Are You a Puppet on Strings? - Taking Back Control of Your Life

For the next few posts, I am going to post some life changing articles that I have written over the last several months that I thought would be very helpful to everyone. This one serves as the foundation of the others.

We have all enjoyed a good puppet show. A puppeteer pulls strings and makes the puppets hands and feet move and he speaks words that supposedly comes from the puppet? These little shows can be quiet entertaining.

Are You a Puppet on Strings?

So how is your puppet show? How many puppet strings have you given out? Is it a harmless entertaining show? Let’s explore. (Mine was not so entertaining – at least not in a good way.)

Imagine yourself as a puppet. Now think of all the people, things, and situations that make you unhappy. These are your puppeteers. How dare they do that to you! Right?

Now imagine yourself (as a puppet) giving a string (with a little round pull on the end) to each person, thing or situation that is causing you unhappiness. That is exactly what you have done - subconsciously handed over your happiness. Each time you think of that person, thing or situation in a negative way and start harboring resentment or thinking “poor pitiful me – look what they have done to me” or “look at what has happened to me” you are handing them or it a puppet string and telling them to pull the string tighter and tighter. So you can imagine if you have given a string to your financial situation, your enemy, your mother, your ex, your in-laws, your boss, your broken car, your job, etc, etc….. Each time you think of them or it your string gets tighter and tighter.

How Many Directions Can You Be Pulled?

How many strings have you handed out? How many directions are you being pulled? Are you being flipped upside down, to one side, then the other, one hand pulled across your body stretched as far as it can go without ripping from your torso, the other hand pulled the other direction across your body, one foot up in the air over your head, the other pulled behind you, your head pulled to one side then spun around and around? How many more strings can you really hand out? How many more directions can you be pulled and spun?

How it Begins and Progresses…

Think of it this way. With the very first negative thought that enters your mind you hand over the string to someone or thing or situation. With each and every negative thought that compounds on the previous negative thought you allow your string to be pulled tighter and tighter. How many directions are you being pulled, flipped and spun?

This is going to hurt…. I know, I have been there….. Many will not accept its truth because it is easier not to do so…. But, happiness can not be achieved without its knowledge….. Here it is: Many times the people to whom you hand the string do not even know that you have handed them the string. They are going about living their lives and have no idea they are pulling your string. The real answer is they are not pulling your string. They are simply living and you have chosen to wrap a string around them and be jerked around. Ouch… I know that may have hurt, but happiness can not manifest itself in your heart if you do not face this fact. Whether or not someone knows they are pulling your string is irrelevant. The good news is you can still take back your string.

Stinkin’ Thinkin’?

Another way to word all of this is blaming. I have a favorite quote. It goes like this: “You can blame people or things or situations for your unhappiness or you can be happy.” Read that one more time. What is it saying? The key word here is blaming. As long as you are engaged in the thinking error of blaming you will never be happy. That is worth repeating…. As long as you are engaged in the thinking error of blaming you will never be happy. Right now you are probably saying, “Who are you to tell me that I am not thinking accurately?” The answer is I was the queen of thinking errors – most of all of the fifteen most common thinking errors, but especially blaming. Learning to recognize the errors and reprogram my mind with accurate healthy thinking was one of the single best things I have ever done.

So What Do I Do Now?

Throughout life I have heard many people say, “Happiness comes from within.” I thought to my-self, “That sounds great.” But, for a long time no one ever explained to me what that meant exactly or how to get that happiness within. I never “got it” for a long time. Now I would like to spare you the heartache I went through until I figured out what happiness meant and how to get it. We will discuss how to remove the strings, think positive, achieve happiness, and more in the next several posts.

Medical Proof that Cognitive Behaviorial Tharapy Changes Brain Chemistry

First of all let's address:

What is cognitive behavioral therapy and why does it work?

According to medterms.com cognitive therapy or cognitive behavioral therapy is defined in this way:

Cognitive therapy: A relatively short-term form of psychotherapy based on the concept that the way we think about things affects how we feel emotionally. Cognitive therapy focuses on present thinking, behavior, and communication rather than on past experiences and is oriented toward problem solving. Cognitive therapy has been applied to a broad range of problems including depression, anxiety, panic, fears, eating disorders, substance abuse, and personality problems.

Cognitive therapy is sometimes called cognitive behavior therapy because it aims to help people in the ways they think (the cognitive) and in the ways they act (the behavior). Cognitive therapy has, for instance, been used to help cocaine-dependent individuals become abstinent from cocaine and other substances. The underlying assumption is that learning processes play an important role in the development and continuation of cocaine abuse and dependence. These same learning processes can be used to help individuals reduce their drug use.

Personal and Medical Proof and How it Works

As someone who has gone through a cognitive behavioral course to learn to stop negative thoughts and to form healthy accurate thinking patterns and is now teaching it, I know first hand that it works. I have witnessed it in my own life and in the lives of others. Why does it also work for depression and complete addiction recovery? Because it actually addresses the root cause of depression and addictions - unresolved emotional pain - something that antidepressants can not do.

Knowing first hand that cognitive behavioral therapy works, it's great to see medical proof in an MRI scan that it does. We have the power to change our brain chemistry by addressing the cause of depression and stopping negative thinking. Realizing that you can stop negative thinking and learning how to is an absolutely wonderfully liberating thing. Change and happiness and inner peace can be achieved by recognizing what triggers negative thoughts and then stopping them.

See this article to learn more about how cognitive behavioral therapy alters the brain chemistry (and more).

See this website to learn more about a cognitive behavioral therapy course in the Nashville, TN area.

See this website to learn more about how to remove emotional pain.

Blame or Be Happy

You can blame people, things or events for your unhappiness or you can be happy.
The choice is yours.

Filtering out the Positive: Another Thinking Error

So how else can we make our thinking more positive? What else can we do to bring peace into our lives? What other thinking errors can we rid out minds of to make positive thinking prevail in our lives. This is a pretty popular thinking error:
Filtering out the positive in order to point out the negative.

This is an easy one to participate in. I know I have done this one a lot. It goes hand in hand with many of the other thinking errors, but let's focus specifically on this one.

A good example would be my husband's thinking toward being in school. I hope he doesn't mind me using him as an example. (He has actually worked really hard on this one and is doing MUCH better, but it's the best illustration that comes to mind.) He totally does not want to be in college (once again) right now, but because of good choices he has made that's where life has taken him at this point. He thinks about all the bad things about being in school: how it takes all of his time, how he doesn't have free time to do the things he wants to do, how he doesn't have time to spend with me as much as he would like, how he has to do school work from dawn until dusk, etc, etc. What has been filtered out is that his schooling is being payed for, it will allow him to get promotions quickly - more money to save for retirement and do to do fun things, how that after only a year in school he will have all that free time back and a guaranteed job to go along with it, not to mention a wealth of knowledge.

It usually only takes one negative thought, and then a whole chain reaction of negative thoughts arise and build on each other so that nothing positive is visible. The key is recognition of that first negative thought before we are blindsided. Once awareness takes place then we can start to think about the positive things of the situation and more positive thinking will arise. Sometimes, we may have to work hard to begin finding the positive, but all successful people are able to find good in any circumstance. It just takes some effort and we find more peace starting to fill our lives.

Blaming vs. Peace

As I looked up the definition for peace the other day on the internet the definition really struck me as interesting and I have been thinking about it over and over again over the last few days. Every definition I saw defined peace as an absence of something (war, hostility, troubles, etc.). So fascinating! You hear about people wanting to acquire peace and we get caught in the trap of looking and looking for it, when what we need to be doing is looking inward to see all the junk we need to be ridding our minds of. I see it as a need for a cleansing of our lives, of our minds of the unnecessary garbage we have allowed to penetrate it - of the thinking errors and negative thoughts we keep feeding our selves....

The thinking error that has been so prevalent on my mind lately is blaming. Several events in my life recently have unveiled to show me the need for removing this thinking error - and ridding it of my thoughts completely. I believe blaming is the one thinking error that I have always struggled the most with. I have figured out that blaming others is the easiest thing to do, while taking responsibility is the hardest, yet most rewarding thing we can do in our lives. How many times have I shrugged off responsibility and just put the blame on others for causing things to turn out the way they have for me. We blame others for ruining our lives because of something that"they did to us" and then we just sit back and have a pity party and say we can't move on with our lives. What happens when we blame is we rob ourselves of life itself. Notice I didn't say that "we allow others to rob us of our life." That language still puts the blame on others.

Recently, I have made a conscious effort to to not blame anyone or anything for any thing that I do or that happens (no matter how small). Even the little things like tripping over a toy "my dog left lying around" can get my mind in the blaming mode. I could get mad at my dog for leaving the toy there and let my anger level rise or I could say "I should have been watching where I was going" or "I need to teach my dog to put his toys up." Taking responsibility only presents opportunities for improvement and growth.

Ridding our lives of blaming - just one more step towards removing the junk in our lives that keeps us from having peace and a positive attitude..... Each time I feel my anger level rise, I'm going to ask myself if I'm engaging in blaming.

Peace and Thinking Errors

Thinking Errors
Video sent by SFTtrainer

Thinking errors cause us tremendous amount of difficulty in life. SFT Awareness training helps individuals gain the skills to think effectively helping to create a stress free, depression free life.

The subject of thinking errors have been on my mind a lot lately. As I think about how to have peace and positive thinking I realize that none of it is possible without ridding our minds of thinking errors.

I want to greatly expand on this thought over the next few posts, but as for now I'm completely exhausted.

Peace.......... Peace.......... Positive thinking.............I'm so glad it's possible............

Is inner peace a reality?

Have you ever had someone say to you, "Well, just get over it" or "just let go of it?" The question is how do you do that?

What about those people who just seem to have it together? - those people who never get their feathers ruffled, no matter what's going on around them. Are they born that way? Maybe a very few, but most have learned it. Peace is learned. Whew, what a relief!!!

So what is peace and how do you get it?
Peace is the absence of carrying around emotional pain.
Through a tried and proven method/program I learned what peace is.

People who live with peace have learned to the art of accurate thinking instead of feeding themselves thinking errors. People engage in thinking errors all day every day and have absolutely no idea they are doing it. I know - I did it for about 30 years ( Now I enjoy picking them out in my thoughts when they do creep up). We engage in thinking errors as a way to "protect" ourselves, but all we are doing it lying to ourselves.

There are at least 15 thinking errors that people engage in on a regular basis. One of them is Labeling. That involves name calling or labeling. - i.e. using names or labels for people, things or events to justify not liking them. Ever done that? I know I have. If I only had a nickel for every time.....