Psychology Has It Backwards

When we feel mental distress, we seek help, just as we do when we feel physical distress. We get a diagnosis of our presenting problem. Is that diagnosis a long-term label, or just an observation about a temporary, misunderstood state of thinking? What if diagnoses are descriptions of the many ways we thinkers can get distressed and insecure and, without meaning to, start to use our thinking against ourselves?

Anxiety is a frequent mental health complaint that escalates in difficult times. It always looks like something "out there" is causing it and anxiety is the only and inevitable response. We address the question whether anxiety is a natural response to external events, or an outcome of the way we think about external events. Is it possible not to be anxious, no matter what is going on? We say yes.

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Addictions are a symptom of unrecognized, habitual, insecure thinking. When we think a lot about troubling things, we seek relief from the pressure and negativity of our own thinking. We become "addicted" to whatever we found that gave us relief — substances, food, sex, work, exercise — anything. When we catch on to our own thinking and the power of thought, we can let addictions go.

As we see the way we hold and use our own thoughts more and more clearly, we recognize addicted thinking sooner and sooner in the process. We find we have the power to let thoughts pass and the "need" to do something or use something to get relief from them disappears. We see that urges are just signals that we're starting to feel insecure. We're always just one thought away from dropping insecurity.

With an understanding of the Principles, we can find forgiveness for ourself and others, and still maintain accountability. When we see psychological innocence, we see how people get trapped in insecure dysfunctional thinking that makes sense to them at that time. Once we understand that cycle, and learn to take such thoughts as warnings to slow down, forgiveness makes sense.

?Analysis is an overuse of personal thinking, and keeps us stuck with what we already think and know. Reflection is the opening for wisdom and insight, and allows us to rise above our past thinking and circumstances and create anew. Unfortunately, most of us have learned we need to analyze our problems to fix them, and we innocently hold them in place. Reflection brings answers and a change in direction.?

Looking at "fixing" the past, or behaviors, or outcomes to help people find happiness is really like suggesting to a sad dog that he just wag his tail and he'll feel much better. The Principles suggest a new direction; solve the underlying misunderstanding of how Thought works and how we function psychologically, and we don't need to fix anything. We see how to operate from understanding and leave the past behind to...

Insecurity is a thought-created state of mind that creates feelings of self-doubt, suspicion, anxiety, alienation from others, discomfort... all kinds of negative feelings. It dissipates and resolves into increasing levels of security as our awareness of the role of thought increases. We all live in up and down feelings of security and insecurity, but as our understanding deepens, insecurity passes more quickly without engaging us.

This is an expression that describes where we are in our recognition that our experience of life events is created by our own thinking about them. As our level of consciousness rises, circumstances have less and less power to affect us. We know that we can look away from our personal, often insecure thinking about them, and quiet our minds to allow our wisdom to surface. As we come to count on wisdom, we gain confidence that we ...