Throughout this book, the author keeps dropping hints of a special
technique he developed that you’re going to learn later to help reduce
anxiety and change your negative thoughts. Well, in this chapter, that
special technique is finally revealed, and I’m not all that surprised it
was a bit of a let-down.
It’s not even that it’s not a good
technique. It is just very similar to the anxiety-reducing advice you
would get anywhere else, kind of a melding together of a few different
common techniques (noticing and countering negative thoughts, positive
visualization, self-esteem building).
The technique, I’m sure,
could be helpful. It’s the trademarking and the weirdly intense hype
that lead me into the mindset of ‘that’s it?’ Before finally telling you
the technique, the author builds it up for several pages. I honestly
feel like I am watching an infomercial at times. This will make your
life substantially easier! Quick and simple! Anyone can learn it! You
don’t need to believe it, just do it! Stop living a life that isn’t
really the life you want! This may seem like other techniques you have
used, but it is actually very unique!
It is a pretty short
chapter, especially if you disregard the lengthy sales pitch. The
exercise at the end is to keep a log of every time you can use this
technique to combat an anxious or negative thought over the next week.
If I’m wrong about the amazingness of this technique and it works much
better in practice than it sounds, I’ll report back here.
One
part of the technique is focused on detailed visualization of a positive
outcome, and that is something I’ve been thinking about a lot lately.
Because I am great at envisioning everything that could go wrong, but I
don’t put nearly enough effort into imagining something could go well.
Or even adequately. And it has usually been the case that things don’t
go quite as badly as I thought they would.
No comments:
Post a Comment