Three Minutes

In my recovery time after my bout of the flu (the worst I've had in some time, even with a flu shot) I read a book I've heard a lot about and finally ordered. Three Minute Therapy: Change Your Thinking, Change Your Life, explains the basics of Rational Emotive Behavior Therapy (REBT) in a very understandable format.

I've already looked into cognitive behavioral therapy (which was spawned from REBT) to deal with issues in my life, but like any other project, it can feel overwhelming and you're not sure where to begin or if you're doing it right. The great thing about Three Minute Therapy is that it gives you the outline of an easy to grasp exercise that can tackle any issue that arises.

The main concept of REBT and this book is that our thinking causes our emotions, not the incidents that happen to us. It's our beliefs about those events that influence how we feel about them and lead to our behaviors. I realized in reading this book that I've been skirting around this REBT concept for some time but didn't have the tools to put it into action. This book does it in a "baby step" ABC method that makes it seem like something I can accomplish.

It really made me realize how many demands I put on myself, others and the world in general. I MUST be the best at whatever I'm doing; my family MUST think, feel and behave the same way I do; and the world MUST treat me fairly and everything in my life MUST go smoothly. And when this doesn't happen I let my emotions run wild.

I suppose I knew this before I read this book, but it really hit home for me in so many ways as I've been struggling over a lot of issues and emotions these last several months. It addresses my perfectionism, my all-or-nothing thinking, as well as the depression, anxiety and overeating that have resulted.

For example, one reoccurring problem I have is my anger and resentment about the housekeeping duties in our house. Here is a Three Minute Therapy exercise that pinpoints my beliefs and how they are affecting my emotions:

A. (Activating event): For the nth time I'm cleaning up the living room and it's mostly clutter and garbage that my husband and daughter left behind.

B. (irrational Beliefs): My house MUST be neat or I'm a terrible housekeeper, mother and wife. My family MUST be neat and clean up after themselves. I SHOULDN'T have to clean up their messes.

C. (emotional Consequences): Anger and resentment.

D. (Disputing): Who says my house must be neat? There is no judge or jury examining my housekeeping abilities and giving me a pass or fail grade. There is no rule in the Constitution that says that my family must share the same level of neatness that I desire. Where is it written that I shouldn't clean up after my family?

E. (Effective new thinking): I PREFER to have a neat house, but it does not equate to my worth as a human being. I WOULD LIKE my family to clean up their clutter, and it’s disappointing that they don't. Being imperfect humans, they are going to be messy sometimes, maybe even a lot. Rather than making myself angry and resent my family, I had better face the fact that if I want my living room neat, the probability is that I will need to take care of it.

F. (new Feeling): disappointment, but no anger.

What's nice about this is that you can still feel rational emotions (like the disappointment above), but this method enables you to talk yourself down from that irrational ledge that makes you feel out of control or guilty about it later. (This guilt is a secondary emotion, which is also addressed in this book, but more on that later.)

I am going to try to do at least one Three Minute Therapy a day, or at least when an issue rears its head. I'm not going to make it a MUST, because that's pretty self-defeating, isn't it? Let's just say I would PREFER it if I can do this regularly!