Necessary Readings For Handling "Mis-thinking"

I read over the weekend a small book that looked deceptively innocuous, with a title of The User's Guide To The Human Mind, by Shawn T. Smith, PsyD.  But it is a masterpiece of clarity and what works.

It clarifies that we should never "fight" the mind for its never-ending fight for our survival, but it shows how to "train the elephant" and how to work with it.

I think this is an essential lesson - and this book is great at dealing with it.

Also, The Mindfulness & Acceptance Workbook For Anxiety, by two Ph.D.s Forsyth and Eifert, goes through a clear (at first in cartoon form) way of dealing with anxiety. 

It also, as in the other book and lots and lots of other resources, points out that delaying your reaction to discomfort is essential to your getting out of the pattern of seeking immediate relief and, thereby, reinforcing the anxiety's neuronal pathway, to come back later in a stronger form. 

In both books, it asks you to identify your actual values - and to be driven by them.  Without that clarity, you only get to live a life driven by your mind, which is solely evolved to seek survival, at any cost, with exaggeration, superoverdoing to protect you, etc. 

In both books, the old idea is repeated of looking at thoughts as just thoughts, with no reality.  And both suggest that the answer to the vagueness of the mind is to CLARIFY what is going on.

And no one can possibly get to the other end, where anxiety only becomes a small, but temporary signal, without observing in detail.  People will dismiss that and keep on seeking some other magical solution, but there is no way around this. 

It is slow, methodical. It gives some relief in the short term, but it also builds a strong system that allows one to do something akin to what the Dalai Lama does:  note the thought, decide if there is any immediate true physical danger, dismiss the thought, experiencing an instant disappearing, feeling as if there was no anxiety at all. 

An excellent form in the latter book is "Living In Full Experience - The Life Form", where you can quickly check-off any sensations you are having, identify the emotion (labeling it is "required" in all curative strategies!), and then a few descriptions you are asked to complete.  This is a bit like journaling but with a more directed system.

I recommend buying both of these books and using them as a basic means of educating yourself and implementing what will work for you to live an "anxiety-free" life!

Keith

Relevant on the site:

Feelings - Manage Them Or Be Run By Them? 
Thoughts, Beliefs, Recordings Of The Mind - A fairly long piece, with necessary basic understanding!