It is possible to gain control over one’s thoughts, beliefs, emotions, and behavioral responses by noticing automatic reactions to various types of events. From years of repetition, the responses seem justified, but they are actually arbitrary choices. It takes quite a lot of concentration to recognize that it is a mental choice.
What Are Your Assumptions?
Don Miguel Ruiz, the bestselling author of The Four Agreements and numerous other helpful books about right-thinking, suggests that readers notice how many assumptions they have, and try to decrease that number.
For example, if a friend with whom you frequently e-mail stops writing for several weeks, you might assume that friend has lost interest in being your friend. It could be something quite different. He went into a depression; he’s in the process of moving; he has a broken wrist and cannot navigate the keyboard. Your assumption leads to hurt feelings and to questions about the value of continuing the friendship.
In another situation, you might have an online working relationship with a client in another state. The company asked you to get in touch with them after a certain number of months have gone by. You do so and do not get a response. You assume that they are no longer interested in your services.
Such an assumption changes your attitude toward the company, and you are hurt that they perhaps are displeased with your work. Such an assumption is most likely incorrect. The company may be going through a managerial reorganization; their servers and phones may be down; your contact person may be out on vacation. An incorrect assumption leads you to a negative conclusion, and relations are tainted from that point forward.
Don’t Take Things Personally
This truism is popular in many personal growth circles, including the followers of Don Miguel Ruiz. He suggests that even in an extreme situation where a person happens to be in a bank when a robbery is taking place, and gets in the line of fire, the shooting isn’t personal. The shooting is due to the bank robber’s twisted thinking. Getting shot is, of course, traumatic and a severe interruption in the natural course of things, but harboring long-term anger and resentment toward the criminal does nothing positive for the victim.
In less traumatic situations, one can retain quite a lot of mental serenity by not taking things personally. Imagine that you are in a public place, perhaps the plaza of a mall, and a group of young adolescents starts making a lot of noise, disrupting your reverie. You conclude that they are being rude, trying to ruin your afternoon. In actuality, they are not thinking about you at all. They are merely doing what youngsters do at a certain age: hanging out together, loudly trying to impress each other with various sorts of vulgar prowess. Once you decide not to take it personally, you will realize you have further options beyond becoming offended. You can continue your relax-ation, letting your awareness of the noise recede to the background, as in a meditation, or you can go to a different location.
Seeing that the behavior of others is not personal makes you free to feel emotions such as pleasure, as you are less likely to get bogged down with automatic reactions.
Untangling Incorrect Meanings
You have considerable control over the meanings that you attach to various events in your life. It may not seem like it when many of your responses are automatic, but with practice, you will be able to disengage from incorrect meanings and form new meanings, or merely let the event be something neutral.
CBT is very useful for this process. If you are patient, take each disturbing situation one by one, determine what meaning you have assigned, and then question that meaning, you have opened the door to a wide world of discov-ery. This is time-consuming, engaging work, and the old meanings wont go away quickly. However, by replacing a negative attachment with an attitude of neutrality, new responses and a deep sense of personal peace becomes possible. Such freedom greatly diminishes habitual fears and increases the likelihood of personal happiness.
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