Talk therapy did not affect the transformation from mild-mannered man to raging, destroying, out-of-control monster. It was that dramatic and it took place in shockingly brief moments. In a matter of minutes, I destroyed an entire living room set of furniture. No matter how much insight and planning, the emotional brain has a reality of its own and it is the emotional brain that reigns. Continue reading
Here is a passage I fortuitously came across, perfect for this blog post— something written by a girl in one of my eleventh-grade high school English classes. I was teaching the talk and she was walking the walk. She was way ahead of the game. Here it is as she wrote it way back then: Continue reading
Cognitive-Attention Therapies (CATS) Continue reading
When you read about a “violent monster” committing a mass shooting, he – it is virtually always “ “he” – you usually don’t read about him beginning life innocent, loving, and trusting. In those first years of total dependency, if the most basic needs are neglected, his brain fills with implicit memories and he heads for a cruel rough ride through life, sometimes a brief journey.
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Dissolving pain requires doing the opposite of what we want to do. When we feel pain, we automatically want to distance ourselves from it and fight it, thinking that resisting or otherwise avoiding the pain will give us some relief. But we give power to pain by narrowly focusing on it. Instead, you both focus on the pain and make the pain a part of an Open-Focus background. Continue reading
Out of the millions of bits of information our brains process each second, 45 bits give or take are devoted to conscious thought. We can give our total conscious attention to around of one-millionth or 0.000001 of the sensory input available to our brain. We are programmed for virtually total inattention. And we live in a self-created reality world.
It is hard enough to unconditionally accept ourselves. Unconditionally accepting others is really difficult and may be impossible. But letting go of hating and blaming is unburdening a load that makes this life easier. Continue reading
“I largely choose to disturb myself about the upsetting events of my life. I know now that I mainly feel the way I think.
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Fukae sensei, our aikido teacher in Japan, went out and bought a copy of my book, “Scripting Your Mind with REST, Rational Emotive Self-Talk.” (In Japanese) Right after reading it he told my wife it doesn’ help. I should have told him that reading a book on Cognitive Therapy – any therapy – won’t help. You are the only one who can help. Unfortunately, I did not tell him. My Japanese was poor. Continue reading
Rage is a bodily response. Emotional states arise at the neural level. Without this bodily response, there is no rage. We don’t think and become enraged. We experience rage in an ancient subcortical brain we have in common with other mammals. Rage is one of the primary affects (that arise from genetically encoded emotional circuits) that anticipate key survival needs. We automatically fight, run or freeze.
Rage
“Total Self-Renewal through Attention Therapies and Open Focus” (Sample chapters on Amazon.)
Alternate Title: “Attention Therapies for Total Self-Renewal with 50 Bits–All We Have– Attention”