“People are disturbed not by things, but by the views they take of them.” Epictitus.

“There is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so.” Shakespeare.

One of the key ingredients to living well is thinking well.  Our perspectives about ourselves, others and life in general will influence what we feel and what we do.  Our perspectives are our lens to the world.  This lens is shaped by our life experiences-which in turn shapes how we experience life.  All of us has a different lens to the world which will impact our experience of the world.

Issues with our experience of life however may occur due to distortions in this lens. These distortions may skew how we view ourselves, others and life. At times, we may not view things in a healthy, realistic or accurate manner due to these distortions.  In many of these cases, this may result in unhealthy emotions and/or behaviors.  Every emotion has a central core element that should be identified if you are experiencing unhealthy emotions-these are summarized below:

Anxiety=fear of a certain outcome occurring

Anger=the perceived violation of expectations

Depression=perceiving ourselves as hopeless, helpless and worthless as well as perceiving others and life in an unfounded negative manner.

To overcome unhealthy emotions and/or behaviors, it is important to reflect upon our perspectives.  We need to step back and objectively evaluate how we are thinking about things in our life. We need to identify any possible distortions on our lenses that may be creating our negative experience of life.  Once these have been identified, it is not effective to simply focus on “not thinking about it.”  It is important to identify healthier, more realistic or more accurate ways of viewing your world.

If you would like assistance with exploring these concepts as they apply to issues with which you may be struggling, contact the Chrysalis Center at 910-790-9500 and schedule an intake with one of our clinicians.