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Stop blaming external forces for your feelings

 You have grown up in a culture which has taught you that you are not responsible for your feelings even though the syllogistic truth is that you always were. 

You’ve learned a host of sayings to defend yourself against the fact that you do control your feelings. Here is a brief list of such utterances that you have used over and over. Examine the message they send.

  • “You hurt my feelings.”
  • “You make me feel bad.”
  • “I can’t help the way I feel.”
  • “I just feel angry, don’t ask me to explain it.”\
  • “He makes me sick.”
  • “Heights scare me.”
  • “You’re embarrassing me.”
  • “She really turns me on.”
  • “You made a fool of me in public.”

The list is potentially endless. Each saying has a built-in message that you are not responsible for how you feel. 

Now rewrite the list so it is accurate, so it reflects the fact that you are in charge of how you feel and that your feelings come from the thoughts you have about anything. 

  • “I hurt my feelings because of the things I told myself about your reaction to me.”
  • “I made myself feel bad.”
  • “I can help the way I feel, but I’ve chosen to be upset.”
  •  “I’ve decided to be angry, because I can usually manipulate others with my anger, since they think I control them.”
  •  “I make myself sick.”
  •  “I scare myself at high places.”
  •  “I’m embarrassing myself.”
  • “I turn myself on whenever I’m near her.”
  •  “I made myself feel foolish by taking your opinions of me more seriously than my own, and believing that others would do the same.

Perhaps you think that the items in List 1 are just figures of speech, and that they really don’t mean very much, but are simply figures of speech that have become clichés in our culture. 

If this is your rationale, then ask yourself why the statements in List 2 did not evolve into clichés. The answer lies in our culture, which teaches the thinking of List 1, and discourages the logic of List 2.
 

The message is crystal clear. You are the person responsible for how you feel. You feel what you think, and you can learn to think differently about anything—if you decide to do so. 

Ask yourself if there is a sufficient payoff in being unhappy, down, or hurt. Then begin to examine, in depth, the kind of thoughts that are leading you to these debilitating feelings.


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