Zheng Shenghui's study and reflection day 2386
Core content
Insecurity is a bad habit that is related to the helplessness or trauma that an individual suffers as they grow up. If you don't "intervene", it will gradually deepen in people's hearts and become part of your personality. But it's not immutable, it's just a stubborn bad habit of thinking. As long as the "five-step psychotherapy method" described in the book, that is, the "self-talk method", can help people correct the bad habit of negative thinking, get rid of the domination of insecurity, and find life.
Preface
"Change Yourself", the subbook is called "Mental Health Self-Training". Before I get into the book, I'll tell you a story. Tracy was a salesman, forty-eight years old, and unmarried. She said this during her psychotherapy, she said, "I have struggled all my life, but so far I have done nothing, I have nothing. I live in a small, dilapidated apartment, and in addition to going to work, I drink alcohol, eat snacks, and decadence, and I worry about death, survival, and even more so that I will be lonely for the rest of my life. The doctor advised me to take antidepressant medication, but what can I do with the medication, my life situation will not change. The doctor said that I was also in poor physical condition and advised me to change my lifestyle. Jokes, I'm living by these habits. I am such a stubborn, destructive, and desolate person who is destined to live a bleak life alone. Speaking of this, Tracy asked the therapist in pain, "Can someone like me change?" ”
The therapist she asked was the author of the book, Joseph Luciani. He told Tracy that all the problems she had were due to her long-term negativity. Negative psychology seems to be unchangeable, but in fact it is just a habitual thinking, and the root cause of this thinking is insecurity.
In life, you will surely meet such a person, who seems very cold and always locks himself in a lonely shell. But in reality, he just can't accept the uncontrollable situation after a deep friendship. It was very unsafe for him. Gu Cheng has a poem called "Avoidance", which is written like this: "You don't want to plant flowers, you say, I don't want to see it wither a little bit." Yes, in order to avoid the end, you avoid the beginning of everything. This beautiful poem is precisely the embodiment of negativity and avoidance because of insecurity.
But habitual thinking is just a habit after all, and although it is more difficult to correct, as long as you find a way, you can also correct it. The book "Changing Yourself" that we are going to talk about today is a summary of the author's experience in treating negative psychology. The author argues that we can eliminate the tiredness and despair of negativity in our lives through skillful self-talk. If we test and train ourselves according to the methods described in the book, you will find that those insecure thinking habits can be "corrected".
The author of this book, Joseph Luciani, is an internationally renowned expert in psychological counseling and therapy, and an American psychologist with more than 30 years of experience in clinical psychotherapy and counseling. The set of "five-step psychotherapy" he developed in this book is specifically aimed at the majority of people who suffer from insecurity. Help people get out of the negative mentality and find life again.
Next, I will introduce you to three key points of the book: First, why is insecurity not innate, just a bad habit? Second, why does trying to take complete control of one's life lead to a sense of security? Third, how to get rid of the domination of insecurity through self-training in the "five steps"?
Part I
Why isn't insecurity innate, just a bad habit?
First, let's be clear that insecurity isn't entirely bad. Just as a moderate amount of tension can help a speaker focus and perform better, a moderate amount of insecurity is also one of the motivations for a person's struggle and development. However, once a person's inner insecurity is excessive, it can lead to psychological problems.
Here, the author argues that no one is born insecure, and insecurity is developed gradually in acquired life. Speaking of which, some people may have different opinions: no, one of our children, one of whom has been shy since childhood, afraid to try, and afraid of new things; But the other one won't. Doesn't that mean that insecurity is innate? What you need to make clear here is that there is a difference between insecurities and personality tendencies.
What does "personality tendency" mean? That is, your genes tend to have certain physical or psychological characteristics, to put it simply, some people are prone to obesity and are more likely to gain weight than ordinary people; Some people are introverted or extroverted by nature; Some people are gifted in math and some are athletic...... These are all different personality tendencies. However, insecurity is not a type of personality tendency, and it does not mean that people with certain personality tendencies are destined to be insecure. It's like two people taking pictures with the same camera, and the photos they take may be completely different. It is the different focus that determines the content of the photo, not the camera.
So, how does insecurity come about? It arises in our early childhood and is related to our judgment of the environment around us. As every child grows up, he or she encounters problems that are beyond his or her understanding, and these problems may make him feel very helpless or traumatized, and insecurities can form. For example, if a young boy who is more emotional is ridiculed as a "mom bao" in the class, he may not dare to show his emotions in front of others, thinking that it is wrong and bad to show his emotions, and thus become more and more emotionally indifferent. And a child who is expected to be perfect in everything may become afraid to make mistakes, thinking that he can only perform well, not badly, and so on.
So, insecurity is actually a common phenomenon in the process of growing up, and to be precise, it is inevitable. Because every child cannot have a perfect environment for growth, there will always be problems of one kind or another. Moreover, we need to note that insecurity is actually a distortion of the perception of reality. If left unchecked, insecurity can become part of your personality, affecting your thinking habits and cognitive habits, and thus your life.
Everyone will face new setbacks and difficulties in life, but driven by insecurity, people are more likely to compare their current problems with those that they could not cope with before, especially in childhood, resulting in negative psychological feelings and affecting their judgment of facts. For example, there is a classmate who has been fatter than the average classmate since he was a child, and when he was a child, he was ridiculed and ridiculed by his classmates more than once. This incident left a shadow on his heart, so when he grew up, he had a deep sense of insecurity about his weight. When getting along with friends, once the other party talks about the topic of weight, even if there is no malicious intent, he will still mind very much, and the result is unhappy.
The above example is only a relatively mild manifestation of insecurity affecting life. Some people may even be disturbed by insecurities and unable to live a normal life. Anxiety, for example, is one of the most typical habitual ways of thinking caused by insecurity. The anxiety of being "dominated by insecurity" is very different from our normal worry. Anxiety leads people to bad intentions, while worry leads people to think about solutions.
For example, someone who is also sick and worried may think, if it doesn't get better tomorrow, I really have to go to the hospital. Anxious people are constantly worried about what to do if the problem is serious. Also in a hurry, the worried person may wonder how to get there as soon as possible; Anxious people are full of thoughts, it's over, it's over, I can't catch up, the leader has to scold me.
Speaking of which, everyone must have seen that people who are dominated by insecurity and full of anxious thinking are unable to make objective judgments about problems. He worries about problems, but he doesn't solve them. Moreover, his worries are all based on misjudgment and distortion of the facts, and before things are clarified, he will give himself the worst possible result first. In this way, the problem cannot be solved, and he is more worried, falling into an endless loop.
The first important point is that insecurity is not innate, but develops gradually in life, usually from trauma in childhood. Since insecurity is based on distortion and misjudgment of facts, once you let insecurity become a habit, it often affects your thinking and cognition. In severe cases, it can even interfere with your normal life.
Part II
So, if you have an accurate understanding and judgment of life, will you be able to get rid of insecurity and get a sense of security? This brings us to the second part: why does trying to take full control of one's life give one a sense of security?
Before we get into that, let's talk about the concept of "control." It is important to emphasize here that control is an instinct of man. When people are in danger, they instinctively keep control to save themselves from disaster. For example, when we lift a baby and suddenly lower him from the height, the baby will instinctively hold on to your arm. For this little baby, being suddenly put down is a dangerous state of weightlessness and loss of control; His grip on your arm is a sign that he instinctively wants to stay in control and not fall. This situation is also very common in other scenes, such as the person who has fallen into the water desperately struggling to grasp the grass on the shore; When you accidentally fall, your first instinct is to immediately grab something around you and so on.
Control is a beneficial instinct that helps us avoid danger and live better. It's like, on a rainy day, you don't wear nice but waterproof shoes; When your blood pressure rises, you pay attention to your diet, don't eat indiscriminately, and so on. Insecurity is a feeling of helplessness, uncontrol, and danger, and people instinctively try to control their lives in order not to feel uneasy in life, in order to gain psychological security. However, if this pursuit is too controlled and becomes an obsession trying to take life completely into your hands, it will not bring people a sense of security.
Let's give you an example. There is a 28-year-old girl who had a happy childhood, she has a harmonious family, parents who love her, and her friends love her. Since she was a child, she dreamed of becoming a teacher when she grew up, and now, she has also got her wish and has become a relatively famous elementary school teacher. It seems that everything is going well, and she has nothing to worry about. However, after becoming a teacher, she became very stressed, and often felt anxious and uneasy. Why is that? It turns out that she has a very strict father. When she was young, her father demanded that she must be good in everything before he could praise her. In fact, she is very insecure because she thinks that once she doesn't behave well, her dad won't love her anymore.
Although her life has been smooth sailing since then, this "trauma" from her childhood still remains in her heart and has not disappeared. Therefore, she has been controlling other people's love for her by being a good child, so that this has become an obsession for her and a source of her sense of security. So, when she faced a group of uncontrolled students at school, she naturally felt helpless and anxious.
This is actually one of the strategies to control life: the pursuit of perfection. There is nothing wrong with striving for perfection, but if there is an obsession with perfection that must be achieved, then the person will often lead a demanding life. Any criticism and blame becomes too unsafe and too difficult for them to accept. Therefore, they must be perfect in everything. Only in this way will no one say anything, and only then will I be safe. However, it is important to understand that you cannot control what others say about you, keep yourself in a positive position forever, and of course you cannot really be a perfect and impeccable person.
When faced with an unsafe environment, there is also a strategy of control, and that is avoidance. For example, put down the work at hand and go out for a walk to relax; Keep your distance from people who have the flu to avoid infection; Decline a friend's invitation because you're tired...... Control here is to isolate oneself from danger by controlling one's own behavior.
However, a person who is full of insecurities in his heart can also isolate himself from life. In life, you will definitely meet such a person, he seems to be very emotionally cold, no matter how enthusiastic others are to him, he seems to be reluctant to have deep friendships with others, and only locks himself in a lonely shell. But in reality, he just can't accept the uncontrollable situation after a deep relationship, which is very insecure for him.
The pursuit of perfection or avoidance is only to control one's life by controlling one's behavior. There is also a type of control, which is the attempt to control the people and things in one's environment. The main tactic used in this control is deception. What needs to be said here is that there are three different levels of deception, which are white lies, gray lies, and black lies. The most common white lie is that it does not say "no", it is difficult to say no to others, and it is often said against one's will in order to please others. For example, a friend asks you to pick him up at the airport at four o'clock in the morning, and you obviously don't want to agree, but in order to make the other party happy and "control" your friendship, you agree hard. Gray lies are due to the loss of trust, so they rely on lying to redeem them. He believes that by lying, he can cover up his mistakes and regain the trust of others. The black lie is deliberately deceptive. Either way, it's actually a manifestation of not being able to face life realistically, and trying to maintain control of one's life under the hijacking of insecurity.
But slowly, you will realize that there is no one-size-fits-all strategy for controlling your life. The more you are obsessed with controlling your life, the more uncontrollable your life will be, and the more you will be unable to achieve true security in your heart. The pursuit of perfection is not an achievable goal; Avoidance will not leave your emotions unfrustrated at all, on the contrary, you will have to endure loneliness. As for deception, there will always be a moment when it is exposed.
The second important point is that insecurity makes people want to control their lives, but life is uncontrollable. Trying to gain a sense of psychological security by controlling your life is inherently incorrect. So, what is the right way to do it?
Part III
How to get rid of the domination of insecurity through self-training in the "five steps"?
The "Five-Step Psychotherapy Method", also known as the "Self-Talk Method", is a set of self-training methods that have been clinically proven to be effective. In short, through the method of "self-talk", everyone can find out where their psychological problems are, and prescribe the right medicine and self-repair. These psychological problems include emotions such as anxiety, depression, boredom, hopelessness, chronic fatigue, etc.
Since it is "the right medicine", the first thing we need to do is to identify the "symptoms", that is, to learn to identify whether there are "insecurities" in our psychology and learn to evaluate them correctly. When it comes to insecurity, everyone may feel it to a greater or lesser extent, but when it comes to identifying such an abstract thing, it doesn't sound feasible. The "self-talking" method will help you find the specific traces of "insecurity" in your life, that is, your own language habits.
For example, a person who often uses the "must" or "should" sentence form is often prone to falling into the dilemma of pursuing perfection; A constant worry about "what if...... What will happen" and "I can't ......" people may have an avoidance mentality; A person who often hesitates "should I call her, but what if she's still angry" or who often feels guilty that "if I don't pick her up, she would be very upset" tends to care too much about what others say. These language habits all reveal that you are a person with a "sense of insecurity" in your heart. In addition, for more detailed judgment, you need to do some specific questions to test.
It should be noted that there is no right or wrong in this self-test about language habits, and this analysis is not a strict calculation, but only an aid to you in identifying and evaluating them correctly. Also, you need to repeat the self-talk quiz and re-evaluation.
Learning to recognize the hidden "insecurities" in your mind is only the first step in "self-training". What do you do after identifying your insecurities? This is the next step, where you need to divide yourself in two and distinguish which "you" is you with a healthy mindset and which "you" is the one with a negative mind full of "insecurities". To put it simply, you need to distinguish between which ideas in your mind are based on facts and which are entirely hypothetical. Because healthy thoughts are often based on facts, while hypothetical ideas tend to lead people into negative emotions.
This is also done through self-talk. How? You can recall a scene when you were faced with a choice, what you thought. Let's say you're a basketball player and you couldn't shoot in a recent game, so you think you can't play basketball and want to quit the team. Hearing this, can you feel that something is wrong? The "you" in this case did not think about your own thoughts, but only reacted to the fear that you "can't shoot". "You" think that you "can't shoot", which is of course your own hypothesis, because you just couldn't shoot in the recent game anyway, and then you listen to your "can't shoot" assumption and make the decision to "quit the team".
It's a bit extreme, but in life, when we're in a difficult situation, struggling or emotionally excited, can we really figure out whether our current reaction is based on assumptions or facts? What's more, if you take your hypothesis as fact, your hypothesis will really become a fact. This is what is often referred to as "self-fulfilling prophecy" in psychology. For example, if you are not sure about an exam, and all you think about during the exam is "I won't pass the test, I won't pass the test", and the result is that you really can't pass the test. However, before the exam, you think that you will not pass the test, that is just your assumption, not a fact. So, before making a reaction and decision, we might as well write down our thoughts, engage in self-talk and analysis, and see which "you" is actually ruling your life. All in all, any feeling, guessing someone else's mind, predicting what didn't happen is not a fact.
"Self-talk" has taught us that healthy thinking is an option for you. Now that you know how to distinguish whether your thoughts are based on reality and hypothetical, you can avoid making the wrong reaction when you realize that your insecurities are swaying your thoughts. This brings us to the third step of self-training—to firmly say "no" to insecure thoughts.
Some people may say that I can't control what I'm thinking, so I can't stop those thoughts to control my behavior. But is that really the case? Is it just because you didn't really say "no" to it?
For example, we often say "no" to many things in our lives, and some things we take seriously, such as refusing to steal, are serious. But more often than not, we don't take it seriously, as in the case of people who have experienced famine and still hoard food in large quantities during peaceful years. Even if you say that you won't do it again, but you still behave as usual, this is indulging your own insecurity. It's easy to get caught up in the restless thoughts in our minds and get caught up in the whirlpool of imagination.
This actually involves the fourth step of self-training: forgetting and investing in the present moment. When we encounter a problem, it is easy for us to get caught up in the worry about the problem, and few people can jump out of the worry and focus on solving the problem. But that's exactly what we need to learn. This worry can be forgotten by diverting attention and quickly engaging in the matter at hand. In addition, meditation is also a very effective way to get out of the state of mind such as worry and fear.
It seems that by doing all of the above through "self-talk", it seems that you can get rid of the control of insecurity and live a healthier life. But that's not enough, you also need to learn the fifth and final step of self-training – self-motivation.
Self-motivation here has two meanings. The first meaning is that to allow yourself to experience the joy of success as early as possible, you can start with some less difficult and less adventurous challenges, and start with simple results, which can inspire yourself to challenge more difficult to achieve success. For example, if you are an avoidant person, you can try to eat with your colleagues first, rather than trying to build deep friendships in the first place. The second meaning is to maintain continuous success. In other words, if you decide to open your heart, you have to keep working on it, and you can't expect it once and for all. Because insecurity has become your personality and habit, once you can't correct it consistently, it will soon return to the way it was.
In general, through "self-talk", learn to identify whether there are "insecurities" in your psychology and learn to evaluate them correctly; Take it a step further and divide yourself into two and distinguish which "you" is the one with a healthy mind and which is the one with a negative mind full of "insecurity". Then, firmly say "no" to the insecurities that dominate you, forget the problem and invest in the things of the moment, and constantly engage in self-motivation to correct the bad habits of insecurity and improve your life.
One thing that needs to be added is not to dwell on being saved. Many people with psychological distress may go to the psychotherapy clinic for treatment to get answers, and they pour out their questions and troubles, hoping that the psychologist can give them answers and cure their mental illness. By leaving the responsibility for solving the problem to a psychiatrist, they feel relieved and their pain lessened. However, slowly, they will become dependent on the psychiatrist, which is actually a very bad thing. Because it will make you lose your self-confidence. And what self-training needs to do is to strengthen your self-strength, so that you can overcome difficulties and face life on your own.
summary
First, we talked about the formation of a bad habit called insecurity. As every child grows up, he or she encounters problems that are beyond his or her understanding, and these problems may make him feel very helpless or traumatized, and insecurities can form. If left unchecked, insecurity can become part of your personality, affecting your thinking habits and cognitive habits, and thus your life.
Secondly, we talked about that people who are insecure in their hearts often try to take complete control of their lives, and specifically analyzed several typical "control" strategies, such as the pursuit of perfection, avoidance, deception, etc. However, life cannot be completely controlled, and trying to gain a sense of psychological security through control of life is itself incorrect.
Finally, we talked about the "five-step psychotherapy method", which is also known as the "self-talk method". Through this proven self-training method, we can correct the bad habits of insecurity, get rid of the domination of insecurity, and gain the strength to continue living and live the life we want.
In short, the author of this book wants to tell you through his more than 30 years of clinical experience: the foundation of psychotherapy or training should lie with you, not a psychologist or anyone else. Because no therapist can "change" you but yourself. They are simply more professional in their insight and guidance than you are, so they can push you to change. If we can understand our own psychological situation, we can alleviate our psychological distress.
I hope that after reading this book, you can also reorganize your state and gain the strength to face and improve your life.
Written by: Liangzhou Studio; Brain map: Liu Yan; Source: Get APP Listening Book Column
Disclaimer: Except for the original content, the text, pictures, audio and video of the push manuscript are all from the Internet and major mainstream media. The copyright belongs to the original author, if you think the content is infringing, please leave a message below the article to contact us to delete or pay the manuscript fee.
Mom is anxious, come to the Mother's Wisdom Cultural Center!
Address: Hangzhou Southern Song Dynasty Royal Street "Inseparable Mother Wisdom Cultural Center"
Contact: Mr. Ye Zi