Distorted Thinking

Really good article....
Styles of Distorted Thinking

by Gayle Rosellini, Mark Worden

Throughout addictive / alcoholic / codependent living one tends to pick up dysfunctional styles of thinking to cope with every day life.

Using them often ends in some sort of confrontation.

These are some that many have noticed. They are born out of anger, anxiety and denial; or just plain damaged thinking.

Filtering: You take the negative details and magnify them while filtering out all the positive aspects of a situation.

Polarized Thinking: Things are black or white, good or bad. You have to be perfect or you are a failure. There is no middle ground.

Overgeneralization: You come to a general conclusion based on a single incident or piece of evidence. If something bad happens once you expect it to happen over and over again. (If something good happens it is a one of a time thing.)

Mind Reading: Without their saying so, you know what people are feeling and why they act the way they do. In particular, you are able to divine how people are feeling toward you.

Catastrophizing: You expect disaster. You notice or hear about a problem and start 'what if's', What if tragedy strikes? What if it happen to you?

Personalization: Thinking that everything people do or say is some kind of reaction to you. You also compare yourself to others, trying to determine who's smarter, better looking, etc.

Control Fallacies: If you feel externally controlled, you see yourself as helpless, a victim of fate. The fallacy of internal control has you responsible for the pain and happiness of everyone around you.

Fallacy of Fairness: You feel resentful because you think you know what's fair but other people won't agree with you.

Blaming: You hold other people responsible for your pain, or take the other tack and blame yourself for every problem or reversal.

Should's: You have a list of ironclad rules about how you and other people should act. People who brake the rules anger you and you feel guilty if you violate the rules.

Emotional Reasoning: You believe that what you feel must be true-automatically. If you FEEL stupid and boring, then you must BE stupid and boring, if I FEEL you are thinking about me, then you are.

Fallacy of Change: You expect that other people will change to suit you if you just pressure or cajole them. You need to change people because your hopes for happiness seem to depend entirely on them.

Global labelling: You generalize one or two qualities into a negative global judgment.

Being Right: You are continually on trial to prove that your opinions and actions are correct. Being wrong is unthinkable and you will go to any length to demonstrate your rightness.

Heavens Reward Fallacy. You expect all your sacrifice and self-denial to pay off, as if there were someone keeping score. You feel bitter when the reward doesn't come.

Musturbation. An attitude of I must do this or, I must have done that or, I must be on time or, I must not do this or, I must go to meetings or, I must, must, must …. Etc. Musturbation' has the same effect as the masturbation. One may end up frustrated and missing out on some of life's pleasures.

Tibetan book of the dead

RIP Edda Ingibjörg Hákonardóttir

I've photographed a few outcasts in society, Edda was one of them. She passed away this April, she was 57 years old. I took these pictures of her around 2003. She suffered from a mental problem and used to walk up and down the main street in Reykjavik every day. Sometimes she would sit at the bus terminal and drink a few beers. I always noticed her because of the sadness in her eyes. I talked to her for a while and she opened up a bit and there was some joy inside of her.

I got to know a man last year that knew her before she became insane. He told me that she was a lesbian and one of the first to come out of the closet in Iceland. He believes that the social rejection drove her to substance abuse and the mental problems followed. I know that many people left Iceland back then because they were gay, she was one of them.

Manipulating the Masses

I'm on a role here. I've run across some great stuff on Google lately. I love watching or listening to documentaries when I'm working.

Enjoy ;-)

The Century Of The Self - By Adam Curtis
This is a great BBC documentary in 4 parts

Part 1 of 4


Part 2 of 4


Part 3 of 4


Part 4 of 4

The U.S. VS John Lennon

Really good documentary, watch it....

Fractals: The Colors of Infinity

Mathematical fractors can explain the sturcture of our universe. This show is amazing, it blew my mind away.

Ali G on politics

Is it ever worth fighting a war with sandwiches, the Tampax threat and more important questions. A few of his better interviews with politicians and more... it's hilarious.

Benedict is a Mercedes

I'm not in the mood to blog but I needed to say something important. I forgot what it is, so it's a forgettable important something.

I'm alone at home and I've been trying to relax for the first time in days. I've been working late, sometimes to 3 in the mornings. It was all worth it though, me is getting a fat paycheck soon. Too bad it's all going to pay bills and the last payment of my former car. It's actually great to have gotten rid of that car, I was paying about $700 a month to run it. I'm using my mom's 18 yr. old car called Benedict for the time being. Benedict is a Mercedes but very old and doesn't work the way a Mercedes should. I have to open the door if I want to put the windows down and the wipers aren't working at the moment. I always did want a Mercedes; I guess my lord let me borrow an old one.

Anyway, CSI is coming on soon. I love that show and this man is pleasant to look at......

Overdose on Some Great Philosophy

This six part series on philosophy is presented by popular British philosopher Alain de Botton, featuring six thinkers who have influenced history, and their ideas about the pursuit of the happy life.




[6 Episodes/24min. Each]

Episode 1: Socrates on Self-Confidence - Why do so many people go along with the crowd and fail to stand up for what they truly believe? Partly because they are too easily swayed by other people's opinions and partly because they don't know when to have confidence in their own.







http://video. google. com/videoplay?docid=-2808374571100926940



Episode 2: Epicurus on Happiness - British philosopher Alain De Botton discusses the personal implications of the ancient Greek philosopher Epicurus (341-270BCE) who was no epicurean glutton or wanton consumerist,but an advocate of "friends, freedom and thought" as the path to happiness.







http://video. google. com/videoplay?docid=-3535764476733084568



Episode 3: Seneca on Anger - Roman philosopher Lucious Annaeus Seneca (4BCE-65CE), the
famous and popular philosopher of his day, took the subject of anger seriously enough to dedicate a whole book to the subject. Seneca refused to see anger as an irrational outburst over which we have no control. Instead he saw it as a philosophical problem and amenable to treatment by philosophical argument. He thought anger arose from certain rationally held ideas about the world, and the problem with these ideas is that they are far too optimistic. Certain things are a predictable feature of life, and to get angry about them is to have unrealistic expectations.







http://video. google. com/videoplay?docid=6877249402964035542



Episode 4: Montaigne on Self-Esteem looks at the problem of self-esteem from the perspective
Michel de Montaigne (16th Century), the French philosopher who singled out three main reasons for feeling bad about oneself - sexual inadequecy, failure to live up to social norms, and intellectual inferiority - and then offered practical solutions for overcoming them.







http://video. google. com/videoplay?docid=6436583611449448580



Episode 5: Schopenhauer on Love - Alain De Botton surveys the 19th Century German thinker
Schopenhauer (1788-1860) who believed that love was the most important thing in life because of its powerful impulse towards ..'the will-to-life..'



http://video. google. com/videoplay?docid=8358646220672429933



Episode 6: Nietzsche on Hardship - British philosopher Alain De Botton explores Friedrich Nietzsche's (1844-1900) dictum that any worthwhile achievements in life come from the experience of overcoming hardship. For him, any existence that is too comfortable is worthless, as are the twin refugees of drink or religion.







http://video. google. com/videoplay?docid=2975222748330605245

Rambling 041808

I've been really tired this week and get this feeling that I don't really want to do websites for too much longer. There have been certain situations and a deep profound feeling in my heart that keeps tapping on my shoulder. That's the only way I can explain this, I can't put my finger on it exactly. I feel peaceful with this though, everything I've done is leading me into another adventure in life.

I can say with so much gratefulness that the 12 step program has saved my life and changed me as a human being. Finding out what a screwed up individual I had become was so painful but it's showing me depths of my character that I didn't even know were there. I feel like a child when I wake up to a new day, the tainted girl inside of me is fading away.

I played chess with a male friend of mine last night. The last time I managed to play an honest game of chess was around 1988. I grew up with that game around me but had totally forgotten how to enjoy it. It was great, even though he beat me. It was just great being normal with an intelligent man and playing chess. Talking about nicotine receptors in our brains and how they multiply is also very intriguing.

The simplest things are what make this life perfect, I had totally lost connection with that secret :-)