Distorted

Thoughts.  Distorted thoughts.  Some call them cognitive distortions.  Cognitive implies 
we know.  But we often don't.  They can be 
automatic.  Automatic thoughts that we believe.  Our mind says something is true.  We use these thoughts to reinforce our thinking.  Our negative thinking.  Our negative moods.  Our general outlook on life.  What!  I think thoughts to keep me feeling bad?  Aaron T Beck was one of the first who had ideas about what we think.  Distorted thinking.  He learned if we could recognize these thoughts.  These automatic distortions.  We could feel better.  We could think better.  We could do better.  Best part.  We could BE better.  Interesting thing.  We all jump to distorted thinking.  I try to notice when my thoughts jump.  Jump to conclusions that may not be true.   Here are a few examples. 

1. Overgeneralization.  Come to a general conclusion based on a single event.   One bad thing happens and we expect it to repeat over and over.  Choose to see never-ending pattern.  Friend is getting divorced.  "No one values marriage anymore".  You eat unhealthy food.   "No one eats healthy anymore".  
2. Catastrophizing.  We expect disaster to strike no matter what.  Blow minor things out of portion.  Teenage son sleeps in.  "He will never finish high school".  Roof leaks.  "We need a complete roof and it will cost more then I have".
3. Polaized Thinking.  ALL or NOTHING.  Good or Bad.  Black or white.  No shades.  Friend gets hit by a car. "The roads are not safe".  Porn on the internet.  "Everything about the internet is just awful".  
4. Labeling.  Extreme overgeneralization.  Describing an event with emotionally loaded language.  You make a mistake.  "I'm a loser".   Someone cuts you off in traffic.  "He is a terrible driver".  Girlfriend hires a babysitter.  "She neglects her children."  
5. Should Statements.  We have rules about how others should live.  Husband is bored by sports.  "Something is really wrong with my husband.  He should like football".   Another distortion.  We tell ourselves shoulds.  "I should cook dinner every night".  "I should be happy".  "I should read more".  

L in Relationships

ove.

Brene Brown has researched some cool stuff.  She says, "If we want to fully experience love and belonging, we must believe that we are worthy of love and belonging".  Hmm.  Sounds so simple.  We are ALL worthy of love.  Now.  Today.  Right this minute.  We know that.  Right?  This message is threaded throughout the gospel.  Child of God.  He loves you.  He loves me.  He loves our neighbor.  So what is the problem?  Why do we act and feel at times as if this is not true?   He beckons us to love.  Love Him.  Love one another.  Love ourselves.   
Matthew 22:36-39.  
John 13:34-35.  Galatians 5:14.  

Here is a statement I LOVE to ponder.    

"Being fully who you are, fully human, is not an achievement.  It's more like a homecoming.  We become most ourselves, without distortion, when we relax our frantic efforts to justify ourselves and allow ourselves simply to be still"  -Terry Warner

Love

Last month we had a missionary farewell.  It was one of those sister missionaries.  You know.  The remarkable kind.  The type who know.  Who know who they are.  Who know Heavenly Father loves His children.  I was touched by her talk.  It was on love.  She said yes when I asked if I could share.  She is a teacher.  She asked her students a question. 

Written by her student.  A 10-year boy.  He has been challenged.  She loved his profound honest view of love.  I do too.  She told us that "What is love?" was the most searched phrase on Google last year.  This super Sister shared a quote from President Hinckley.  He spoke at BYU on Valentine's Day.  1978.  "When I was a little boy, we traded paper hearts at school, and at night we dropped them at the doors of our friends, stamping on the porch and then running in the dark to hide.  Almost without exception these valentines had printed on their face the words, "I love you".  I have since come to know that love is more than a paper heart.  It is the very essence of life".
What does love mean to you?  

Relationships

Relationships are cool.  We need them.  We want them.  When things go right they give us great joy.  When things go wrong relationships can cause us great pain.  To keep our bodies healthy we eat.  We eat many foods.  Different foods.  Variety of foods.  A balanced diet is healthy.  Here is some food.  Food for relationships.  Food to help things go right.  A balance diet of thinking.  Of theories.  A variety of relationship ideas. 

eality.  Objective vs Subjective.  We experience situations.  They feel very real.  They are real.  Kind of.  It is helpful to know.  To understand.  Two people can see the same situation differently.  Think about it.  Objective reality includes things like my couch is blue.  Yes, it is BLUE.  Subjective reality not so easy.  My experience is the couch is cozy.  My husband says no way.  His perspective is the couch is not cozy.  Hmm.  Who is correct?  Or better yet.  Who is right?  Oh boy.  This is when the "I am right" monster shows up.  Do you know him?  I do.  He is blue too. 

mpathy.  Empathy vs Sympathy.  Both acts of feeling.  Sympathy is good.  I feel for the person.  I am sorry for them.  I have compassion for them.  I do not understand but I care.  Empathy is more.  "What would it be like to be"?  My husband.  My daughter.  My friend.  I sense what they are feeling.  I reach.  I try to understand.  Their feelings are real to me.  Instead of sorry for, I am sorry with.  I clothe myself and for a moment I "get" what they feel.  

                                                         

                                                    

To be continued….

New Day

Self-betrayal

I love rice krispie treats.  They taste so good.  They are so easy to make.  Did you know rice krispie treats were invented in 1939?  Two friends were asked to figure out a fund raiser using campfire marshmallows.  For Camp Fire Girls.  I saw this commerical many years ago.  I think about it still.  When I notice falseness.  When I think about being false. This television clip reminds me.  People pretend.

They act falsely.  They portray themselves.  Have you ever wondered why?  Why you pretend things that are not true.  About yourself.  When looking good is important.  Most important.  Being good becomes fuzzy.  What happens?  Like looking good matters.  Matters more.  C. Terry Warner has some great ideas.  Ideas about pretending.  About being false.  He calls it self-betrayal.  "Self-betrayal, which is my term for the pivotal act by which we indirectly choose our way of being, captures what was once in more traditional terms meant by the word sin.  For those who understand its meaning, sin suggests something about our being.  Because this act of sin or self-betrayal, properly understood, alters how we are, we do not simply act falsely when we betray ourselves or sin; we are false, false in our being" (Warner, 2001, p. 48-49).  This is cool.  This makes me think.  Ponder and it can change you.  It has changed me.  I find I am more honest.  With myself.  With others.  I search.  Where is my heart?  I like knowing.  I like not pretending.  I like changing my heart when it is false.  When it is not right.  Warner continues with the concept of sin.  "It lays responsibility for the kind of people we are becoming squarely upon ourselves and therefore challenges us, without tact or subtlety, to examine ourselves" (p. 49).  Examine myself?  My life.  I want to do that.  I like it when I do that.  Be honest.  With myself.  With others.  Do you ever think avoiding works best?  Sometimes.  Maybe.  Terry explains, "This idea can be frightening when not adequately understood.  Who wants to face up to the fact that they have themselves to thank for their present muddles and messes?  Yet this idea is key for solving the deepest and most difficult problems that we struggle with from day to day" (p. 49).  Here are 2 more commericals.  Click here and here.  In these videos we see the same behavior.  Both women.  Doing the same thing.  Making treats for the family.  We see something different too.  Their way of being.  Hmm.  Does our way of being matter?  Our heart.  1 Samuel 16:7.  Here is a good place to practice curiosity.