Eating is always a decision, nobody forces your hand to pick up food and put it into your mouth.
Albert EllisRead
We teach people that they upset themselves. We can't change the past, so we change how people are thinking, feeling and behaving today.
Interpretation
What this quote means
The quote emphasizes the importance of changing our thoughts and feelings rather than trying to alter past events.
Albert Ellis suggests that while we cannot go back and change our past experiences, we have the power to influence our present mindset and behavior. This notion highlights the significance of cognitive behavioral approaches in helping individuals recognize that their emotional distress often stems from their own thought processes rather than external factors. By teaching people to adjust their thinking, they can improve their current emotional state and overall behavior.
Themes
ChangeThoughtsFeelingsBehaviorMindset
In practice
Example use cases
In a mental health seminar discussing the importance of cognitive reframing.
More from Albert Ellis
All quotes →Religious creeds encourage some of the craziest kinds of thoughts, emotions, and behaviors and favor severe manifestations of neurosis, borderline personality states, and sometimes even psychosis.
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I had used eclectic therapy and behavior therapy on myself at the age of 19 to get over my fear of public speaking and of approaching young women in public.
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If you would stop, really stop, damning yourself, others, and unkind conditions, you would find it almost impossible to upset yourself emotionally - about anything. Yes, anything.
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The best years of your life are the ones in which you decide your problems are your own. You do not blame them on your mother, the ecology, or the president. You realize that you control your own destiny.
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Attempts to help humans eliminate all self-ratings and views self-esteem as a self-defeating concept that encourages them to make conditional evaluations of self. Instead, it teaches people unconditional self-acceptance.
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Traumatized people chronically feel unsafe inside their bodies: The past is alive in the form of gnawing interior discomfort. Their bodies are constantly bombarded by visceral warning signs, and, in an attempt to control these processes, they often become expert at ignoring their gut feelings and in numbing awareness of what is played out inside. They learn to hide from their selves.
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The only thing that disturbs me is that many psychopaths say they had a very happy childhood.
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Fortunately I experienced Max Wertheimer's teaching in Berlin and collaborated for over a decade with Wolfgang Köhler. I need not emphasize my debts to these outstanding personalities. The fundamental ideas of Gestalt theory are the foundation of all our investigations in the field of the will, of affection, and of the personality.
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