[form] "LEARNING HOW TO THINK STRAIGHT" Your Name please: [text,r_name,30] Email: [text,r_email,30] ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Describing instead of labelling First what do you know about the English verb "to be.." The different forms of that verb: is; are; am; was; were; be; been; being. Don't forget the contractions like: I'm [for I am]; he's [for He is]; and your're [for 'you are...']. The goal of Learning to Think Straight education is to give people skills for maintaining mental health, and people don't get those skills in a vacuum. These lessons in life take much thought and repetition and looking for new ways to use them as anything else you teach or learn. Go over them again and again. Find the different ways they apply to your life. NOTES In one exercise you were asked to make a list of all your roles. Even after you made a very long list, you probably realised it wasn't complete. That's partly because people find it hard to think of all their roles and partly because your roles and other people's roles keep changing. For example, did you think of your role as a ROLE LIST-MAKER? Still, even if someone asked you to describe yourself, saying you were a ROLE LIST-MAKER it still wouldn't give much of a picture of you, would it? Just because you play a certain role in certain circumstances doesn't mean you ARE that role. Why not find a better way to talk about yourself and other people? Take a look at how to use IS and ARE and other forms of TO BE. What we say a person IS more often simply expresses an OPINION or POINT OF VIEW. SO Let's look at the difference between IS and DOES. JOHN'S A WHIZ! ANNETTE'S NICE YOU'RE A REAL BRAIN SUE'S A LOUSY READER LOUIE'S A GOOD GUY. Could anyone prove (verify) any of these statements ABSOLUTELY TRUE - in ALL respects for ALL of the time? Not likely! But we can list specific things that might lead you to say, for example, "Annette's nice." Have you noticed how this has tied in with the lesson on SIFTING FACTS FROM OPINIONS? As we sort out facts from opinions, we see that only BEHAVIOURS in this activity can be rated (evaluated) as FACTS [because they are verifiable by our senses]. Now let's go back to the beginning of this unit and take another look at statements like JOHN'S A WHIZ. For each one write four BEHAVIOURS by the person that you think might have led someone to say what (s)he said about her or him. These will be guesses, and there's no RIGHT or WRONG as long as you write down BEHAVIOURS .... actions .... what the person DID that could lead to the conclusion John's a whiz (what might John have done to be called a whiz?) [text,john01,50] [text,john02,50] [text,john03,50] [text,john04,50] Annette's nice (What could Annette have done to be called nice?) [text,annette01,50] [text,annette02,50] [text,annette03,50] [text,annette04,50] You're a real brain (What could you have done to be called 'a brain'?) [text,brain01,50] [text,brain02,50] [text,brain03,50] [text,brain04,50] Sue's a lousy reader [text,reader01,50] [text,reader02,50] [text,reader03,50] [text,reader04,50] Louie's a good guy [text,goodguy01,50] [text,goodguy02,50] [text,goodguy03,50] [text,goodguy04,50] You could put literally hundreds of activities underneath each person as potential support, BUT are they ALL true of that person 100% ALL the time? Think for a sec and consider this: "If they were labels for you, would they be absolutely true all the time?" No, they are conditional descriptions of one behaviour; at one time; in one place. None of them, by themselves, are a complete and total description of YOU as a unique individual. Many disturbances in life, upsets, are caused by us accepting a total label description (negative usually) as TRUE and ACCURATE. The purpose of the last 3 lessons coming to this one, is to show you how incomplete and inaccurate our labels can be of ourselves, before we come to other people's labels placed on us whether they are significant to you or not. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Questions or Comments? [textarea,questions or comments,3,70] [checkbox,send copy,checked] To receive a copy of your work here. Uncheck it if you have printed off a hardcopy for yourself. [submit,SEND this Entry][reset,Start Over again] [/form]