else you think a "Higher Self" can be. It didn't make all that much sense to me, and it seemed more like an endorsement of meditation and shutting up the Chatterbox, but I liked the idea of doing guided visualization to get images from the subconscious, and forgetting problems because the subconscious will come up with the solution without being forced. This is part of the basis for intuition, and Jeffers recommends reading books on being able to better develop your intuition. If you're not all that up on spiritual shit, you probably won't like this part of the book, but I still think you should read it because there is some good information in it.
The idea that fear will never go away will probably disappoint people who come to this book hoping to kill their fear, and Jeffers understands that some readers will not be too thrilled about that. However, the advice in this book was much better than I expected, and it is a valuable resource in the field of Getting Over Your Inner Bullshit. It can be fluffy at times, but overall it is a really good book that should be read by anyone who's too scared to take action in their lives. Love your fear, goddamn it! It hurts a little at first, but after a few thrusts you'll learn to enjoy it.
Tuesday, March 6, 2007
Self-Help Review 6: As A Man Thinketh
Self-Help Review:
As A Man Thinketh
1902
By James Allen
In my last review I talked about a book who's message can be summed up in a turn of phrase that the author used in the introduction: "The mind is a terrible thing. Waste it." James Allen would beg to differ. "As A Man Thinketh" is a classic in a certain area of Self-Help which has always been in fashion, but to varying degrees. There's a whole area of Metaphysical Self-Help books which contain the message that our thoughts dictate our circumstances, and that we can get whatever the hell we want just by thinking about it long and hard enough. While the idea of "becoming your thoughts" is by no means a new one (there are instances of it in the Bible), it's popularity in Self-Help comes from it being taken away from being merely a spiritual idea to being a way to gain riches and create a happier life. Apparently Oprah's new Self-Help pet, Rhonda Byrne's "The Secret," continues in this tradition (I will be reading that one much later, as I have no intention of buying it and the number of requests from my library on that fucker extends to at least ten pages). In the course of doing research for these reviews I've stumbled across some fascinating books and authors, and it increasingly becomes clear that most modern Self-Help has just been a rewriting of older books, with the difference being the style it is written in and a taking into account current scientific discoveries to prove their validity.
James Allen didn't need science to prove he was right. All he needed was his Bible and a shitload of metaphors to deliver his message, over and over, in fifty pages. While he uses metaphor to help get his point across, he makes it very clear that a man is LITERALLY what he thinks about, and that every little thought that goes through your mind has a manifestation in your real world. If you think shitty thoughts, you will look shitty, have a shitty character, and be stuck in shitty circumstances. Even if you've somehow managed to attain wealth and be financially well-off, your shitty thoughts will come to life and destroy you. That's it. That's the book. I'm dead serious about this.
OK, so maybe there is more to the book, but not nearly enough that's worth going into here, at least not in great detail. Each chapter of this book offers a different aspect of where thought affects your life, and each chapter is too repetitive for my taste. If one metaphor will work to get his point across, Allen gives you five. Allen also happens to be very good as using metaphors, so you can forgive him for his indulgence, BUT...he promotes self-control as being a necessary virtue to become a better man, so his indulgence also shows that he is every bit as weak as the people he's giving advice to. Going over my notes I was shocked at how many times I wrote down a profound statement, only to find that they all said the same fucking thing, but in different shades. I had two pages of notes, but I could easily condense it down to a paragraph.
Lest you think I'm bashing the book, I want to state right now that I enjoyed this book and think that Allen was absolutely correct about thought and being. There's a story in the "Visions And Ideals" chapter which was so good that I read it twice, and it actually inspired my ass. Yes, it's cheesy, but it was also written in 1902, so go fuck yourself. It's about a guy working a shitty job who has dreams of refinement. His dream becomes so overwhelming that he can no longer stand the petty work he is doing, and his job "falls out of his life as a garment is cast aside." Later, because of how much he has immersed himself in his dream, it shines out of him, and he lives exactly the life he always wanted. Anyone who has known me for more than a month can understand completely why I love that story so much, and my synopsis does it no justice.
"The Power Of Positive Thinking" may be an idea that's far too Pollyannaish for modern readers, but if you think about it, it makes perfect sense. Everything that goes on in our lives is open to interpretation, you can either see your circumstances as yet another instance of "The Man" keeping you down, or you can learn a lesson from it and use it to your advantage. I used to think that I was cursed because of certain situations I was in, but when I sit down and analyze it, they have ALL helped me grow up. Even my debts, a pain in my ass that I've regretted for five years now, have forced me to examine some bad habits that I have and change them. This might not have happened otherwise. If I would have continued thinking that life was shit and that everyone's an asshole, I'd probably still be writing off everything as fate. Now I know that you create your fate, and if you build it out of shit, then you get what you deserve. Plus, once you view everything in life as a test and every failure as "feedback," you really can't be all that depressed about life. You just need to think about the good shit and do more research. Is this the end of Bitter Roland???
James Allen didn't think that "As A Man Thinketh" was that great of a book, and it's success shocked him. Today it is still being read, but in modified versions. There are two fucking retarded attempts at changing it's gender-specificness, one called "As You Think" and another called "As A Woman Thinketh." I haven't read these and I'm not going to. They are transparent grabs for cash and it disgusts me. So if you have any desire to read this book, pick it up in it's original, and fuck the new versions. It's a quick read that you can do over a lunch break, so even the laziest sons-of-bitches might finish it. As for this area of Self-Help, I plan to read "Think And Grow Rich" and "The Master Key System," both of which continue in the "thoughts are things" vein. How can I balance this with what I learned from "Radical Honesty"? I have no idea, but I'm not going to think about that now.
As A Man Thinketh
1902
By James Allen
In my last review I talked about a book who's message can be summed up in a turn of phrase that the author used in the introduction: "The mind is a terrible thing. Waste it." James Allen would beg to differ. "As A Man Thinketh" is a classic in a certain area of Self-Help which has always been in fashion, but to varying degrees. There's a whole area of Metaphysical Self-Help books which contain the message that our thoughts dictate our circumstances, and that we can get whatever the hell we want just by thinking about it long and hard enough. While the idea of "becoming your thoughts" is by no means a new one (there are instances of it in the Bible), it's popularity in Self-Help comes from it being taken away from being merely a spiritual idea to being a way to gain riches and create a happier life. Apparently Oprah's new Self-Help pet, Rhonda Byrne's "The Secret," continues in this tradition (I will be reading that one much later, as I have no intention of buying it and the number of requests from my library on that fucker extends to at least ten pages). In the course of doing research for these reviews I've stumbled across some fascinating books and authors, and it increasingly becomes clear that most modern Self-Help has just been a rewriting of older books, with the difference being the style it is written in and a taking into account current scientific discoveries to prove their validity.
James Allen didn't need science to prove he was right. All he needed was his Bible and a shitload of metaphors to deliver his message, over and over, in fifty pages. While he uses metaphor to help get his point across, he makes it very clear that a man is LITERALLY what he thinks about, and that every little thought that goes through your mind has a manifestation in your real world. If you think shitty thoughts, you will look shitty, have a shitty character, and be stuck in shitty circumstances. Even if you've somehow managed to attain wealth and be financially well-off, your shitty thoughts will come to life and destroy you. That's it. That's the book. I'm dead serious about this.
OK, so maybe there is more to the book, but not nearly enough that's worth going into here, at least not in great detail. Each chapter of this book offers a different aspect of where thought affects your life, and each chapter is too repetitive for my taste. If one metaphor will work to get his point across, Allen gives you five. Allen also happens to be very good as using metaphors, so you can forgive him for his indulgence, BUT...he promotes self-control as being a necessary virtue to become a better man, so his indulgence also shows that he is every bit as weak as the people he's giving advice to. Going over my notes I was shocked at how many times I wrote down a profound statement, only to find that they all said the same fucking thing, but in different shades. I had two pages of notes, but I could easily condense it down to a paragraph.
Lest you think I'm bashing the book, I want to state right now that I enjoyed this book and think that Allen was absolutely correct about thought and being. There's a story in the "Visions And Ideals" chapter which was so good that I read it twice, and it actually inspired my ass. Yes, it's cheesy, but it was also written in 1902, so go fuck yourself. It's about a guy working a shitty job who has dreams of refinement. His dream becomes so overwhelming that he can no longer stand the petty work he is doing, and his job "falls out of his life as a garment is cast aside." Later, because of how much he has immersed himself in his dream, it shines out of him, and he lives exactly the life he always wanted. Anyone who has known me for more than a month can understand completely why I love that story so much, and my synopsis does it no justice.
"The Power Of Positive Thinking" may be an idea that's far too Pollyannaish for modern readers, but if you think about it, it makes perfect sense. Everything that goes on in our lives is open to interpretation, you can either see your circumstances as yet another instance of "The Man" keeping you down, or you can learn a lesson from it and use it to your advantage. I used to think that I was cursed because of certain situations I was in, but when I sit down and analyze it, they have ALL helped me grow up. Even my debts, a pain in my ass that I've regretted for five years now, have forced me to examine some bad habits that I have and change them. This might not have happened otherwise. If I would have continued thinking that life was shit and that everyone's an asshole, I'd probably still be writing off everything as fate. Now I know that you create your fate, and if you build it out of shit, then you get what you deserve. Plus, once you view everything in life as a test and every failure as "feedback," you really can't be all that depressed about life. You just need to think about the good shit and do more research. Is this the end of Bitter Roland???
James Allen didn't think that "As A Man Thinketh" was that great of a book, and it's success shocked him. Today it is still being read, but in modified versions. There are two fucking retarded attempts at changing it's gender-specificness, one called "As You Think" and another called "As A Woman Thinketh." I haven't read these and I'm not going to. They are transparent grabs for cash and it disgusts me. So if you have any desire to read this book, pick it up in it's original, and fuck the new versions. It's a quick read that you can do over a lunch break, so even the laziest sons-of-bitches might finish it. As for this area of Self-Help, I plan to read "Think And Grow Rich" and "The Master Key System," both of which continue in the "thoughts are things" vein. How can I balance this with what I learned from "Radical Honesty"? I have no idea, but I'm not going to think about that now.
Sunday, March 4, 2007
Self-Help Review 5: Radical Honesty
Self-Help Review:
Radical Honesty
1996
By Brad Blanton, Ph.D.
I have always had an opinion that the smarter someone is, the more miserable they are. This theory has always been nothing more than self-indulgent drivel, and backed by no concrete evidence. My thinking is this: if you're smart, your powers of analysis are more sophisticated than those of dumb people. The more emotional situations are analyzed, the more the results come back negative, since you can always find a problem in any given situation, and emotions are not logical. When using logic to make sense out of something that makes no sense, you fall into a state of total confusion, leading to feelings of sadness and depression. After all these years, I have finally found a book that kinda sorta proves my arrogant assumptions to be true.
"Radical Honesty" is a book with a mission: The author is determined to get you to cut the crap and start telling the truth, no matter how painful you think it is. To Blanton, there is no downside to being totally honest, since holding back the truth can lead to any number of problems, and the anger you hold back will seep out in other forms that you will have no control over. What can this lead to? At this point in history, we are capable of destroying entire countries of people with very little effort, and a nation of angry, passive citizens will find a way to release these pent-up emotions in potentially life-threatening ways.
The strangest thing about this book is that even though the author continuously points out bullshit, he embraces a bizarre, almost New Age idea of who we are as humans. The "being" that we are supposed to get back to in order to be happy is who we were when we were about four or five months in the womb, when we first had the sensation of experience. It came over us slowly, like dawn, and it was a total experience of the senses. His theory is that all major religions are trying to describe this indescribable feeling, always present in our memory but impossible to put into correct words.
The enemy of our being is our mind, and the major idea of this book is that we are trapped in the prisons of our minds, and that the associations we make from life and judgements we place on those associations form our morals, and to Blanton morality is a disease which we all have. The core message is to stop analyzing life and placing judgements on it, and just live. Life doesn't make sense, our emotions don't make sense, we are all petty assholes, and striving for the best possible life is bound to create more disappointments for us. It sounds pessimistic, and Blanton even goes on to call the power of positive thinking "the biggest load of bullshit of our day," but the book's tone is optimistic and sure of it's message. Even though we can't live out our best possible life, we can certainly enjoy the life we have and have fun creating.
I don't know how much I agree with settling for a shit life if it's possible to have a better one, but I do like this book, even if I won't be taking most of it's advice. For example, Blanton promotes "abnormal honesty," which would mean if, for example, your wife/girlfriend asks you if her ass looks fat, you would not only say "yes" if it does, but go on to say, "and that is why I jerk off thinking of you're friend's ass instead of your's. I imagine sticking my tongue in her perfectly-shaped ass and it feels good cumming to that image." Now, that isn't an example from the book, but he actually does want the reader to tell their lover that they jerk off thinking of her friends if he does, and to go into as much detail as possible about what they think of and how it feels. There is no holding back, because we have no good reason for holding back. He even recommends having conversations where the two people tell each other "I resent you for" and giving every detail about the resentments, regardless of how the other person will feel. It's pretty damn hard to argue with telling the truth, and he says that you, the reader, are probably a coward and won't tell the truth in the way that he advocates. Any truth that's colored with nice language will be bullshit, and you'll still be holding back and won't receive the full benefits of telling the truth. For Blanton it's either all or nothing, and the tone of this book is appropriately angry.
Interestingly enough, even if you do tell the truth once, it doesn't matter, because another major point of this book is that the truth is always changing. Loving someone one day doesn't mean you're going to love them later, but that doesn't make your love at the beginning false. Most people I know of who has been in a shit relationship talk about their ex's like they never loved them, and that they only invested all of that time with them because they didn't know better. That's a crock. At the time, it was true that you loved them, and because it's no longer true, it doesn't mean that it was NEVER the truth. It just means that the truth changed, and the truth always changes. I've lied my ass off about my ex, but the fact is that at one point, it was true that I loved her, and no matter how much I bitched about her laziness and just in general her being a worthless cunt, I stuck up for her if anyone else commented because it was true that I loved her. Same for any reader who tries to say they never loved their ex. So we can never be finished telling the truth, because once we speak the truth, it is probably no longer true, and we have an endless amount of fuel because the mind constantly creates more bullshit for us to burn.
There are various tips and rules of thumb for telling the truth, but I won't list all of them because they are just elaborations on the main point of the book. The author recommends a variety of methods for getting back to our being and wiping clean the bullshit that our mind creates. Two recommended methods are the Landmark Education program (a group which has received lawsuits for supposed cult-like behaviors) and Transcendental Meditation, even though he tells you to ignore completely TM's advice on handling anger. He also holds truth-telling workshops, and I would probably attend one if I didn't value my own bullshit and prefer to receive the secondary payoffs I get for feeling shitty and holding back. See? Self-Help HAS helped me, because now I'm admitting my own shortcomings. Let's hear it for being fucked up!
I finished this book a few weeks ago, but I had to reread it in order to write this review. I have been content to tear through books and pump out a review because there are so many different books I want to read, and I sacrificed taking notes in order to get more done. That was a dumb idea, because when I started writing this I realized that there was a lot in this book that I was forgetting, and it was only after the second time around that it became clear. This book is repetitive, but it's a good message to have repeated to you. Even if you don't take the book's advice to the extent that the author would like, your life can only improve if you incorporate at least some of it into your life. That said, at this point this is probably the best Self-Help book I have read, and I recommend it to everyone. Just don't tell me your masturbation fantasies unless I ask.
Radical Honesty
1996
By Brad Blanton, Ph.D.
I have always had an opinion that the smarter someone is, the more miserable they are. This theory has always been nothing more than self-indulgent drivel, and backed by no concrete evidence. My thinking is this: if you're smart, your powers of analysis are more sophisticated than those of dumb people. The more emotional situations are analyzed, the more the results come back negative, since you can always find a problem in any given situation, and emotions are not logical. When using logic to make sense out of something that makes no sense, you fall into a state of total confusion, leading to feelings of sadness and depression. After all these years, I have finally found a book that kinda sorta proves my arrogant assumptions to be true.
"Radical Honesty" is a book with a mission: The author is determined to get you to cut the crap and start telling the truth, no matter how painful you think it is. To Blanton, there is no downside to being totally honest, since holding back the truth can lead to any number of problems, and the anger you hold back will seep out in other forms that you will have no control over. What can this lead to? At this point in history, we are capable of destroying entire countries of people with very little effort, and a nation of angry, passive citizens will find a way to release these pent-up emotions in potentially life-threatening ways.
The strangest thing about this book is that even though the author continuously points out bullshit, he embraces a bizarre, almost New Age idea of who we are as humans. The "being" that we are supposed to get back to in order to be happy is who we were when we were about four or five months in the womb, when we first had the sensation of experience. It came over us slowly, like dawn, and it was a total experience of the senses. His theory is that all major religions are trying to describe this indescribable feeling, always present in our memory but impossible to put into correct words.
The enemy of our being is our mind, and the major idea of this book is that we are trapped in the prisons of our minds, and that the associations we make from life and judgements we place on those associations form our morals, and to Blanton morality is a disease which we all have. The core message is to stop analyzing life and placing judgements on it, and just live. Life doesn't make sense, our emotions don't make sense, we are all petty assholes, and striving for the best possible life is bound to create more disappointments for us. It sounds pessimistic, and Blanton even goes on to call the power of positive thinking "the biggest load of bullshit of our day," but the book's tone is optimistic and sure of it's message. Even though we can't live out our best possible life, we can certainly enjoy the life we have and have fun creating.
I don't know how much I agree with settling for a shit life if it's possible to have a better one, but I do like this book, even if I won't be taking most of it's advice. For example, Blanton promotes "abnormal honesty," which would mean if, for example, your wife/girlfriend asks you if her ass looks fat, you would not only say "yes" if it does, but go on to say, "and that is why I jerk off thinking of you're friend's ass instead of your's. I imagine sticking my tongue in her perfectly-shaped ass and it feels good cumming to that image." Now, that isn't an example from the book, but he actually does want the reader to tell their lover that they jerk off thinking of her friends if he does, and to go into as much detail as possible about what they think of and how it feels. There is no holding back, because we have no good reason for holding back. He even recommends having conversations where the two people tell each other "I resent you for" and giving every detail about the resentments, regardless of how the other person will feel. It's pretty damn hard to argue with telling the truth, and he says that you, the reader, are probably a coward and won't tell the truth in the way that he advocates. Any truth that's colored with nice language will be bullshit, and you'll still be holding back and won't receive the full benefits of telling the truth. For Blanton it's either all or nothing, and the tone of this book is appropriately angry.
Interestingly enough, even if you do tell the truth once, it doesn't matter, because another major point of this book is that the truth is always changing. Loving someone one day doesn't mean you're going to love them later, but that doesn't make your love at the beginning false. Most people I know of who has been in a shit relationship talk about their ex's like they never loved them, and that they only invested all of that time with them because they didn't know better. That's a crock. At the time, it was true that you loved them, and because it's no longer true, it doesn't mean that it was NEVER the truth. It just means that the truth changed, and the truth always changes. I've lied my ass off about my ex, but the fact is that at one point, it was true that I loved her, and no matter how much I bitched about her laziness and just in general her being a worthless cunt, I stuck up for her if anyone else commented because it was true that I loved her. Same for any reader who tries to say they never loved their ex. So we can never be finished telling the truth, because once we speak the truth, it is probably no longer true, and we have an endless amount of fuel because the mind constantly creates more bullshit for us to burn.
There are various tips and rules of thumb for telling the truth, but I won't list all of them because they are just elaborations on the main point of the book. The author recommends a variety of methods for getting back to our being and wiping clean the bullshit that our mind creates. Two recommended methods are the Landmark Education program (a group which has received lawsuits for supposed cult-like behaviors) and Transcendental Meditation, even though he tells you to ignore completely TM's advice on handling anger. He also holds truth-telling workshops, and I would probably attend one if I didn't value my own bullshit and prefer to receive the secondary payoffs I get for feeling shitty and holding back. See? Self-Help HAS helped me, because now I'm admitting my own shortcomings. Let's hear it for being fucked up!
I finished this book a few weeks ago, but I had to reread it in order to write this review. I have been content to tear through books and pump out a review because there are so many different books I want to read, and I sacrificed taking notes in order to get more done. That was a dumb idea, because when I started writing this I realized that there was a lot in this book that I was forgetting, and it was only after the second time around that it became clear. This book is repetitive, but it's a good message to have repeated to you. Even if you don't take the book's advice to the extent that the author would like, your life can only improve if you incorporate at least some of it into your life. That said, at this point this is probably the best Self-Help book I have read, and I recommend it to everyone. Just don't tell me your masturbation fantasies unless I ask.
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