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Whew! 15 years of work! Although this is book #5 for me, it was the most difficult to write – because it’s about ME and MY thinking errors (don’t you just love self-disclosure?!). The publisher says that if you use the code MVY7M9SU they will knock off $3. That’s about 20%. Nice!

What Were You Thinking?

Some Common Thinking Errors and What to Do About Them

Authored by Joseph Bennette

A critical look into how our magnificent brains can help us make the most of our lives – and get us into deep trouble. Fortunately, thanks to our big brains we have the capability to solve our own thinking errors – once we know what those errors are. Explore some common thinking errors and what you can do to prevent or correct them. From the introduction:

Just what are thinking errors? Is it a thinking error to disbelieve what someone else believes? Is it a thinking error to misjudge someone’s character? Is it a thinking error to challenge convention? Just what do I mean when I subtitle my book, “Some Common Thinking Errors and What to Do About Them”?

We’re thinking all the time. Some of that thinking tends to bring about outcomes that differ from our intentions or wishes. Frustration is often the result when outcome doesn’t match intention or expectation. Maybe you’re seeking to lose a few pounds and have discovered that wishing isn’t enough. Maybe you’ve tried diets and other programs to lose some weight yet always find yourself defeated when you regain the pounds later. There is probably a thinking error at the root. Fix the thinking error and amazingly, the pounds drop like rain.

Every living creature makes mistakes. By ?mistakes, I mean choices resulting in disappointment, frustration, missteps, danger, and death rather than the intended or expected outcome. Humans are no exception. We make mistakes – loads of them!

We will continue to make mistakes. That is the course of life. The intent of this book is to help you perhaps lessen the number of mistakes and make your wishes come true more often in the way you wish them to come true.

I don’t intend to tell you the truth about life or to support any belief or belief system; only to investigate and challenge some common thinking errors. If you find after clearing these thinking errors that you are more supported in your beliefs, great! My hope is that you will find the courage to challenge your thinking and investigate your beliefs with clear thinking processes. I hope you will find the courage to change your life as necessary.

What Were You Thinking?

Some Common Thinking Errors and What to Do About Them

by Joseph Bennette

It takes more energy to stop a thought than to change it.

Thinking, that is! A study out of Case Western Reserve University shows that it takes more energy to stop a thought than to change it. No wonder it’s so hard to stop smoking or stop berating yourself or stop that tune that got stuck in your head. It just takes too much energy!

Some years ago, I underwent a year of intensive thought transformation in which a group of us focused attention on catching each other or sometimes even catch ourselves saying the “wrong” things – things that detracted us from our goals. “Try” was on the taboo list of words for obvious reasons – it holds a built-in failure. So, each time we’d hear one of us say the word, “try”, we’d say, “Cancel that!” The process seemed horribly difficult as we were catching each other often over that year. In the end, however, the goal was attained and my speech cleared up so much.

I wonder if we were unintentionally making it harder on ourselves by canceling (stopping) our thoughts instead of reframing them – sort of like nudging an asteroid instead of hitting it head-on.

For my readers unfamiliar with reframing, the concept is to redescribe a thought form from a different perspective or to relabel it. So, in the case of the word “try”, we replaced it with “do”, etc. Instead of stopping, we looked into changing our thoughts by changing our language. Instead of resistance to change, we explored our options. Instead of saying, “NO”, we examined ways to say yes (positive) instead while retaining the same outcome. Wow, did that speed up our process!

Consider in your life where you are saying, “no” or are working to stop a thought process instead of changing or modifying it. Might it be less energetic (read “difficult”) to do if you were to think in terms other than stopping? Might you seek ways to nudge the asteroid?

Study reference: http://www.nature.com/jcbfm/journal/vaop/ncurrent/full/jcbfm2010107a.html

A leading hospital says up to a third of the children it treats for certain conditions are ill because their parents smoke around them.

Dr Steve Ryan, Medical Director of Liverpool’s Alder Hey Hospital, says bronchitis, asthma and ear infections could be cut if parents quit smoking.

He said parents often lied about whether they smoke near their children. The British Lung Foundation says 17,000 under-fives are treated every year for exposure to second-hand smoke.

Speaking to BBC Radio Five Live, he said out of the 35,000 children the hospital treats every year, 2,000 are there because they have been exposed to their parents’ smoke.

He said between a quarter and a third of those suffering from certain conditions such as chest infections and asthma were the victims of passive smoking.

High Intensity

Parents often know the health implications of smoking around their children, he added. “People feel guilty,” he told BBC News. “If it was easy, they would give up. Looking after children is good fun but it can be stressful and for some, cigarettes are a way of relieving that stress.”

He does not think legislation is the answer but believes parents should be aware of the various levels of risk.

The top level, he said, was parents smoking in cars, where children were “trapped” and exposed to a “high intensity” of fumes. Mothers smoking is a greater risk than fathers smoking, and smoking in the same room as your child is also high risk, he added. “Having smoke on your clothes is a lower risk,” he said.

“But a good tip for parents is always put on another layer of clothes when smoking outside. Our staff are made to put a coat on when they go out to smoke during their breaks.”

Medical conditions

Amanda Sandford from smoking campaign group Ash said an estimated half of all children are exposed to smoke in the home. “It is clearly a widespread problem and I don’t think people realize that so many children are regularly breathing in smoke,” she said. “About a quarter of adults smoke and there are more among young adults, people between 25-34, the age at which they are more likely to be parents with younger children.” She added that now smoking was banned in enclosed public places, parents should treat their home like the workplace, and smoke outside.

Research published in 2005 suggested children exposed to their parents’ smoking were three times more likely to develop lung cancer later in life. The government’s independent Scientific Committee on Tobacco and Health concluded in 2004 that exposure to second-hand smoke can cause a number of serious medical conditions, including lung cancer, heart disease and childhood respiratory disease.

Banging the Drum

Martin Birchall, an Ear Nose and Throat (ENT) surgeon and professor at Bristol University, said: “Passive smoking at home, exposing children to smoke they cannot escape from, increases the risk of them getting ear disease, sticky runny noses and sore throats, and further down the track, some of these ENT symptoms can in due course led on to worse diseases such as asthma.”

He added: “We need to keep banging the drum. We need to publicize the fact that every cigarette you smoke is a cigarette that your child is smoking also.” A Department of Health spokesperson said: “Second-hand smoke kills. We must continue to help people understand the dangers of second-hand smoke, especially for the health of their children.”

If you are ready to call it quits on smoking – and want to stop and stay stopped, I recommend that you purchase my book, “You Can Stop Smoking and Stay Stopped Forever” – available at 1derworks.com and Amazon.com.

Adapted from BBC news release

It is improper and imprudent to simply throw away judgment for the sake of being perceived as "nonjudgmental."

Can I throw away my many years of training and experience? No – it is part of who I am.

Can being nonjudgmental harm me or my client or someone else? Of course it can, in certain situations and environments.

There are bounds to tolerance. Unconsciously and instinctively I KNOW it is wrong to have sex with a child, for example. To help a pedophile get better at his trade would be unconscionable to me. I CANNOT offer such behavior safe haven in my sessions. On the other hand, if a pedophile wishes to overcome his harmful behavior, I am willing to assist. That is because I have a judgment about that behavior and the erroneous thought processes that produced it. I cannot be nonjudgmental in this case.

I have a list of behaviors I judge incompatible with health and wellness – for the individual and for society in general.

Behaviors indicate an underlying fundamental thinking error. That fundamental thinking error could be based on an underlying erroneous belief or it could be an erroneously applied interpretation of a correct belief. Either way, behavior is the avenue through which such thinking processes manifest in the physical. My job as a clinician is to assist my client in identifying and correcting these fundamental thinking errors.

What I’m saying is that it is improper and imprudent to simply throw away judgment for the sake of being perceived as “nonjudgmental.” Judging behaviors and thought processes is intelligent use of your mental resources – you do it naturally. And like changing clothes, the person exhibiting the behaviors is able to change behaviors and correcting thinking errors. As the clinician, it is my responsibility to assist my clients in identifying and correcting their errors in thinking – which means identifying and correcting my own first. As I correct my own thinking errors, I naturally become better at identifying and correcting the thinking errors of others. Judgment then becomes a useful vehicle for change.

When judging a person’s behavior/thoughts, I ask some questions:
“What thinking error is required to produce this aberrant behavior in a person?”
“What life decisions might a person have to have made in order to exhibit this set of behaviors?”
“In what ways does this set of behaviors harm the person exhibiting them or harm those within their scope of influence?”
“What therapeutic resources do I have that will assist this person in overcoming these harmful behaviors or erroneous thinking processes?”
“What clinician is best qualified to assist this person?” (if not me, who?)
…and etc.

I always judge my potential clients. During our initial visit or phone consultation, I judge whether or not I will take them on as a client. I immediately screen out people I don’t like – hey, I’m human and have feelings – if someone rubs me the wrong way, I realize my negative sense about them will interfere with what I will do with them therapeutically. I screen out those with behaviors and erroneous thought processes I know don’t respond well to my resources or who may need resources outside my scope of practice. These are ALL judgments – I acknowledge that I am far from nonjudgmental.

Using judgment constructively is a goal worthy of pursuit, I believe. And non-judgment is a myth.

Another study, this time from the Universiteit van Amsterdam, demonstrates that memories – most particularly long-term fear memories – are encoded when they first happen and then again whenever we re-store those memories. There is a short period of time in which the brain must chemically “prepare” and then “store” the memory. Whenever we bring the memory back to mind, it must go through the same process to re-store it in the brain. In both of these labile phases, the memory is vulnerable to change.

This research strongly suggests that memories are not, therefore, permanent structures in the brain. Their emotional content can be removed by interrupting the labile phase of long-term memory storage.

I wrote about the brain’s file cabinet in another post (Click here to read). Basically, the brain requires a chemical to access memories and to code them back after accessing them. It’s as though we take each memory, like a file, out of the long-term memory cabinet, close the cabinet, look at the file, use it, then open the cabinet again to put the file back in. If I understand Kindt’s research correctly, interrupting that process at the “putting back in” phase can, in theory, stop the perpetuation of the effects of fear memories by eliminating the fear in the memories.

According to the Universiteit van Amsterdam study by Merel Kindt, et al, published on 15 February 2009 on the website of Nature Neuroscience as an Advance Online Publication, chemically (using propranolol) interrupting the fear memory labile phase caused human subjects to lose their fear responses while retaining their memory of events connected to them.

I contend that without using propranolol it may be possible to bring forth an emotionally charged memory, deflate it of emotional energy, and then re-encode it back into long-term memory – without the emotional element attached. I’ve seen this process thousands of times in Rapid Eye Technology sessions and in my own work with clients complaining of irrational fears of all kinds.

My hope is that some ingenious scientist with the proper laboratory setup might experiment with more than Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) that was mentioned in the study article and look at the many types of alternative therapies around. Certainly, with the basic structure of the study in place, substituting an injection of propranolol with a technique like Rapid Eye Technology or Emotional Freedom Technique or hypnosis could easily be done and results scientifically observed and measured.

Study resource:  Merel Kindt, Marieke Soeter and Bram Vervliet at the Universiteit van Amsterdam. Netherlands Organization for Scientific Research

Dark chocolate – good for stress? Yes! Good for you? Maybe not so much.

Maybe. Maybe not!

A recent article by the American Chemical Society (ACS) purports to extol the virtues of dark chocolate as a possible cure for stress. Apparently there is some substance to their study as it is getting plenty of press. Maybe that’s because we Westerners do like chocolate – and having a report that substantiates our appetite for the sweet confection adds to its reasonableness as a snack for us stressed-out folks.

Although it is nice that 1.4 oz of dark chocolate a day can significantly reduce stress over a two week period, it’s also true that “nobody can each just one!”

Let’s face it, some of us like chocolate A LOT – so much so that we might find it difficult to cut back to 1.4 oz per day!

I think it’s a bit early to start patting ourselves on the back for eating what is good for us each time we reach for the bonbons.

There are better ways to de-stress than to add to a chocaholic addiction. I recommend Rapid Eye Technology and self-hypnosis for de-stressing. Neither of them will add to an addiction or make you get fat for taking them…

Click here to read ACS Press Release

Study Source:
“Metabolic Effects of Dark Chocolate Consumption on Energy, Gut Microbiota, and Stress-Related Metabolism in Free-Living Subjects”
- Journal of Proteome Research

Researchers found that to improve odds of stopping smoking, those seeking to quit should seek the company of others wanting to quit or encourage smoking friends to join them in their cessation effort – creating their own social support group.

I’m all about improving the odds. Stopping smoking can be a monumental task. By allying yourself with others wanting to stop, you make the job a whole lot easier. Further, when you do stop, your social group will help you stay stopped. Now that’s a good deal.

Read more about this at the NY Times web site.

And to help you stop smoking and stay stopped, buy my book, You Can Stop Smoking and Stay Stopped Forever – available online at 1derworks.com and Amazon.com.

In a Spongebob Squarepants cartoon, Spongebob gets up one morning and thinks he’ll create a fantastic dessert for himself. Unfortunately, his choice of ingredients cause him to have horrific halitosis (bad breath). Spongebob proceeds to go outside, where he meets several people, all of whom scream and run away from him as soon as he opens his mouth and says, “Hello.”

His conclusion – “I must be terribly ugly!”

Based on his erroneous conclusion, he weighs all evidence only in light of his conclusion (scotoma) – and discounting evidence to the contrary. Every experience he encounters only tends to strengthen his belief that he is ugly rather than stinky. His scotoma causes him to feel less and less self-confident until he at last introverts and avoids others.

Spongebob’s close friend, Patrick, who as a starfish, has no nose, can’t smell the bad breath and so assumes his friend is correct in his assumption that he is ugly. Together, Spongebob and Patrick attempt to overcome the “ugliness” through a series of humorous, yet reasonable, methods. They try positive affirmations, “I’m ugly and I’m proud!” etc. Again, all their efforts are aimed at correcting what they believe to be the fundamental problem – that Spongebob is ugly.

At long last Patrick tries some of Spongebob’s “dessert” and finds that he, too, has become “ugly.” Everyone runs away from them whenever they open their mouths. When Patrick then speaks to Spongebob and Spongebob gets a whiff of the odorous mouth, he finally gets it that he’s not ugly – his breath stinks – and together Spongebob and Patrick celebrate the fact that “we stink!”

This is a fine example of what happens when we make an erroneous conclusion from the data we observe. Compounding the problem of erroneous conclusions is that we make many of our life-determining decisions based on data we evaluated and made conclusions on when we were VERY YOUNG or in our infancy – a time in our lives when we were physically and psychologically poorly equipped to make such conclusions. Further, we did not have sufficient data to make such life-determining conclusions. And so we find ourselves living our lives based on erroneous conclusions of ambiguous data (life experience) we made long ago – so long ago we don’t recall them – but we are living them out nevertheless.

So, what do we do about it? How do I become aware of that of which I am unaware. I’m even so unaware that I’m unaware that I’m unaware. Egad!

Here’s what I recommend:

Develop a healthy skepticism about your own decisions and decision making processes. Question yourself often, “Am I sure about this?” “Could I be wrong about this/that/them/you/me/us?” etc.

LISTEN to those closest to you. Consider criticism as golden nuggets of awareness about that which you are unaware. Spouses especially are goldmines for such info. Especially if you feel threatened – the surest sign that gold is afoot. Defending yourself against your loved ones shuts the doors and windows of awareness.

LISTEN to your “enemies” – they will tell you what you don’t want to hear. As such, they can be your best friends – at least when it comes to information about you. You don’t have to give in or give up – just pay attention. “Could what they say about me be true – to some extent?”

Speak the words, “Thank you” to those you feel are attacking you. Be genuine – no sarcasm or brushing off. They are doing you a favor – it’s just good manners to show appreciation. Besides, it shifts your thinking mode from emotion to reason – a good thing during communication.

Deal with your emotional triggers. I recommend you get help with them – to avoid missing those that hide from you. Seek out a therapist who works holistically – treating the entire being – someone skilled in rooting out those hidden emotional “secrets” that come forward when triggered.

Chronic stress kills.

According to Nicole Vogelzangs, PhD, of VU University Medical Center in The Netherlands and lead author of a study on the subject, high levels of the stress hormone cortisol strongly predicts cardiovascular death among persons with and without pre-existing cardiovascular disease. “Previous studies have suggested that cortisol might increase the risk of cardiovascular mortality, but until now, no study had directly tested this hypothesis,” said Vogelzangs. “The results of our study clearly show that cortisol levels in a general older population predict cardiovascular death, but not other causes of mortality.”

Chronic stress induces chronic high levels of cortisol in the bloodstream, which in turn predicts cardiovascular death. Chronic stress kills.

“Cortisol is an important component of the stress system of the human body but in higher concentrations can be harmful,” said Vogelzangs. “Our study shows that older persons with high levels of cortisol have an increased risk of dying from cardiovascular disease. This finding significantly adds evidence to the belief that cortisol can be damaging to the cardiovascular system.”

High blood cortisol levels should indicate immediate work on creating an effective strategy for calming down in the face of stress.

Especially for those over 45, I recommend Rapid Eye Technology, Emotional Freedom Technique, Hypnotherapy, and/or Yoga to calm the body and mind; then Skills for Life training from the Rapid Eye Institute to learn how to deal with daily stress to lower blood cortisol levels and keep them low. All these techniques and processes may be used right along with medications. You’ll probably want to work with your physician to make sure you’re not over-medicating as you progress with your stress reduction strategy.

To test your cortisol level lowering strategy and to monitor your progress, check your blood cortisol levels regularly and work with your physician for best results.

This is a life-or-death matter – your life-or-death. If you have chronically high levels of cortisol in your bloodstream, calm down! Maybe you’ll live longer.

Study Source:
Other researchers working on the study include: Aartjan Beekman and Brenda Penninx of VU University Medical Center in The Netherlands; Yuri Milaneschi and Luigi Ferrucci of the National Institute on Aging in Baltimore, Md.; and Stefania Bandinelli of Azienda Sanitaria Firenze in Italy. The article, “Urinary cortisol and six-year risk of all-cause and cardiovascular mortality,” appears in The Endocrine Society’s Journal of Clinical Endocrinology & Metabolism (JCEM).

I have always felt that guilt, far from being the “bad guy” of the new age, plays a vital role in the regulation of social behavior. That feeling in your gut often serves as the impetus for a stab at redemption.

Psychologists have trouble agreeing on the function of this complex emotion. On one hand, the punitive feeling of guilt may keep you from repeating the same transgressive behavior in the future, which psychologists call “withdrawal motivation.” Conversely, some researchers view the function of guilt in a societal context, in that it keeps people’s behavior in line with the moral standards of their community. This view emphasizes a more positive emotional experience and is associated with “approach motivation.”

In a study appearing in Psychological Science, published by the Association for Psychological Science, New York University psychologist, David M. Amodio, and his colleagues, Patricia G. Devine, and Eddie Harmon-Jones, sought to bring some understanding to this complex issue. The researchers believe that guilt is initially associated with withdrawal motivation, which then transforms into approach-motivated behavior when an opportunity for reparation presents itself. Furthermore, the researchers sought to test these questions about the functions guilt plays in the context of reducing racial prejudice.

To test their theory, the researchers showed participants pictures of White, Black, or Asian faces, while monitoring their brain activity using EEG. The researchers then relayed randomized scores to the participants, telling them whether they responded positively or negatively to the White, Black, and Asian faces.

After receiving feedback indicating that they had responded negatively toward Black faces, subjects reported significantly increased guilt, anxiety, and sadness. The increase in guilt was larger than the change in any other emotion. Their reports were confirmed by the EEG, which showed significant reduction in left-sided frontal asymmetry following feedback. A large body of literature contends that left-sided asymmetry corresponds to approach motivation. So, in this case, the participants were initially feeling the punitive effects of guilt, or withdrawal motivation.

The participants then completed another study in which they read a variety of magazine headlines. Interspersed among some filler headlines, were three titles pertaining to prejudice reduction (“Improving your interracial interactions, 10 ways to reduce prejudice in everyday life,” and “Ways to eliminate your own racism in the new millennium”). The participants that were told they responded negatively toward black faces, revealed a large left-sided shift in frontal cortical activity while reading the prejudice-reduction titles, indicating approach motivation.

So, when subjects were given the opportunity for reparation, their feelings of guilt predicted their interest in prejudice-reducing behavior. Previously emotions have been considered relatively unchanging, basic, feeling states. Amodio’s research presents a new idea of emotions serving a dynamic motivational function for regulating behavior. These findings also suggest that although it feels bad, guilt plays a critical role in promoting pro-social changes in behavior, and Amodio’s research demonstrates these effects in context of reducing racial prejudice.

Guilt only becomes a problem when it is not addressed and resolved. And perhaps the best resolution to guilt is ACTION – some kind of action that mitigates or helps redeem us from our transgression. Simply “releasing” our guilt though some process, like Rapid Eye Technology (RET) or Emotional Freedom Technique (EFT), or will power only serves to deny the guilt the power of its behavioral awareness capability – UNLESS the “guilty party” includes some action toward resolving the transgression.

In the case of false guilt – that is, guilt that has no basis in one’s own behavior, such as feeling guilty because of the actions of another, like a drunk father, for example – releasing the emotional elements of guilt can provide valuable information toward resolving the consequences for illusory justifications that brought about the false guilt in the first place.

Learning to identify real from false guilt then becomes the important issue.