[Ailist] Staying Positive

[Bruce Elkin]

Emotion means ³to move².  Emotions move us to action (including non-action).

I find the Cognitive Behavioural Therapists (CBT) notion of appropriate and
inappropriate emotions useful.

For example, fear is a useful emotion if there is something real to be
afraid of, but it¹s not a useful emotion if there is nothing real to fear,
or if you exaggerate the object of fear.  Joy is a useful emotion when
you¹re climbing a steep rock face.  It moves you to keep climbing, but it¹s
important to pay attention to fears, so you don¹t get so joyful and overlook
real hazards and fly off the cliff.

The CBT folks say that all emotions are important, and useful, to a point.
They talk about ³appropriate grief² for example, but when grief carries on
for a long time, and gets in the way of the griever living her or his life,
it can become in appropriate.  Same with fear of strangers.  Or germs.  It¹s
the intensity of the emotion relative to the reality one finds oneself in.

In my coaching work, I¹ll often deal with people who are afraid of going
broke, and having to live under the bridge, or in the woods.  But they are
currently employed, doing well, have a manageable mortgage.  What happens is
some event occurs that frightens them, and then through a series of faulty
logical jumps they imagine themselves failing at a task, getting fired, not
being able to pay their mortgage, losing their house and family, and having
to life under the bridge, or push around a shopping cart.

When the logic chain is examined, we usually discover 2 things: first, that
the logic‹the ²if, then² calculations‹lead to faulty conclusions, and that
the odds against each step occurring escalate  by a factor of 10 to 100 at
each step.  So using the faulty logic and acting as if each step were a
necessary progression from the previous one, the personal quickly spins off
into irrational fear.  Intense fear based on irrational logic.

When the client can clearly see these 2 things, their fear calms down.  They
realize that they might fail at a task at sometime, but that they could also
fix it.  So intense fear becomes useful caution.  The same thing happens
with new climbers, usually after they¹ve had there first small fall, and
realize that the safety system works.

So I recommend thinking about rational and irrational emotions, and
appropriate and inappropriate emotions ‹ instead of positive or negative
emotions, or as well as same.

Cheers!
Bruce
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BRUCE ELKIN: Helping You Create What Matters Most!
 20+ Years   -   Clients on 6 Continents   -   Author of 3 Books &
   The Forthcoming Simplicity, Success & Sustainability
   
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