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Humans come to conclusions, often without any thinking or sound basis. Then they hold them as the truth.
Since they are the truth, we tend toward being right (thinking this will prove our worth or disprove our being weak). In order, to support our being right, we gather evidence. That wouldn't be so destructive if it were fair, balanced, and objective. But it is selective evidence - only that which backs up our conclusion.
And then we also get sucked up in the myth that the conclusions are part of us, rather than just something we "have" as a tool to use in life subject to improvement to increase its usefulness.
And, when given the opportunity, we use these to whip ourselves into a frenzy or a furor - selecting evidence of what is wrong or wrongly done to us and looking at that in the light of an incorrect meaning we attribute to it (based on a wrong pre-conclusion)...
And then this creates an artificial threat, the equivalent of a monster in the closet in childhood. And then we implement our pre-conclusions (often wrong) about how to handle this with a fight, flight, or freeze strategy.
And we end up compounding the problem and the response until there is great danger done.
We base each part on misinterpretation and misperception (though all of us think we are accurate!) and then use our inaccurate pre-conclusions plus the selective, incorrect evidence at hand, to which we again apply pre-conclusions - and pretty soon we are launched into outer space, into emotions that are harmful and conclusions that are destructive.
The solution?
Know the process and accept the inaccuracies and then need to confirm and/or dispute and then use tested principles and reasoning to determine what will work.
THE PROCESS
--> repeat the cycle (with same information, over and over) --> escalate the rightness about the threat --> escalate the emotions --> use incorrect pre-strategies to deal with the threat --> create destruction and harm.
Intervene anywhere in the process and you can stop the escalation. Even "seeing" that there could be an escalation process kicked into gear will give some perspective that could cause one to stop.
CORRECTING THE INACCURATE UNWORKABLES
This could be a dilemma if we try to eat the elephant all at once. We are forced by reality to eat one bite at a time. Given that idea, we would then proceed as follows:
1. Learn the applicable principles and laws:
2. Dispute the unquestioned and/or unfinished beliefs, pre-conception, rules; they must be disputed and examined to come up with true and workable ones.
It is very simple to determine which ones to work on: spot whatever occurs before a "bad" feeling and/or a "bad" outcome that caused it.
"WHAT YOU DO NOT COMPLETE, YOU ARE DOOMED TO REPEAT"
Write each thought down on a list or in a journal. Dispute it and replace it, either right then or later. But do not stop there, as you probably have not completed. Put each one on a sheet of paper and put those pieces of paper in a retrievale, usable location.
HIGH IRRATIONALITY IS CAUSED BY THIS
Irrationality is based on emotions and a brain that is not used to reason. Obviously high emotions drive us strongly but if there is no rational direction we will be highly likely to create destructive responses. In fact, the extreme emotions themselves will cause great physical damage and future bad brain wiring which will then cause more harmful responses.
NOTE WHERE THIS OCCURS - AND THE SOLUTIONS
People who experience panic attacks will often say "oh, it just comes on me all of a sudden" - which is preposterous, as a "law" is an effect always has a cause.
In anger management training, there are attempts made to have people learn emotional intelligence and how to see that there is no real threat and also that the strategies the person has been using are destructive and should be stopped. Well, gee whiz! How about that!?
Anxiety at a high level is a good example of what this process creates.
Rage is the perfect example, besides panic, of escalation. (The person who rages also will be prone to panic as they are the same process and involve low emotional intelligence and/or control and/or completion.)
The danger is that the panicker and the rager attribute the reactions as being caused by the circumstances or the people - which shows a huge amount of lack of emotional knowledg, as one of the basic laws is that:
1. Our reactions are caused by our thoughts. This is the elementary of the elementary. No person should live life without knowing this. It is fundamental, provable, and factual. (There are two instinctual reactions that are caused before time to think, but we still have the power right after that to exert control.)
2. The extreme emotion can only be caused by the belief that there is an extreme threat. Only the extreme causes the extreme.
3. We can build up the extreme emotion through the escalation process - and it can all be based on the failure to reason and to use knowledge.
4. Since our beliefs (on which our fears are based) can be examined and changed via a determinable path and since we can learn the falseness along the perception-interpretation-strategy process, we can exert control and solve our extreme reactions - we need not give up our control and be "out of control" if we apply the process and know that it is not circumstances and other people that cause our reactions - it is our faulty thinking - always, always, and always, plus always.
