ego and a physical injury.
Test out your predictions. You really never know how much fun you might have at a party until you get there – and the food could be amazing. Maybe the chap at the coffee shop has got a partner, but you won’t be sure until you ask. To find out more about testing out your predictions, have a read through Chapter 4.
Be prepared to take risks. Isn’t it worth possibly sustaining a few bruises for the opportunity to try a sport you’ve always been interested in? And can’t you bear the possibility of appearing a trifle nervous for the chance to get to know someone you really like? There’s a saying that ‘a ship is safe in a harbour, but that’s not what ships are built for’. Learning to live experimentally and taking calculated risks is a recipe for keeping life interesting and rewarding.
Understand that your past experiences don’t determine your future experiences. Just because the last party you went to turned out to be a dreary homage to the seventies, the last person you asked out went a bit green, and that scuba-diving venture resulted in a severe case of the bends doesn’t mean that you’ll never have better luck again.
Mind-Reading: Taking Your Guesses with a Pinch of Salt
So, you think you know what other people are thinking, do you? With mind-reading (see Figure 2-4), the tendency is often to assume that others are thinking negative things about you or have negative motives and intentions.
Here are some examples of mind-reading tendencies:
You’re chatting with someone, and he looks over your shoulder as you’re speaking, breaks eye contact and (perish the thought) yawns. You conclude immediately that the other person thinks your conversation is mind-numbing and that he’d rather be talking to someone else.© John Wiley & Sons, Inc.FIGURE 2-4: Mind-reading.
Your boss advises that you book some time off to use up your annual leave. You decide that he’s saying this because he thinks your work is rubbish and wants the opportunity to interview for your replacement while you’re on leave.
You pass a neighbour on the street. He says a quick hello but doesn’t look very friendly or pleased to see you. You think that he must be annoyed with you about your dog howling at the last full moon and is making plans to report you to environmental health.
You can never know for certain what another person is thinking, so you’re wise to pour salt on your negative assumptions. Stand back and take a look at all the evidence on hand. Take control of your tendency to mind-read by trying the following:
Generate some alternative reasons for what you see. The person you’re chatting with may be tired, be preoccupied with his own thoughts or just have spotted someone he knows.
Consider that your guesses may be wrong. Are your fears really about your boss’s motives, or do they concern your own insecurity about your abilities at work? Do you have enough information or hard evidence to conclude that your boss thinks your work is substandard? Does it follow logically that ‘consider booking time off’ means ‘you’re getting the sack’?
Get more information (if appropriate). Ask your neighbour whether your dog kept him up all night, and talk to your vet about ways to calm your pet next time the moon waxes.
Emotional Reasoning: Reminding Yourself That Feelings Aren’t Facts
Surely we’re wrong about this one. Surely your feelings are real hard evidence of the way things are? Actually, no! Often, relying too heavily on your feelings as a guide leads you off the reality path. Here are some examples of emotional reasoning:
Your partner has been spending long nights at the office with a co-worker for the past month. You feel jealous and suspicious of your partner. Based on these feelings, you conclude that your partner’s having an affair with his co-worker.
You feel guilty out of the blue. You conclude that you must have done something wrong; otherwise, you wouldn’t be feeling guilty.
You wake up feeling anxious, with a vague sense of dread. You assume that there must be something seriously wrong in your life and search your mind frantically for the source of your ill- feeling.
Often your feelings are simply due to a thought or memory that you may not even be totally aware of having had. Other times they can be symptoms of another disorder such as depression or anxiety problems (see Chapter 9 for information about anxiety disorders and Chapter 12 for more on depression). Some of the feelings you experience on waking are left over from dreams that you may or may not remember. As a rule of thumb, it pays to be somewhat sceptical about the validity of your feelings in the first instance. Your feelings can be misleading.
When you spot emotional reasoning taking over your thoughts, take a step back and try the following:
1 Take notice of your thoughts.Take notice of thoughts such as ‘I’m feeling nervous; something must be wrong’ and ‘I’m so angry, and that really shows how badly you’ve behaved’ and recognise that feelings are not always the best measure of reality, especially if you’re not in the best emotional shape at the moment.
2 Ask yourself how you’d view the situation if you were feeling calmer.Look to see if there is any concrete evidence to support your interpretation of your feelings. For example, is there really any evidence that something bad is going to happen?
3 Give yourself time to allow your feelings to subside.When you’re feeling calmer, review your conclusions and remember that it is quite possible that your feelings are the consequence of your present emotional state (or even just fatigue) rather than reliable indicators of the state of reality.
4 If you can’t find any obvious and immediate source of your unpleasant feelings – overlook them.Get into the shower despite your sense of dread, for example. If a concrete reason to be anxious does exist, it won’t get dissolved in the shower. If your anxiety is all smoke and mirrors, you may well find it washes down the drain.