Page 14 - Whispering Squirrels
P. 14
The first two squirrels in our story acted pretty much like most of the people you know. They just went with what came naturally. “Nobody can scare (talk bad about, make fun of) me and if they do, they are low down dogs who deserve to be punched.” Or, “Bad things always happen to me and there is nothing I can do about it. I need to run away (not study, skip class) and not deal with this problem.”
You can understand that the strong negative emotions of anger in the case of the “Angry Squirrels” and fear in the case of the “Sad Squirrel” are the result of their typical thinking about this situation.
Their behaviors were also predictable, anger... fighting, fear... running away. This thinking may be natural but the resulting emotions and behaviors are bad.
By telling yourself things that make sense (Good Thinking) about a situation, you will have appropriate emotions and more effective behaviors. You can learn new, more effective ways of thinking and in time, they will become as “natural” as your ineffective ways of thinking.
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