7 posts tagged “dr. burns”
This is such a fun read! One of my favorite parts in this book is how Burns describes a technique called the shame attacking exercise. In short, you do something insane in public in order to deliberately make a fool of yourself and become immune to what other people think of you. In Plutarch's life of Cato, he describes Cato wearing ridiculous clothes around Rome for this same purpose! Here is an excerpt from this book about shame attacking exercises:
"I first learned about Shame Attacking Exercises following a workshop I presented for Dr. Ellis's institute in New york. After my presentation, I went out to dinner at a Chinese restaurant with several of his colleagues. It was a popular restaurant, and we had to wait in a long line to be seated. The line curled around inside the restaurant, so we were standing near people who were already eating.
I told one of Dr. Ellis's colleagues that I'd heard about Shame Attacking Exercises, but I didn't know exactly how they worked. He explained that you intentionally do something goofy in public so you can get over the fear of making a fool of yourself. He said that the only way to understand Shame Attacking Exercises was to try one yourself, and explained all the trainees at Dr. Ellis's institute had to do Shame Attacking Exercises as a part of their training.
I asked if he could give me an example of a Shame Attacking Exercise that he'd done. He said it would be even better for me simply to try one while we were standing in line; then i'd know exactly how they worked. I felt a bit uneasy and asked what he had in mind. He said I could walk up to the people at one of the tables and ask them if i could sample their food. This sounded totally bizarre, and a wave of panic gripped my heart. I kicked myself and wished I hadn't asked about Shame attacking Exercises!
However, I felt enormous social pressure from the group I was with. They al jumped in and said they all done Shame Attacking Exercises and that I should do one too. I could see that they weren't going to take no for an answer, so I reluctantly walked over to the table where six people were eating. THeir table was covered with a variety of tasty looking dishes. I commented on how great the food looked and asked if it tasted as good as it looked. They said it was terrific and told me they'd been coming to this restaurant for years. I was hoping they;d spontaneously offer to let me have a taste of one of the dishes, but that didn't happen.
I looked around nervously and noticed that all my colleagues were staring at me. This was my moment of truth! So i swallowed hard, pointed at one of the dishes and said, "i know this sounds incredibly eccentric, but i was wondering what that dish tastes like. I don't suppose you'd let me taste it, would you?"
They didn't seem at all perturbed and said "Sure@ Here, have some@" Much to my surprise they offered me a fork and encouraged me to taste the dish. I tasted it and said it was fabulous. Then they said, "try this one too. it's fantastic." so i tasted another dish, and it was also super. Suddenly all the people from the institute converged around the table and asked if they could try some too. The people at the table started giving all of us samples of their food with great enthusiasm. Soon we were all giggling and having a great time, even though we didn't know the people at the table. It was one of the highlights of my trip to new york.
This experience taught me that you dont always have to take yourself so seriously. most people appreciate a little goodwilled humor or eccentricity. People are bored and looking for something to spice up their day. If you act a little bit goofy, in a good natured way, most people will get a kick out of it. If you're naturally outgoing, this insight may seem trivial or obvious, but if your shy, this discovery can be mind blowing."
Wow. Wouldn't that have made a great college essay???
Day 1 8:30 am - 10:15 am
10:30 am - 12:00 noon
1:00 pm - 2:15 pm
2:15 pm - 2:30 pm Break 2:30 pm - 4:30 pm
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Day 2 8:30 am - 10:15 am
10:15 am - 10:30 am Break 10:30 am - 12:00 noon
12:00 noon - 1:00 pm 1:00 pm - 2:15 pm
2:15 pm - 2:30 pm Break 2:30 pm - 4:30 pm
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A new book by Dr. Burns is coming out in December. Now you know what you will be receiving for Christmas. It's about communication, and it's called Feeling Good Together.
two life changing books have passed into my hands recently.
one. The feeling good handbook is revolutionizing my life! the chapter on communication has opened up a knotted brick wall in my brain. also more excellent masterminding techniques that 100 % work from the master.
your life will change.
two. Cesar's way. about how dogs aren't people. they aren't supposed to be your best friend. to be a fulfilled dog they must have exercise, discipline and affection in that order. then they will serve you and obey your every whim which they want to do because they want to feel safe following the pack leader. it's all about dog psychology.
Agree or disagree strongly or slightly with the following:
1. Criticism will obviously upset the person who receives the criticism
2. it is best to give up my own interests in order to please other people
3. I need other people's approval in order to be happy
4. if someone important to me expects me to do something, then i really should do it
5. my value as a person depends greatly on what others think of me
if you agree with any of these, you will probably be made unhappy at some time in the future as a result of these beliefs. listen to others, but ultimately always do what you think is best for you no matter whether others approve. do you agree? comment! These are the beliefs from the APPROVAL section of the dysfunctional attitude scale. before my brainwashing myself, i slightly or strongly agreed with most of these--but now i strongly disagree with all of them. although some of this is still hard to act upon nevertheless. what about you all? agree or disagree?
today i did something i have almost never done before....i told a person i had agreed to do something for that i couldn't do it. So many times in my life i have been in this situation where i've found myself agreeing to do something i absolutely did not want to do, but couldn't say so because i was afraid of how the other person would react. But today i put my own interests first. Every morning for the past four weeks i have been reading over essays i have written about why it is vitally important to put my own interests first, even if people strongly disapprove of me, and while it helped me to realize this is the right philosophy to have if you want to be happy, it is hard to put into practice. but today--success! Sometimes you have to let other people down, and have them look down on you and maybe even hate you so that you can be happy. In the Seven Habits of HIghly Effective People, the author says "you are the programmer. Write the program. Live the program." What that means is don't let other people control you and don't lead a slavish life. Don't be an employee but the ceo, chief visionary officer of your own life. But this is hard to put into practice. Its hard when people make you feel like you are betraying them even if you aren't. But one thing i learned from the master (david burns) is that if you know you aren't betraying someone, then why buy into that someone's irrational belief? It is so hard to overcome the patterns of destructive thinking that you end up with somehow. I have exceedingly many handicaps--but as Burn's says, the more problems you have, the more joy you can experience through overcoming them and learning from them. Being unusually bad at stuff like this is unusually fortunate because of all you have to learn--because learning is one of the greatest pleasures in life.
I got this golf counter from an online golf store and I will be wearing it like a watch, tabbing up how many times per day i have a positive thought about myself. According to Dr. Burn's, this is one way to develop a great feeling of self-esteem. He says no one really knows for sure why such a simple technique works, but it does. You record your scores every day and soon they increase--so he claims.
