Black and White Thinking
Do you ever notice yourself in a mindset where everything feels either ALL good or ALL bad, with no room for anything in between? Does that rigid thinking sometimes make you feel uneasy?
With computers, everything is 1s or 0s - black or white. But real life is more like the pastel colors of a sunset, where light and darkness blend to create subtler hues. As we listen to this week’s podcast, let’s explore how we can add some pastel colors to our vision and become more flexible in handling life’s challenges.
Topic references:
MOTIONLESS SITTING
Control of restlessness and agitation through determined motionless sitting
Mental Health Through Will Training, chapter 41, Sabotage Method No. 9: Failure to Practice Muscle Control, page 327 in the 3rd edition
For a detailed description see Manage Your Fears, Manage Your Anger, lecture 56, There Is No Hopeless Case (part 2), pages 352-353
EXTREMES OF THINKING
I wish that my patients were a trifle less concerned about their ethics and morals and legality. They are far too concerned about these matters. Instead of having an average concern, they have an extreme concern about them.
Intellectual Validity and Romantic Vitality, from Manage Your Fears, Manage Your Anger, lecture 12, pages 65-66
FEAR
If somebody has fear, well, that may be a salutary fear, a necessary fear, a useful fear. For instance, if I worry, I may do very well to worry. This means worry may be very useful because if I worry in a real danger, in a realistic danger, well, then I'll take the necessary precautions, and a fear of this kind is useful.
The Passion for Self-Distrust, from Manage Your Fears, Manage Your Anger, lecture 2, page 7
You will agree that if you fear something, you think of that something as a danger. You will also admit that in order to fear a danger, you must believe it is real and not imaginary. In other words, you must take the danger seriously and be convinced of its reality. All you have to do to dispose of a fear is to refuse to believe that there is danger.
Simplicity Versus Complexity in Combating Fears, Mental Health Through Will Training, chapter 44, page 362 in the 1997 edition
IMBALANCE
What we mean by good habits is what I have mentioned as balanced. And good habits are balanced habits. You will do well to realize that a balance means two things, two entities, that balance, that neither go too high up nor too low down. They balance in approximately an even level, and when they do that, they work together. The one is not too high, the other not too low. Then they would be out of balance, or imbalanced.
Balanced Habits, from Manage Your Fears, Manage Your Anger, lecture 37, page 229
SPOTTING
Spotting means to look underneath statements and reactions and then know consciously what they mean, not intuitively - consciously, or, as I called it before, discursively. And you see, since we have introduced this matter of spotting, our patients have gradually learned or are learning gradually to look into their depths and perhaps into the depths of people around them like husbands, friends, and so forth. But I think this is of no great importance. What is important is that patients are now able to look into themselves and not merely to feel and sense intuitively what is at the base of their reaction but to know it consciously and discursively.
Surface Thinking Versus Spotting, from Manage Your Fears, Manage Your Anger, lecture 33, page 206