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Years ago, I bought a book entitled How To Refuse To Make Yourself Miserable About Anything because I thought the title was hilarious. Little did I know the book would change my life.
Updated with the (still hilarious) new title How to Stubbornly Refuse to Make Yourself Miserable About Anything, it is written by Albert Ellis, Ph.D, who developed a psychotherapeutic technique called Rational Emotive Therapy (RET) (now called REBT – Rational Emotive Behavior Therapy). REBT is a form of the widely used Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT). These types of psychotherapy involve thinking reflectively about your experience and, more importantly, recognizing and utilizing your ability to reframe your thinking to achieve more beneficial emotional and behavioral outcomes.
What I like about this book – aside from it being authored by the person who developed the technique – is that it is exceptionally rational and practical. Ellis is very much a “scientific thinker”. He is true to his word when he states: “It [this book] rigorously stays with and promotes scientific thinking, reason, and reality, and it strictly avoids what most self-help book carelessly counsel today – huge amounts of mysticism, religiosity, and utopianism.”
Now, that doesn’t mean that I personally don’t find benefit from “mysticism, religiosity, and utopianism.” I do believe in spiritualism and “non-physical” forces, and I incorporate these beliefs into my practices for wellbeing. But just as I don’t think it’s wise for spiritual teachers to engage in psychotherapy (which too many do, in my opinion), I don’t need (or want) my psychotherapist to provide me spiritual counsel.
The power of this book is its clarity. It is focused. And because of this, I was able to learn about, and put to use, a powerful tool for my wellbeing. My philosophy is that we are complex creatures living in a complex world, and there is no one magic bullet that can solve all of our problems. What we need is a well-stocked and diverse toolbox to draw upon to meet life’s challenges and achieve our goals. I suggest that every toolbox include a technique for rationally analyzing situations, your thinking and beliefs. Dr. Ellis’ book and his REBT method is an excellent resource towards that end.
