[form] "REBT toolbox" Your Name please: [text,r_name,30] Email: [text,r_email,30] ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Working to reduce Awfulising Now you can focus on what is called awfulising. Awfulising describes labelling your experience as completely bad, 100% BAD, or more than bad. You then feel increasingly upset. Awfulising insists that an experience is badder than it should be - hence more than bad. The experience that you label as awful, horrible, monstrous, or terrible can usually be relabeled as adverse, disagreeable, inconvenient, or unpleasant. Such relabeling can quickly reduce your emotional upsetness. To you, your problem is real and you probably see it as "bad" but how bad is it really? Other people have similar problems and often deal with them differently or better than you do. If so, one way you can help yourself is to look at your difficulties in a different way - as inconvenient and unpleasant - but never really awful. When you experience some Adversity, do you awfulise about it? Remember that awful means more than 100% bad and often means 0% good. Do not minimise your life difficulties. Do no maximise them either. Try to look at them realistically. When you awfulise and see your problem as horrible, you are starting a process of upsetting yourself overmuch. Chances are that making yourself overly upset is not going to help you to see the problem clearly or to take action to correct it. In fact, awfulising greatly increases the chances that you will make yourself so emotionally upset that you will block yourself from doing better. No matter how bad an Activating Experience seems, you can still find happiness in your life even if you never solve this particular problem. Of course, you will be less happy if your Adversity persists. But, if you think rationally, you won't make yourself totally miserable. You will be able to change disruptive actions, feelings and behaviours if you begin anti-awfulising. Review what you wrote about the Activating event. Identify some of your awfulising self-talk about this Activating Event. I AWFULISE about this unfortunate Activating Experience when I tell myself... [textarea,I awfulise this way,3,70] EXAMPLE: "It's AWFUL that my boss doesn't appreciate me as he or she MUST!" Dispute your awfulising self-talk and develop a more effective outlook. I could make this Activating Experience less AWFUL by telling myself... [textarea,make it less awful by saying,3,70] EXAMPLE: "Why should my boss act differently just because I want this to happen? No reason!" "It's too bad that my boss doesn't appreciate me, but I can still enjoy my work and lead a good life." Work on getting your problem into a different perspective by anti-awfulising. Notice what you think and say to yourself to make your experience seem awful. Then practice Disputing and replacing these awfulising statements with less disruptive statements about your problem, such as "It's bad, but..." "It's painful, but..." "It's a pain in the neck, but..." By doing this you begin to put your situation into a more realistic perspective. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ 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]