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Blame & Magical Thinking
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DISCOVER
3 Levels of Magical "It" & "That" Thinking
Level One
"It made me mad."
"That makes me mad."
Complete irresponsibility, a.k.a. voodoo emotions and superstitious thinking. The person who makes such a statement believes that "it" or "that" crawled into their mind through their ear and took over their mind by its own power and will.
Level Two
"I let it get to me."
"I let that get to me."
Halfhearted responsibility, a.k.a. magical thinking. The person who makes such a statement believes that "it" or "that" crawled into their mind through their ear and took over their mind because they gave it the power to do so.
Level Three
"I upset myself about it."
"I upset myself about that."
Emotional responsibility, a.k.a. ER. The person who makes such a statement believes that "it" or "that" were an occasion for their deciding to think self-disturbing thoughts.
In truth, fact, and reality there is neither an "it" nor a "that" outside of your mind that can upset you.
What there is, is your upsetting thoughts.
No one can ever show you the "it" or the "that" that they are upset about because it exists only in their mind. Even though sometimes people can show you the actual thing they are upset about, it is still never the "it" or "that" that they have in mind about it.
6 Levels of Blame
Level One
I blame self, others, life, or God.
Complete immaturity a.k.a. whining.
Level Two
I blame my behavioral choices.
Average adult responsibility level.
Level Three
I blame my stinking thinking.
Beginning of significant responsibility taking.
Level Four
I blame my thinking choices.
The level of mature thinking.
Level Five
I blame my scripts for my thinking choices.
The highest mental understanding of causation.
Level Six
I blame my flesh nature for being drawn to death and destruction.
The beginning spiritual understanding of causation.
QUOTATIONS VARIOUS SOURCES
"The more you are willing to accept responsibility for your actions, the more credibility you will have."--Brian Koslow
"The willingness to accept responsibility for one's own life is the source from which self-respect springs."--Joan Didion
"Nobody can bring you peace but yourself."--Ralph Waldo Emerson
"Life always gets harder towards the summit--the cold increases, responsibility increases."--Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche, 1844-1900
"The fault, Dear Brutus, is not in our stars; but in ourselves, that we are underlings."--William Shakespeare in Julius Caesar
"Accuse not Nature, she hath done her part; Do thou but thine."--John Milton in Paradise Lost
"I am the master of my fate: I am the captain of my soul."--W. E. Henley in Invictus
"We either make ourselves miserable, or we make ourselves strong. The amount of work is the same."--Carlos Castenada
"What poison is to food, self-pity is to life."--Oliver C. Wilson
"All we need to make us really happy is something to be enthusiastic about."--Charles Kingsley
"Most folks are as happy as they make up their minds to be."--Abraham Lincoln
"Some pursue happiness, others create it."--Anonymous
"The U. S. Constitution doesn't guarantee happiness, only the pursuit of it. You have to catch up with it yourself."--Benjamin Franklin
"Each man the architect of his own fate."--Sallust
"The ability to accept responsibility is the measure of the man."--Roy Smith
"Man must cease attributing his problems to his environment, and learn again to exercise his will--his personal responsibility in the realm of faith and morals."--Albert Schweitzer
"We can actually put the essence of neurosis in a single word: blaming--or damning."--Albert Ellis & Robert A. Harper, A Guide to Rational Living, Third Edition, p. 127. Order A Guide to Rational Living.
"It is not in the stars to hold our destiny but in ourselves."--William Shakespeare
"My philosophy is that not only are you responsible for your life, but doing the best at this moment puts you in the best place for the next moment."--Oprah Winfrey
"An excuse is a lie guarded."--Jonathan Swift
"A wise man will make more opportunities than he finds."--Francis Bacon
"Luck is where preparation meets opportunity."--Anonymous
"Nothing stops the man who desires to achieve. Every obstacle is simply a course to develop his achievement muscle. It's a strengthening of his powers of accomplishment."--Eric Butterworth
"Obstacles don't have to stop you. If you run into a wall, don't turn around and give up. Figure out how to climb it, go through it, or work around it."--Michael Jordan
"While they were saying among themselves it cannot be done, it was done."--Helen Keller
"Whatever may be, I am still largely the creator and ruler of my emotional destiny."--Albert Ellis & Robert A. Harper, A Guide to Rational Living, Third Edition, p. 252.
"The only disability in life is a bad attitude."--Scott Hamilton
"Why is it that people are willing to take responsibility for their happiness or mild sadness but not their severe disturbance or great unhappiness?--why ego of course!"--Kevin Everett FitzMaurice
"Teaching the principle of emotional responsibility can be one of the hardest tasks in REBT as clients may have habitually blamed others for their problems and now the therapist is pointing to the true source of their emotional problems--themselves."--Michael Neenan and Windy Dryden, Rational Emotive Behavior Therapy: Advances in Theory & Practice, page 43
"It is not easy to find happiness in ourselves, and it is not possible to find it elsewhere."--Agnes Repplier
"A man's as miserable as he thinks he is."--Marcus Seneca
"Pain is inevitable. Suffering is optional."--Anonymous
"Either do not attempt at all, or go through with it."--Ovid
"Great works are performed not by strength, but by perseverance."--Samuel Johnson
"If we have not peace within ourselves, it is in vain to seek it from outward sources."--Francois de La Rochefoucauld
"A baby expects to be soothed, but a mature adult soothes themselves."--Kevin Everett FitzMaurice
"Adults are expert at self-disturbance and inept at self-soothing."--Kevin Everett FitzMaurice
"No one has ever gotten to anyone."--Kevin Everett FitzMaurice
"If pleasure first, the pain second."--Kevin Everett FitzMaurice
"There is no man so low that the cure for his condition does not lie strictly within himself."--Thomas L. Masson
"Don't go around saying the world owes you a living. The world owes you nothing. It was here first."--Mark Twain
"The farther behind I leave the past, the closer I am to forging my own character."--Isabelle Eberhardt
"Man is condemned to be free; because once thrown into the world, he is responsible for everything he does."--Jean-Paul Sartre, 1905-1980
"But let every man prove his own work, and then shall he have rejoicing in himself alone, and not in another."--Galatians 6:4
"Are you part of the problem or part of the solution?"--Annonymous
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