Social Engineering Blogs

This is a part of a series on Good Thinking.
Foreword

Welcome to the Good Thinking course!

Throughout the next series of articles, I will teach you everything you need to know to take back full control of your mind and your life, no matter your goals, your obstacles, your life situation, your current level of self-mastery, and your skillset.

To do this, I’m going to teach you certain skills, some of which you may already be somewhat familiar with, or at least have heard about at some point in the past. The red line throughout this course is the importance of CBT, which stands for Cognitive-Behavioral Therapy, as well as some crucial theory behind self-mastery, and some tried-and-tested exercises that come from all disciplines of self-help and psychotherapy.

Relax! It’s not as difficult and technical as it sounds – in fact, practicing CBT for any reason (a minor grievance, or a major mental disorder that’s destabilizing your life) is not only simple and intuitive, but can also be very rewarding, empowering, self-affirming, and most of all life-improving.

To start of, let me explain what Cognitive-Behavioral Therapy is, how and why it’s used, and how you can harness its mind-altering power to kickstart a new and improved you!

Why CBT?

First off, CBT very down-to-earth and intuitive, which means that it is very understandable to a layperson, that it’s easy to see how and why it works, and it is very simple to practice and use. It’s also something that can be practiced and done personally and individually.
It can be very useful for a large number of common problems, such as anxiety, depression, but it can also work as a general motivation aid and to stop procrastination, and general life problems. It can be applied to nearly everything using exercises such as the NC/PC lists, and top down reasoning – it can be useful for almost any problem you have.
There’s a very strong popular demand for CT as well, and because of its simple and effective nature it’s become very prevalent as a treatment tool in psychological circles, as well as in regular (life) coaching and humanist therapies.

Side note: using EMDR in combination with CBT can be very powerful, but since it is a more complicated type of therapy, where you’d need a lot more backing information to truly understand its mechanisms use it properly, it will be covered in a separate course. However, feel free to test our official EMDR and Meditation Assistance Tool and see if it has any immediate benefit for you!

How Does CBT Work?

To answer how CBT works, you first need to understand what a cognition is. Broadly speaking, a cognition is any thought or perception, most of which are automatic and subconscious. There are a lot of subconscious thoughts and perception, which we will teach you to find and alter, but for now just remember that really any reaction, or feeling, or emotion, has at its root one or multiple cognitions.

Feelings result from these thoughts more than they do from actual events. Technically speaking, these events also cause thoughts leading to those feelings, so even when there is an event at its root there’ll be a certain thought that guides and elicits the emotion. If you experience an event that is naturally very traumatic, your reaction is still dependent on what thoughts and attitudes you have towards that event, both prior, during and after. Basically, it determines how traumatic is going to be, or even if it is going to affect you negatively at all.

This implies that you can be trained to rid yourself of certain fears, meaning you might be affected little if at all by events that would leave others paralyzed entirely.

Since thoughts guide emotions, and not the other way around, it’s important to take to heart the old adage that ‘nothing is either good or bad – thinking makes it so.’ Kind of a cliché, but very true even so. Thoughts don’t create your reality, but they do determine your experiencing of that reality.

Right about now, you might think: “Well, I don’t have a problem with my thoughts. My problems are real.” Truth is that everything is based on some real event. Additionally, in your mind, there’s a very real thought attached to every event and experience that you perceive or imagine. There’s no denying either of those.

However, you could also read this text right now and think, “Oh, that’s interesting. I might learn something that is really exciting from this course, and that can be very useful.” This is a P.C. (positive cognition) that in and of itself will contribute heavily to your own self-improvement.

Thoughts decide your valuation of everything, including this course, and so they decide how much progress you can make. Whatever you decide, you’re correct – there’s no arguing with the thoughts you’re having, since they arethere regardless of whether or not they are useful. However, every depressing negative thought can have an uplifting one take its stead, and every demotivating thought can be replaced with a more enthused counterpart.

There is no wrong emotion or thought – only helpful or unhelpful ones. This is very important: We do not intend to contradict our negative thoughts, or repress them – instead, by simply becoming aware of them we can then take steps to change them to more positive ones.

An Attitude Adjustment

Negative cognitions might make you think you feel inadequate because of some personal defect, or childhood trauma, bad genes, your environment, or a chemical imbalance – very prevalent beliefs among the general public, particularly those who are depressed or suffer from other mental disorders.

There’s a lot of critique against the idea that you should simply “think positively” or “cheer up,” which is justified, in a way. The truth is – thinking positive thoughts won’t really help you if they are incongruent with your own negative thoughts and beliefs. If they don’t line up or ‘align’ with the negative thoughts you are currently having, you will try to believe two inherently contradictory things. This will make your brain doubt the truth of one of the or even both, and this will cause confusion and stress.

So, you don’t just need to know what to think, but why. Positive thinking can work, but it’s not as easy as simply repeating “I am fine” over and over. You need to realign what you currently think to what you want to think in a natural way, which is something that we will teach you over the duration of this course.

Another common argument is saying that depression, demotivation, or any heavy emotion is due to a chemical imbalance, or hormones, or genes; or, they say their emotions and thoughts are justified due the actuality or severity of their current situations, their past childhood trauma’s, or predicted future doom.

Not only is this self-defeating – as you place your feelings and thoughts outside of your control, meaning you become a victim or your own mind or your life situation – it is also both irrelevant and a moot point, because changing your thoughts changes your chemical balance, as well as your brain structure.

You can change almost none of these things listed previously – you can’t change the trauma’s you had, you cannot change your genes, etc., but you can change how you feel about them, by changing the way you think. This can be done in retrospect, by neutralizing bad memories, or even in prospect, by neutralizing anticipation of failure or distress. Accepting a failure after, while or before it’s happening can minimize its impact or even neutralize it entirely.

Changing your thought patterns and changing your behaviors causes lasting changes in your brain, your mind, your outlook, and your productivity. It’s the same way antidepressants work – if or when those do work.

You Are All You Need!

There are three things more things I want you to keep in mind:

Life influences are the most common causes of happiness or unhappiness. The way you look at your life and your experiences within it influences you in precisely the way you allow it to influence you. Your thoughts and mindset going to decide what your mood is, how your outlook is, and how productive you are.
Therapy, and particularly cognitive therapy, are the most effective forms of treatment for most mental problems. As a therapy, CBT is more lasting than most other therapies and medications, mostly because eventually you will regress back to your depressive/anxious/demotivated self unless you learn how to change the thinking leading up to these negative feelings. Through CBT, you get a habit of happiness.
Self-help is a key to recovery irrespective of the presence or absence of professional therapy. If you don’t allow yourself to be helped, or if you keep being convinced that this type of care won’t help you, if you keep being a victim of your own thoughts or resent having those thoughts or your life’s circumstances, then you won’t be able progress.

With self-help alone you can and will recover; the same is not true for professional care. (Though it might be even better in tandem, so never rule out professional help as an option!)

Bibliotherapy, which entails things such as this course, our video’s, well-known books like ‘Feeling Good’ by Dr. David D. Burns (which a lot of this information came from, and is a must-have for anyone aiming to improve their own lives – so do yourself a favor and go buy it!), might be just as effective as professional psychotherapy – and in combination it might very well be even more effective!

Bibliotherapy works this well for several reasons:

It’s a very intuitive system that, if used properly, can be used by you just as effectively as any psychologist can do for you, especially because you tend to know your own thoughts better than a psychotherapist would, and in the privacy of your own mind you can explore your thoughts without the usual limitations such as pressure and shame. However, this all depends on how well you know how to use these methods, and in this course we aim to teach you as best we can!
It gives you an incredible sense of control over your own emotions, moods and your own perceived ability in regards to affecting things around you and effecting changes in your life. You can learn how thoughts work and how to manipulate them to work for you rather than against you, and stimulate them to bring you much more positive, productive and happy outlook.
Self-help through bibliotherapy wards you against the devastating and demoralizing effects of emotional relapses. Fact is, your life will know many more periods of positivity, and equally many gloomy times. By understanding your thoughts, becoming aware of them and accepting them, you can stop a gloomy day from turning into a depressive or apathetic mood that can knock you out for weeks, months or even years. Rather than feeling out of control when this happens, you can quickly regain that sense of control and well-being.
You won’t have to be completely dependent on your therapy or healthcare professional, a situation that otherwise causes people to feel resentment and powerlessness.

You might need some additional, professional help at some point for issues that are either very severe or just very complex and difficult to figure out on your own, but you will be able to improve your life by doing things entirely on your own, both through small incremental changes and the occasional large leap that might change your outlook on life and your own personality entirely.

The key is to help yourself and to want to help yourself, and understand that this alone is both necessary and sufficient. If you learn how to help yourself – if you let us teach you how to help yourself – you will be able to take back control of your mind and your life.

Sometimes you will set two step forwards only to make three steps back, but you will progress. The road to self-mastery is long and arduous, and you will need to practice many skills to pass all the obstacles, but as long as you keep walking the path you’ve set out for yourself, you will reach every signpost, you will reach every checkpoint, and you will reach your final destination. You will reach your own potential and you will become happy. You will master your life.

You will become a better you.

Enjoy the rest of the course, and thanks for reading!
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