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    No One Upsets You, You Upset Yourself. It's Your Choice How You Want to Feel
    No One Upsets You, You Upset Yourself. It's Your Choice How You Want to Feel
    No One Upsets You, You Upset Yourself. It's Your Choice How You Want to Feel
    Ebook87 pages1 hour

    No One Upsets You, You Upset Yourself. It's Your Choice How You Want to Feel

    By Ray Mathis

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    About this ebook

    Most people live their lives based on a big lie, and don't even realize it. That lie is that what other people say and do, and what happens makes them feel the way they do. Believing that lie causes people to feel worse than they need to, for longer than necessary, and to miss many opportunities to feel better. This extra emotion often causes them to react to their life events instead of responding to them in the best possible ways, and to make mistakes, including in the relationships they care about. It also can give purpose to behaving in unhealthy, self-defeating ways of all kinds, and make it difficult to stop doing so.

    You hear the lie all the time in the way people talk about how their feelings come about. People routinely say that others make them angry, make them feel guilty, embarrass them, put pressure on them, and hurt their feelings. They talk about their jobs stressing them out, and others and what happens making them feel bad or good about themselves. On the flipside, most people believe they can and should make others happy, and that others can and should do that for them as well. Believing such things puts people at the mercy of others, and the events of their lives.

    Fortunately, that's not really how things work. It's the thoughts we have about what happens, and what others say and do that really determine how we end up feeling. Thoughts cause feelings, not events. And we all have a host of cognitive choices that we make all the time, usually without being aware that we do, that really determine how we feel. Most people don't realize they have such choices because their thoughts come to them so automatically because of prior practice and rehearsal. However, we always have choices, including a host of cognitive choices. Learning what those are, and how to use them to our advantage can be very empowering, and very liberating.

    Learn the truth about how feelings come about, the choices you really have, and how to use those to feel better. Stop living your life based on the big lie that so many others live their lives by. Free yourself to feel better, to feel like you've always wanted to feel, and to feel as good as possible regardless of what happens. Most of all, make yourself smarter in the ways of emotions than the vast majority of people walking the planet.

    This short book can show you how, and is intended to be an introduction to "The Mental and Emotional Tool Kit for Life" approach to fixing whatever is broken in your life, and building something better for yourself and those around you. That "tool kit" approach is the subject of other books I've written that are also available at Smashword.com, and other outlets.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherRay Mathis
    Release dateMay 24, 2013
    ISBN9781301154593
    No One Upsets You, You Upset Yourself. It's Your Choice How You Want to Feel
    Author

    Ray Mathis

    I taught health education at the high school level for 33 years. In order to do that job better, I became certified in Rational Emotive Behavioral Therapy (REBT). I used that training to develop a whole new approach to health education called "The ABC System of Cognitive, Emotional and Behavioral Self-management and Self-improvement". I now call that approach "The Mental and Emotional Tool Kit for Life". Since retiring from the classroom in 2007, I have been speaking at state and national convention in my field, to high school and college students about the "tool kit" approach. I have also presented to student teachers at many college campuses. I teach a number of graduate classes for teachers based on the "tool kit" approach through the International Renewal Institute - St. Xavier University consortium. I run "Tool Time" groups for some of the most troubled and troublesome students at a local high school near my home in northern Illinois. I advocate for adding these "tools" to the education all our young people now receive in school all across the country. I also advocate that the "tools" be added to teacher preparation programs in colleges and universities. I am available to do presentations and workshops on the "Mental and Emotional Tool Kit for Life" for schools, colleges, groups and businesses.

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      Book preview

      No One Upsets You, You Upset Yourself. It's Your Choice How You Want to Feel - Ray Mathis

      No one upset you, you upset yourself

      It's your choice how you want to feel

      Ray Mathis

      Smashwords Edition

      Copyright 2013 Ray Mathis

      This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

      For Quick Reference

      Semantic precision and correctness

      Who really makes us angry?

      Who or what really stresses us out?

      Can people hurt our feelings?

      Can people put pressure on us?

      Can people make us happy?

      Can we make someone proud of us?

      Do teachers bore students?

      Locus of Control defined

      The Problems with an External LOC

      The formula for feelings

      Behavior is the tip of the iceberg

      The ABC Theory of Emotions

      Some important questions

      Cognitive Choices

      An overreaction is often an age regression

      The Power and Control we have

      It’s our choice how we want to feel

      I know you are, but what am I? 2.0

      Your last freedom is your attitude

      An inside out approach to bullying

      Clearing up any misunderstandings

      Striking a balance

      Is it really a problem?

      It's just an Event

      How should we look at things?

      Frozen Perceptions

      The Doc said ‘So stop doing that’

      Getting better vs. feeling better

      What do we control?

      Avoiding Unnecessary Responsibility

      Advantages of an Internal LOC

      New ways to think and talk

      Getting some practice in

      The Big Picture

      Read more

      Introduction

      Many years ago, I was reading an article about a cardiac rehab program. It was when I was actively involved in being a volunteer paramedic, and well before I become certified in Rational Emotive Behavioral Therapy. In the article, the authors said they taught patients that No one upsets you, you upset yourself. The reason was simple. If you have a bad ticker and make yourself angry, and keel over, that's not anyone else's problem. It's yours.

      Years later I became trained and certified in REBT. I now understand and realize just how wrong most people are in the way they look at how their feelings come about, and how much they suffer needlessly because of their wrong-headed way of looking at things. For example, every one of the following statements is semantically incorrect and imprecise, and scientifically bogus,

      That really makes me mad

      My job is really stressing me out

      My kids are driving me crazy

      My parents are always putting pressure on me

      He/she really hurt my feelings

      That made me feel really bad about myself

      He/she makes me so happy

      My son/daughter makes me so proud of him/her

      If your first reaction is What? What are you talking about? People do make me mad. My job does stress me out and so on, I urge, or perhaps it's better to say challenge you to read on and learn. The truth is, No one upsets you, you upset yourself. I would add, And That's good news. If other people and what happens really did upset us, we'd really be in trouble, and at the mercy of those people and the events in our lives. However, we're not. We have a lot more power and control over how we end up feeling that most people realize. And that should be good news for you if you struggle with what I like to call a dysfunctional amount of emotion, or more than you want to have, more than is helpful or necessary, more than you know what to do with, and a type and amount that works against you instead of for you.

      The ironic part is that when we are all kids, if we speak in grammatically or semantically incorrect ways, adults will be quick to correct us. For example, if you use the word ain't in a sentence instead of isn't. However, say any of the semantically incorrect and scientifically bogus things I listed above, and no one says anything, largely because they talk the same way, and see nothing wrong with it.

      I like to say that the vast majority of people walking the planet live their lives based on a big lie. That lie is that what others say and do, and what happens makes them feel the way they do. By wrongly looking at life that way, people end up feeling worse than the often need to, or than is helpful, and often even make many mistakes because they have too much emotion, or energy to move for their own good. More importantly, they miss many opportunities to feel better, and free themselves to behave in healthier, more productive ways.

      I promise that if you read on, I'll explain it all to you. And as quickly and simply as I can. And the good news is that it will open your eyes to an immense source of power and control over your destiny that you never realized you had, and probably were giving away to others without realizing it.

      Semantic precision and correctness

      It's important that we start talking about things the way they really are. That's true for anything in life. The greater the difference that exists between the way we look at things and the way things really are, the more potential there is for making mistakes, and for needlessly suffering. That's what science is all about, finding out how things

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