Tag Archives: Self-Improvement

It’s Not Your Fault!

Anxiety, Mental Health, Neuroplasticity, Psychology, Self-Empowerment, Social Anxiety, Social anxiety disorder, , , , ,

Robert F. Mullen, PhD
Director/ReChanneling

Subscriber numbers generate contributions that support scholarships for workshops.

“Dr. Mullen is doing impressive work helping the world. He is the pioneer of proactive neuroplasticity utilizing DRNI – deliberate, repetitive, neural information.” – WeVoice (Madrid)

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It’s Not Your Fault!

“If you know the enemy and know yourself, you need not fear the result of a hundred battles. If you know yourself but not the enemy, for every victory gained you will also suffer a defeat. If you know neither the enemy nor yourself, you will succumb in every battle.” Part Deux
– Sun Tzu, The Art of War

We have examined the multiple reasons we resist recovery. Public opinion, the media, the pathographic focus of psychology, stigma, and even our families deter us from revealing our social anxiety. These external attributions to our resistance are the tip of the iceberg.

We contribute our baggage as well. We choose to remain ignorant of SAD’s destructive capabilities. We go to enormous lengths to remain oblivious to its symptoms as if, by ignoring them, they do not exist or will somehow go away. Our inherent negative bias predisposes us to focus on our unhealthy experiences. Our SAD-induced negative self-beliefs and image exacerbate our sense of inferiority and abnormality.

We cling to irrational and misguided assumptions due to our willful pursuit of ignorance or acceptance of old wives’ tales perpetrated by pessimistic psychologies. We personalize our social anxiety, convinced we are the only ones who feel exploited.

Despite all evidence to the contrary, we continue to blame ourselves for our social anxiety disorder, a false assumption that generates shame and guilt. 

These are only some of our internal attributions to resistance.

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It is Not Your Fault.

Cumulative evidence that a toxic childhood is a primary causal factor in emotional instability or insecurity has been well established. During the development of our core beliefs, we are subject to a childhood disturbance – a broad and generic term for anything that interferes with our optimal physical, cognitive, emotional, or social development. SAD senses our vulnerability and swoops in, negatively impacting our quality of life until we take strides to moderate its symptoms. Childhood disturbance is ubiquitous – it happens to all of us. What differentiates is how we react or respond to it. Having SAD does not make us unique or special. Roughly, one in four adults and adolescents experience social anxiety disorder.

We did not ask for or encourage SAD; it happened to us. When we research its origins, we uncover the likelihood no one is responsible. Certainly not he child. We are not accountable for onset. The onus is on us to do something about it. While not liable for the cards we have been dealt, we are responsible for how we play the hand we have been given. 

The negative cycle we find ourselves in has convinced us that there is something wrong with us when the only thing we are doing is viewing ourselves and the world inaccurately. That is a natural response to our symptoms. SAD sustains itself by feeding us life-consistent irrational thoughts and behaviors. 

If you know the enemy and know yourself, you need not fear the result of a hundred battles. 

You are Not Alone

Roughly, 50 million adults and adolescents experience anxiety disorders. 60% of those have depression, and many fall prey to substance abuse. Anxiety and depression are the primary causes of the frightening increase in adolescent suicide over the last decade. Sexual and gender-based adolescents are almost five times more likely to attempt it.

You are Not Abnormal or Special.

Neurosis is a condition that negatively impacts our quality of life but does not necessarily interfere with normal day-to-day functions. One-in-four individuals have diagnosable neurosis. According to experts, nearly two-thirds of those reject or refuse to disclose their condition. Include those who dispute or chose to remain oblivious to their dysfunction and we can conclude that mental disorders are common, undiscriminating, and universal. 

SAD is Not the Result of Your Behaviors 

Combined statistics reveal that roughly 90% of neuroses onset at adolescence or earlier. Excepting conditions like PTSD or clinical narcissism that impact later in life, the susceptibility originates in childhood. Most psychologists agree that emotional dysfunction is a consequence of childhood physical, emotional, or sexual disturbance. It could be hereditary, environmental, or the result of trauma. It could be real or imagined, intentional or accidental. Perhaps parents are controlling or do not provide emotional validation. Maybe we were subjected to bullying or from a broken home. Behaviors later in life may impact the severity but are not responsible for the neurosis itself. There is the likelihood that no one is responsible. While our behavior over our lifetime can impact the severity, the origins of the disorder happen in childhood. This disputes moral models that we are to blame for our disorder, or that it is God’s punishment for sin.  

You are Not Mental

Not only is the description inaccurate, but it promotes hostile perceptions of incompetence and derangement. It is the dominant source of stigma, guilt, and self-loathing. The word mental defines a person or their behavior as extreme or illogical. In adolescence, anyone unpopular or different was a mental case or a retard. The urban dictionary defines mental as someone silly or stupid. It is often associated with violent or divisive behavior. Add the word illness or disorder and we have the public stereotype of the dangerous and unpredictable individual who cannot fend for themselves and should be isolated. Emotional dysfunction is not ‘mental,’ biologic, hygienic, neurochemical, or psychogenic, but all of these things.

To the early civilizations, mental illnesses were the domain of supernatural forces and demonic possession. Hippocrates and diagnosticians of the 19th century favored the humours (bodily liquids). Lunar influence, sorcery, and witchcraft are timeless culprits. In the early 20th century, it was somatogenic. The biological approach argues that disorder is due to our brain’s physical structure and functioning. The pharmacological approach promotes it as brain chemistry imbalance. The first Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (1952) leaned heavily on environmental and biological causes. 

We are not mental but conditioned by the simultaneous mutual interaction of mind, body, spirit, and emotions. Social anxiety disorder is an emotional dysfunction, and its symptoms can be dramatically moderated. If we choose to go that route.

If you know the enemy and know yourself, you need not fear the result of a hundred battles.

You are Not Hopeless, Helpless, Undesirable, or Worthless

Three of those anxiety self-designations originated with Aaron Beck, the pioneer of cognitive-behavioral therapy. The concept of undesirability revealed itself in my SAD recovery workshops. While we remain conjoined with our social anxiety disorder, we continue to be guided by these self-destructive beliefs. 

Of course, we are not helpless unless we choose to be. There are multiple resources available to anyone with the motivation and commitment to recover.

We are not hopeless. Once we recognize the irrationality of our fears, we see them for what they are. SAD-provoking abstractions, powerless without our participation.

We are not undesirable. SAD compels us to view ourselves inaccurately. It reinforces or justifies our negative self-image, convincing us our assumptions are the truth of a situation instead of emotional interpretations. Our fears and anxieties manifest in how we think about ourselves, how we think others think about us, and how we process that information. Assuming we know what others think about us is illogical and narcissistic. 

We are not worthless but integral and consequential to all things, the ultimate, dynamic, creative ground of being and doing. We are unique to every other entity; there is no one like us. We are the totality of our experiences, beliefs, perceptions, demands, and desires with individual DNA, fingerprints, and outer ears. There is and never has been a single human being with our sensibilities, our memories, our motivations, and our dreams.

If you know the enemy and know yourself, you need not fear the result of a hundred battles.

Yet, we continue to beat ourselves up for our perceptual inadequacies. We blame ourselves for our defects as if they are the pervading forces of our true being, rather than symptoms of our dysfunction. We are not defined by our social anxiety disorder. We are defined by our character strengths, virtues, and achievements. When we break our leg do we become that injured limb or are we simply an Individual with a broken leg? 

To moderate our social anxiety, we identify the situations that provoke them. Further self-examination unpacks the associated fears and corresponding negative thoughts and behaviors. We need to know what adversely impacts us to rationally respond. We cannot fix the complexity of our thoughts and behaviors unless we know what is broken. SAD is the most underrated, misunderstood, and misdiagnosed disorder. Nicknamed the neglected anxiety disorder, few professionals understand it, and fewer know how to challenge it. One has to experience it to know it and examine it to understand it. 

We dread situations that provoke our fears of criticism and ridicule. We anticipate being judged negatively. We reject overtures anticipating rejection. Unless we are fortune tellers or mind-readers, assuming to know what another person is thinking or planning is irrational. It is a symptom of our condition.

We worry we might do or say something stupid. Fretting about something that may or may not happen is illogical. If it happens, it happens. We learn from it and move on. Avoiding doing things or speaking to people out of fear of embarrassment eliminates opportunities and diminishes possibilities. These are not reasonable concerns. SAD sustains itself with our irrational thoughts and behaviors.

We define ourselves by our symptoms, rather than our character strengths. virtues, and attributes. We gravitate toward the negative aspects of a situation and exclude the positive. Why? Because we are more invested in our condition than in seeking a way out. 

Tough love is loosely defined as love or affectionate concern expressed in a stern or unsentimental manner to promote awareness of self-destructive behavior. I’m going to project some tough love, here, because I know, from experience, we coddle ourselves. We feel sorry for ourselves. We blame our condition on all these external and internal attributions when the only genuine disservice is in our unwillingness to do something about it.

Once we know ourselves and know the enemy, there is nothing standing in the way of recovery It is rationally incomprehensible to choose otherwise. The process is theoretically simple. It is time-consuming, repetitive, and personally revealing, but it is not difficult. The choice is obvious. Seek recovery or do nothing. 

SAD sustains itself by inflicting anxiety and fear, but anxiety and fear have no power on their own. We fuel them; we give them strength and power. We control our emotional well-being and quality of life, and only we can compel change.

Proactive Neuroplasticity YouTube Series

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WHY IS YOUR SUPPORT SO IMPORTANT?  ReChanneling develops and implements programs to (1) moderate symptoms of emotional dysfunction and (2) pursue personal goals and objectives – harnessing our intrinsic aptitude for extraordinary living. Our paradigmatic approach targets the personality through empathy, collaboration, and program integration utilizing scientific and clinically practical methods including proactive neuroplasticity, cognitive-behavioral modification, positive psychology, and techniques designed to regenerate self-esteem. All donations support scholarships for groups, workshops, and practicums.  

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The Sky is Falling!

Anxiety, Cognitive Distortions, Mental Health, Neuroplasticity, Psychology, Self-Empowerment, Social anxiety disorder, , , ,

Robert F. Mullen, PhD
Director/ReChanneling

Subscriber numbers generate contributions that support scholarships for workshops.

“Dr. Mullen is doing impressive work helping the world. He is the
pioneer of proactive neuroplasticity utilizing DRNI—deliberate,
repetitive, neural information.” — WeVoice (Madrid)

Cognitive Distortion #10: Catastrophizing  

One morning, as Chicken Little was plucking worms in the henyard, an acorn dropped from a tree onto her head. She had no idea what hit her and assumed the worst. “The sky is falling, the sky is falling!” Catastrophizing drives us to conclude the worst-case scenario when things happen, rather than considering more obvious and plausible explanations. It is the irrational assumption that something is far worse than it is. We validate this by Filtering out the alternatives. We anticipate and prophesize disaster and twist reality to support our projection. If our significant other complains of a headache, we assume our relationship is doomed. If this happens again, our belief is confirmed.

A symptom of SAD is our tendency to expect negative consequences to things that happen during a situation. Because of our negative self-appraisal, and inherent negative bias, we tend to assume the worst. Often, we justify our projections based on prior events, believing that catastrophe will ensue because the former event had disastrous consequences. This is similar to Overgeneralization where one bad apple means the entire bushel is rotten. Our four horsemen of social anxiety disorder – helplessness, hopelessness, undesirability, and unworthiness aggravate our negative assumptions. Catastrophizing is often a consequence of our symptomatic fears of criticism, ridicule, and rejection. We take something we believe is inevitable and presuppose its actuality. We will be rejected and therefore, never find love. We will be criticized and, therefore, never be taken seriously. 

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Catastrophizing can be paralyzing. It limits our social engagement because we avoid situations that posit the possibility of disaster. Our fatalistic obsessions prevent us from experiencing and enjoying life. We express it in our SAD-induced automatic negative thoughts (ANTs). “What if no one talks to me?” “What if they criticize my presentation?” “What if they find me unattractive?” Worrying about something that hasn’t happened is an exercise in futility and supports our sense of hopelessness. It can negatively impact our entire outlook in life, causing issues of motivation and self-esteem that lead to self-disappointment and underachievement.

Considering the consequences of what can happen is a regular and rational part of determining our actions and activities. The compulsion to project the worst possible outcome, no matter how improbable, is self-destructive. 

When those of us with social anxiety disorder find ourselves in a situation where we dread being criticized, ridiculed, and or rejected, the smallest incident, like a failed attempt at humor, can trigger the belief that the entire evening is a personal disaster. This projection can easily become a self-fulfilling prophecy because we are convinced of its inevitability. 

Catastrophizing is closely linked to anxiety, depression, and self-pity, and is prevalent among individuals who have generalized anxiety, social anxiety, panic, and obsessive-compulsive disorder.

Again, the obvious remedy is to become mindful of our susceptibility to this distortion, rationally assess the situation, and consider plausible explanations for the incident that triggered our catastrophizing.

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WHY IS YOUR SUPPORT SO IMPORTANT?  ReChanneling develops and implements programs to (1) moderate symptoms of emotional dysfunction and (2) pursue personal goals and objectives – harnessing our intrinsic aptitude for extraordinary living. Our paradigmatic approach targets the personality through empathy, collaboration, and program integration utilizing scientific and clinically practical methods including proactive neuroplasticity, cognitive-behavioral modification, positive psychology, and techniques designed to regenerate self-esteem. All donations support scholarships for groups, workshops, and practicums.  

Feeling Our Way Thru Life

Anxiety, Mental Health, Neuroplasticity, Psychology, Self-Empowerment, Social anxiety disorder, , , ,

Robert F. Mullen, PhD
Director/ReChanneling

Subscriber numbers generate contributions that support scholarships for workshops.

Cognitive Distortion #1: Emotional Reasoning

Cognitive distortions are exaggerated or irrational thought patterns that perpetuate our anxiety and depression. In essence, we twist reality to reinforce or justify our toxic behaviors and validate our irrational attitudes, rules, and assumptions. Our attitudes refer to our emotions, convictions, and behaviors. Rules are the principles or regulations that influence our behaviors, and our assumptions are what we believe to be accurate or real. SAD and other emotional dysfunctions paint an inaccurate picture of the self, others, and the world. 

Consider this example. The entire office staff congratulates us on our promotion, except for one individual who ignores us. Rather than embracing the support, we obsess over the shunner. That is Filtering – selectively choosing our facts to support our poor self-image by dwelling on the negative while overlooking the positive. While the number of cognitive distortions varies widely, there are thirteen that are primary and especially relevant to social anxiety. Jumping to Conclusions supposes we know what others are thinking. We are mind-readers. Emotional Reasoning is arriving at conclusions based solely on our feelings. When we engage in Personalization, we assume that doings and events are directly related to us and random remarks are personally relevant.

Understanding how we use cognitive distortions as subconscious strategies to avoid facing certain truths is crucial to recovery. SAD drives our illogical thought patterns. Countering them requires mindfulness of our motives and rational response. Our compulsion to twist the truth to validate our negative self-beliefs and image is powerful; we need to understand how these distortions sustain our social anxiety disorder. Cognitive distortions are rarely cut and dried but tend to overlap and share traits and characteristics. That’s what makes them difficult to clearly define. Because of their complexity and similarities, each cognitive distortion has its chapter.

We begin our study with Emotional Reasoning because it is the catalyst for the other cognitive distortions. The irrational thought patterns that underscore them stem from the SAD-provoked convictions we are helpless, hopeless, undesirable, and worthless (the SAD four horsemen). For example, when we engage in Personalization, we assume everything bad that happens is our fault, and anything said derogatorily is a reference to us. This unbalanced perspective leads to Polarized Thinking, where we perceive things only in black or white. How our cognitive distortions relate to our social anxiety will become evident as we explore them, individually, throughout this book. We can comfortably state that Emotional Reasoning is the progenitor of most of our SAD symptoms as they are ruled by our emotions.

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Emotional Reasoning is making judgments and decisions based only on feelings – relying on our emotions over objective evidence. It is best defined by the colloquialism, my gut tells me…  This emotional dependency dictates how we relate to the world. At the root of this cognitive distortion is the belief that what we feel must be true. If we feel like a loser, then we must be a loser. If we feel incompetent, then we must be incapable. If we make a mistake, we must be stupid. All the negative things we feel about ourselves, others, and the world must be valid because they feel true. 

We are hard-wired to hearken to our emotions. We consider them first because they are unconscious and automatic. It is more natural to base our conclusions on feelings than on facts. If we have distorted thoughts and beliefs, then our emotions will reflect them. Emotional Reasoning is not only dichotomous but also irrational. When we make judgments and decisions based on our feelings without supporting evidence, we are likely misinterpreting reality. 

We are all susceptible to Emotional Reasoning, and not all decisions made are wrong or destructive. It is healthy to stay in touch with our feelings assuming they correspond with reality. A balanced perspective embraces instinct, feelings, and experience as well as evidence. The challenge to us is that our SAD sustains itself on our irrationality, and our negative core and intermediate beliefs lead us to ignore evidence that contradicts them, compelling us to make poor decisions. 

Recovery requires a rational response-based strategy for psychological balance. One that considers the simultaneous mutual interaction of our mind, body, spirit, and emotions working in concert. When one component becomes psychologically untenable, we divert to another to moderate the severity.

Through recovery, we replace or overwhelm our toxic self-beliefs with healthy self-appreciation. We discover rational alternatives to our self-annihilating thoughts and behaviors. We become mindful of the value of introspection, examination, and analysis of our attitudes, rules, and assumptions. We learn to rechannel the emotional angst of our situational fears and anxieties into intellectual self-awareness and consider alternative possibilities and multiple perspectives.

Proactive Neuroplasticity YouTube Series

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WHY IS YOUR SUPPORT SO IMPORTANT?  ReChanneling develops and implements programs to (1) moderate symptoms of emotional dysfunction and (2) pursue personal goals and objectives – harnessing our intrinsic aptitude for extraordinary living. Our paradigmatic approach targets the personality through empathy, collaboration, and program integration utilizing scientific and clinically practical methods including proactive neuroplasticity, cognitive-behavioral modification, positive psychology, and techniques designed to regenerate self-esteem. All donations support scholarships for groups, workshops, and practicums.  

Chapter 11: Regenerating Our Self-Esteem

Anxiety, Mental Health, Neuroplasticity, Psychology, ReChanneling, Self-Empowerment, Self-esteem, Social anxiety disorder, , , ,

Robert F. Mullen, PhD
Director/ReChanneling

Subscriber numbers generate contributions that support scholarships for workshops.

“Dr. Mullen is doing impressive work helping the world. He is the pioneer of proactive neuroplasticity utilizing DRNI – deliberate, repetitive, neural information.” – WeVoice (Madrid)

This is a draft of Chapter Eleven – “Regenerating Our Self-Esteem” in ReChanneling’s upcoming book on moderating social anxiety disorder and its comorbidities. We present this as an opportunity for readers to share their ideas and constructive criticism – suggestions gratefully considered and evaluated as we work to ensure the most beneficial product to those with emotional dysfunction (which is all of us to some degree). Please forward your comments in the form provided below.

<Eleven>
Regenerating Our Self-Esteem

“It is only when you have mastered the art of loving yourself
that you can truly love others.
It is only when you have opened your own heart
that you can touch the heart of others.”
– Robin Sharma

In Chapter Nine, we learned how to construct the necessary neural information to (1) produce rapid, concentrated, neurological stimulation to change the polarity of our neural network and (2) help us replace or overwhelm our negative thoughts and beliefs with healthy and productive ones.

Self-esteem is mindfulness of our value to ourselves, society, and the world. It is self-recognition and appreciation of our value and significance. It is embracing and utilizing our character strengths, virtues, and achievements. Self-esteem is honest and nonjudgmental awareness and acceptance of our flaws as well as our assets and directly related to how we think about ourselves, how we think others perceive us, and how we process or present that information. 

Research tells us that persons living with SAD have significantly lower implicit and explicit self-esteem relative to healthy controls. Our negative core and intermediate beliefs stemming from childhood disturbance and dysfunctional onset are directly implicated. Our symptomatic fears and anxieties aggravate this deficit.

Fortunately, our self-esteem is never lost, but latent and dormant due to the disruption in our natural human development.  Underutilized self-properties atrophy like the unexercised muscle in our arm or leg can be regenerated. 

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Self-properties are the elements that constitute the strength of our self-esteem. Our healthy self-properties tell us we are of value, consequential, desirable, and worthy of love. Conversely, toxic qualities confirm our perceptions of helplessness, hopelessness, undesirability, and worthlessness.

Regeneration, in physiological terms, is the ability of our living organism to replace lost or injured tissue. In proactive neuroplasticity, the same process is designed to replace our self-destructive thoughts and behaviors with healthy and productive ones. In the case of self-esteem, regeneration reawakens our dormant and latent self-properties.

Maslow’s Hierarchy

As we now recognize, our susceptibility to SAD originated with childhood disturbance and onset occurred around the age of thirteen. These factors negatively impacted our physiological and psychological development. This is best illustrated by Abraham Maslow’s hierarchy of needs as illustrated below. The pyramid on the left portrays healthy development. The one on the right reveals how the childhood perception of detachment, exploitation, or neglect impacts our biological needs. Subsequently, safety and security needs are not met, as well as our sense of belonging and being loved, which subverts our development of self-esteem.

Maslow’s hierarchy of needs is a series of human requirements (needs) deemed important for healthy physiological and psychological development. A pioneer of positive psychology,  Maslow originally divided human needs into five categories: physiological needs, safety and security, love and belonging, self-esteem, and self-actualization. The additional three levels came later and are irrelevant to this chapter. The hierarchy establishes how important the stages are to basic human development, and how they influence the other stages.

While the hierarchy is fairly rigid, satisfaction is not a purely linear process but fluid and individuated, subject to experience and personality. Therefore, individuals may move back and forth between the different needs classifications. A child will have difficulty learning if they are hungry. Absent reliable parenting, they are unlikely to feel safe. It is also worth noting, the theory is based on western culture and does not translate effortlessly into other customs and traditions. 

Physiological Needs are the basic things that we need to survive and develop naturally. Physical, sexual, or emotional disturbance, real or perceptual, can negatively impact our early sleep patterns or sexual health A sense of detachment or abandonment could imperil our assurance of shelter. If these needs are not satisfied the human body cannot develop optimally. Already, we can see the potential impact on our emotional dysfunction if these needs are not satisfied. 

Safety and Security. Needless to say, childhood disturbances of any kind can impact our feelings of safety and security. Our formative years need to experience order, protection, and stability, and these stem. primarily, from the family unit. Our childhood disturbance, however, can cause us to distrust authority and relationships, two common symptoms of SAD. If we do not feel secure in our environment, we will seek safety before attempting to meet any higher level of survival. 

Love and Belongingness. Love is interpretational and broadly defined. The classic Greeks were more discriminating, separating love into seven types, e.g., platonic, practical, sexual, and so on. For those of us living with SAD, love is challenging because of our fear and avoidance of relationships and social interaction. SAD disrupts our ability to establish interconnectedness in almost any capacity. Childhood disturbance impacts filial connectedness; we struggle with platonic friendships, and pragmatic relationships are symptomatically contradictory. 

Belongingness is our physiological and emotional need for interpersonal relationships and social connectedness. Examples include friendship, intimacy, acceptance, receiving and giving affection, and social contribution. We are social beings; we are driven by a fundamental human need for social interaction and interpersonal exchange. The comfort in tribe is hardwired into our brains. Human interconnectedness is one of the most important influences on our mental and physical health. Research has shown that social contact boosts our immune system and protects the brain from neurodegenerative diseases. Healthy interpersonal contact triggers the neurotransmission of chemical hormones that improve learning and cognition while moderating the influx of cortisol and adrenaline. 

Esteem. The next stage of our psychological development centers on how we value ourselves and are valued by others. Esteem includes self-worth, achievements, and respect. Self-esteem is both esteem for oneself (character strengths, virtues, and achievements), and the need for respect and appreciation from others (status and reputation).

Notwithstanding the initial disruption of our childhood disturbance and onset, any number of factors continue to impact our self-esteem including our environment, sexual orientation, race and ethnicity, and education. Family, colleagues, teachers, and influential others contribute heavily. Our symptoms exacerbate these potential issues. It is important to recognize, however, that the love and approval of others do not equate to self-esteem; otherwise, they would call it other­-esteem. 

The Greeks categorized love by its objective. For philia, the objective is comradeship, eros is sexuality, storge is familial affection, and so on. The concept of self-esteem evolved from the Greek Philautia. Translated as love-of-self, Philautia is the dichotomy of the love of oneself (narcissism), and the love that is within oneself (self-esteem, self-love). 

Healthy self-esteem is mindfulness of our flaws as well as our inherent character strengths, virtues, and attributes. It allows us to assess our strengths and limitations honestly and nonjudgmentally, and to value ourselves over the opinions of others. It is independent of status or competition with others. It is self-recognition and appreciation for our character strengths, virtues, and achievements. 

Self-esteem or the love that is within oneself is a prerequisite to loving others. If we cannot embrace ourselves, we cannot effectively love another. It is difficult to give away something we do not possess. 

Narcissism is a psychological condition in which people function with an inflated and irrational sense of their importance, often expressed by haughtiness or arrogance. It is the need for excessive attention and admiration, masking an unconscious sense of inferiority and inadequacy. 

Healthy philautia is beneficial to every aspect of life; individuals who love themselves appropriately have a higher capacity to give and receive love. By accepting ourselves, warts and all, with understanding and compassion, we open ourselves to sharing our authenticity with others.

Healthy philautia is the recognition of our value and potential, the realization that we are necessary to this life and of incomprehensible worth. To feel joy and fulfillment at self-being is the experience of healthy philautia. Mindfulness of our self-worth compels us to share it with others and the world.

The deprivation of our fundamental needs caused by our emotional dysfunction impacts our acquisition of self-esteem. It is not lost but undeveloped and subverted by our negative self-perspectives. The rediscovery and regeneration of our self-esteem are essential components of recovery. We learn to emphasize the character strengths and virtues that generate the motivation, persistence, and perseverance to function optimally through the substantial alleviation of the symptoms of our dysfunction. 

Proactive Neuroplasticity YouTube Series

How Do We Compel Regeneration

Recovering our self-esteem is an essential element of recovery and cannot be second-tiered. Due to our disruption in natural human development, we are subject to significantly lower implicit and explicit self-esteem relative to healthy controls. We rediscover and regenerate our self-esteem through the integration of historically and clinically practical approaches designed to help us become mindful of our inherent strengths, virtues, and achievements, and their propensity to replace negative self-perspectives and behavior.

Social anxiety disorder so overwhelms us with our negative self-beliefs, we repress our inherent and developed assets. Fortunately, our brain never deletes files; it fractures neural connections that can be regenerated. Proactive neuroplasticity and DRNI (the deliberate, repetitive, input neural input of information) compel our brain to repattern and realign its neural circuitry.

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Comments. Suggestions. Constructive Criticism

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WHY IS YOUR SUPPORT SO IMPORTANT?  ReChanneling develops and implements programs to (1) moderate symptoms of emotional dysfunction and (2) pursue personal goals and objectives – harnessing our intrinsic aptitude for extraordinary living. Our paradigmatic approach targets the personality through empathy, collaboration, and program integration utilizing scientific and clinically practical methods including proactive neuroplasticity, cognitive-behavioral modification, positive psychology, and techniques designed to regenerate self-esteem. All donations support scholarships for groups, workshops, and practicums.

Selective Perspective

Anxiety, Empowerment, Mental Health, Neuroplasticity, Psychology, Self-Empowerment, Social anxiety disorder, , , ,

Robert F. Mullen, PhD
Director/ReChanneling

Subscriber numbers generate contributions that support scholarships for workshops.

“Dr. Mullen is doing impressive work helping the world. He is the
pioneer of proactive neuroplasticity utilizing DRNI—deliberate,
repetitive, neural information.” — WeVoice (Madrid)  

Cognitive Distortions #4 and #5: Filtering and Polarized Thinking

Our negative core and intermediate beliefs form in response to childhood disturbance and the onset of our emotional dysfunction. Core beliefs are more rigid in those of us living with social anxiety because we tend to store information compatible with negative beliefs. Our intermediate beliefs establish our attitudes, rules, and assumptions. These beliefs govern our perceptions and, ostensibly, remain as our belief system throughout life. Even if irrational or inaccurate, our beliefs define how we see ourselves in the world. When we decline to question these beliefs, we act upon them as though they are real and reasonable, ignoring evidence that contradicts them. This produces the cognitive bias that compels us to misinterpret information and make irrational decisions. 

To compound this, humans have an inherent negativity bias. We are genetically predisposed to respond more strongly to adversity, which aggravates our SAD symptoms. We anticipate the worst-case scenario. We expect criticism, ridicule, and rejection. We worry about embarrassing or humiliating ourselves. We project unpleasant outcomes that become self-fulfilling prophecies. It is not surprising that we readily turn to Filtering and Polarized Thinking to justify these irrational thought patterns. 

Filtering. When we engage in Filtering, we selectively choose our perspective. Our tunnel vision gravitates toward the negative aspects of a situation and excludes the positive. This applies to our memories as well. We dwell on the unfortunate aspects of what happened rather than the whole picture.

Negative filtering is one of the most common cognitive distortions in anxiety because it sustains our toxic core and intermediate beliefs. Our pessimistic outlook exacerbates our feelings of helplessness and hopelessness. We accentuate the negative. A dozen people in our office celebrate our promotion; one ignores us. We obsess over the lone individual and disregard the goodwill of the rest. We view ourselves, the world, and our future through an unforgiving lens.

Negative filtering is one of the most common cognitive distortions in anxiety because it sustains our toxic core and intermediate beliefs. Our pessimistic outlook exacerbates our feelings of helplessness and hopelessness. We accentuate the negative. A dozen people in our office celebrate our promotion; one ignores us. We obsess over the lone individual and disregard the goodwill of the rest. By dwelling on the unpleasantness, we reinforce our feelings of undesirability and alienation. 

To effectively challenge our tendency to filter information, we need to identify the situation(s) that provokes our anxiety and the corresponding ANTs (automatic negative thoughts). From there, we analyze the unsoundness of our reaction and devise a rational response. Initially, the conversion process is exacting, but with time and practice, it becomes reflexive and spontaneous. Cognitive behaviorists call it ARTs – automatic rational thoughts. 

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Polarized Thinking. One of the symptoms of SAD is our compulsion to overanalyze our performance in a situation, tormented by our mistakes, our inept interaction, or our poor conversation skills. We preoccupy ourselves – often for days on end – with everything we think we did wrong, obsessing over what we should have done better. We tell ourselves unless a thing is done to perfection, it is not worth doing at all.

Perfectionism is not just the desire to do well; it is the need to be infallible. If we can’t be perfect, there is little point in bothering. Perfectionism exacerbates our social anxiety. We worry about appearing vacuous or inadequate, fearing exposure to our imperfections. 

In Polarized Thinking, we see things as absolute – black or white. We are either brilliant or abject failures. Our friends are for us or against us. We do not allow room for balanced perspectives or outcomes. We refuse to give people the benefit of the doubt. Worse than our anxiety about criticism is our self-judgment. If we are not faultless, we must be broken and inept. There is no middle ground, no compromise. There is no middle ground. “I failed my last exam; I fail at everything I try. I’m a loser.”

Perfection is a futile pursuit because it is impossible to attain. In the last chapter, we talked about the criteria for healthy and effective neural information – that it be rational, possible, and reasonable. Perfectionism fulfills none of these.

Like Filtering, Polarized Thinking is selective. To remedy our dichotomous perspective, we identify the anxiety-provoking situation and examine our corresponding fears and automatic negative thoughts (ANTs). From there, we analyze their inaccuracy and initiate rational responses. 

It is important to consider the holism and multiple perspectives of life’s events and replace the myopia of Filtering and the rigidity of Polarized Thinking with the kaleidoscope of viewpoints, interpretations, and possibilities.

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WHY IS YOUR SUPPORT SO IMPORTANT?  ReChanneling develops and implements programs to (1) moderate symptoms of emotional dysfunction and (2) pursue personal goals and objectives – harnessing our intrinsic aptitude for extraordinary living. Our paradigmatic approach targets the personality through empathy, collaboration, and program integration utilizing scientific and clinically practical methods including proactive neuroplasticity, cognitive-behavioral modification, positive psychology, and techniques designed to reinvigorate self-esteem. All donations support scholarships for groups, workshops, and practicums.  

Controlled or Controlling: Who’s in Charge?

Anxiety, Cognitive Distortions, Empowerment, Mental Health, Neuroplasticity, Psychology, Self-Empowerment, Social anxiety disorder, , , , ,

Robert F. Mullen, PhD
Director/ReChanneling

Subscriber numbers generate contributions that support scholarships for workshops.

Cognitive Distortion #3: Control Fallacies

Our anxieties manifest in how we think about ourselves and how we think others think about us. We struggle with our fears of criticism and ridicule. The majority of us also live with depression, which can lead to multiple cognitive distortions including Filtering, Polarized Thinking, Overgeneralization, and Personalization. This chapter focuses on our tendency to engage in Control Fallacies due to our SAD-induced feelings of helplessness and hopelessness. 

A fallacy is a belief based on unreliable evidence and unsound arguments. As we discussed earlier, we cognitively distort to reinforce or justify our self-beliefs and validate our irrational attitudes, rules, and assumptions – how we think and behave.

A Control Fallacy is the conviction that (1) something or someone has power and control over things that happen to us or (2) we hold that type of power over others. We either believe events in our lives are beyond our control, or we assume responsibility for everything.

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When we feel externally controlled, we see ourselves as weak and powerless, blaming outside forces for our adversities. We accuse our gender, race, sexuality, weight, income, and education rather than assume responsibility for our actions. A health scare becomes an act of god, the philanderer blames his wife for leaving him, and our failing grade is because our instructor has a personal grudge. 

Conversely, the fallacy of internal control is when we believe we have power and influence over other people’s thoughts, emotions, and behaviors. We blame ourselves for their mishaps and misfortunes. It is our fault our friend turns to drugs because we weren’t supportive. Our supervisor suffers a heart attack because we continually miss deadlines.

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We believe external forces control us because we feel powerless over what happens to us. Our sense of hopelessness tells us any effort towards remedy is futile. “They think I’m incompetent.” “She finds me unattractive.” “I don’t belong here.” We subsequently feel guilty for our inadequacy, and shame for our weakness. We wallow in self-pity, convinced that attempts at happiness are pointless. 

Our tendency to unjustifiably blame ourselves for our social anxiety disorder leads to internal control fallacies. Had we moderated our adolescent behavior, we claim, we could have prevented the onset. This leads us to believe we have control over other things we bear no responsibility for. “It’s my fault she’s unhappy.” “He drinks because I ignored him.” The belief we have let everyone down wreaks havoc on our emotional well-being and our sense of competence. 

These control fallacies inform us we are not assigning blame in the appropriate ways. We need to stop taking responsibility for problems we do not create and assume responsibility for our actions. That is only logical. Unfortunately, SAD subsists on our irrational thoughts and behaviors.  A fundamental component of recovery is learning how to identify our cognitive distortions and devise rational responses. 

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WHY IS YOUR SUPPORT SO IMPORTANT?  ReChanneling develops and implements programs to (1) moderate symptoms of emotional dysfunction and (2) pursue personal goals and objectives – harnessing our intrinsic aptitude for extraordinary living. Our paradigmatic approach targets the personality through empathy, collaboration, and program integration utilizing scientific and clinically practical methods including proactive neuroplasticity, cognitive-behavioral modification, positive psychology, and techniques designed to reinvigorate self-esteem. All donations support scholarships for groups, workshops, and practicums.

Chapter 9: Constructing Our Neural Information

Anxiety, Cognitive Distortions, Depression, Mental Health, Psychology, Self-Empowerment, Social anxiety disorder, , , , , ,

Robert F. Mullen
Director/ReChanneling

Subscriber numbers generate contributions that support scholarships for workshops.

“Dr. Mullen is doing impressive work helping the world. He is the pioneer of proactive neuroplasticity utilizing DRNI – deliberate, repetitive, neural information.” – WeVoice (Madrid)

This is a draft of Chapter Nine – “Constructing Our Neural Information” in ReChanneling’s upcoming book on moderating social anxiety disorder and its comorbidities. We present this as an opportunity for readers to share their ideas and constructive criticism – suggestions gratefully considered and evaluated as we work to ensure the most beneficial product to those with emotional dysfunction (which is all of us to some degree). Please forward your comments in the form provided below.

<9>
Constructing Our Neural Information

“The problems are solved, not by giving new information,
but by arranging what we have known since long.”
― Ludwig Wittgenstein

A comprehensive recovery program has three primary goals: (1) To replace or overwhelm our negative thoughts and behaviors with healthy, productive ones, (2) to produce rapid, neurological stimulation to change the polarity of our neural network, and (3) to regenerate our self-esteem.

Proactive neuroplasticity is our ability to govern our emotional well-being through DRNI – the deliberate, repetitive, neural input of information. What is significant is how we dramatically accelerate and consolidate learning by consciously compelling our brain to repattern its neural circuitry. DRNI empowers us to proactively transform our thoughts and behaviors, creating healthy new mindsets, skills, and abilities. 

Before delving into the construction of our neural information, let’s break DRNI down into its components so we fully understand the purpose and the process.

Deliberate. A deliberate act is a premeditated one; we initiate and control the process. Let’s review the three forms of neuroplasticity. Reactive neuroplasticity is our brain’s natural adaption to externally driven information that impacts our neural network. Active neuroplasticity is cognitive pursuits such as dancing, yoga, or assembling a puzzle. It is not a deliberate manipulation of our neural network and is often impulsive. To be proactive is to intentionally cause something to happen rather than respond to it after it has happened. Proactive neuroplasticity is the deliberate act of reconstructing our neural network. Its purpose is to overwhelm or replace negative and toxic neural input with healthy positive information. As psychoanalyst Otto Rank confirms in Art and the Artist, “positively willed control takes the place of negative inhibition. 

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Repetition is the act or an instance of repeating or being repeated – in this case, our neural information. Common synonyms of repetitive include monotonous, tedious, and mind-numbing. The process can be off-putting unless we remain mindful of its purpose, which is the positive realignment of our neural network. Proactive neural Information consists of short, self-affirming, and self-motivating statements we commit to memory and repeat to expedite learning and unlearning. 

Neural input is the stimuli that impact our brain and compel its circuits to realign and create new neurons. The gateway to information, receptor neurons do not react to every stimulus. Our brain receives around two million bits of data per second but is capable of processing roughly 126 bits, so it is important to provide substantial information. 

Multiple tools assist in our recovery, and we identify them throughout this book. Coping mechanisms moderate our situational fears, graded exposure eases our transition into society, and cognitive comprehension corrects our irrational assumptions. In this chapter, our focus is on the rapid and concentrated neurological stimulation that compels a sensory neuron to spark, initiating a neural chain reaction. The more repetitions, the more durable the circuits. 

Neural stimuli are sensory – sights, sounds, tactile impressions; mental in the form of memory, experience, and ideas; and emotional incited by images, words, and music. The purpose of inputting neural information in proactive neuroplasticity is to overwhelm or replace toxic with healthy information in the form of positive electrical energy. The content and motive of our information determine the positive or negative polarity of its energy – the size, amount, or degree of that which passes from one atom to another in the course of its chain reaction. 

We begin the process of DRNI by identifying the goal of our information. What is our intention? What do we want to achieve? Are we challenging our anxieties about a social event? Are we asking for a raise? Are we confronting the family conspiracist at Thanksgiving dinner? A firm, specific goal enables the process. 

Then we identify the actions or measurable steps needed to achieve the goal. Our goal is the outcome we want to achieve; the objectives are the means necessary to achieve the desired outcome. Goals and objectives work in tandem. If our goal is to challenge a feared-situation, what is our strategy, and what coping mechanisms will make that happen. 

Now we construct our information – the self-empowering statement(s) that support our goal and objectives. To ensure its integrity, the information is sound in its construction. Meeting the following eight guidelines will establish an effective neural response. The best information is rational, reasonable, possible, positive, goal-focused, unconditional, concise, and in first-person present or future form.

Rational. Our overarching objective in recovery is to subvert the negative self-beliefs and image that stem from our core and intermediate beliefs influenced by childhood disturbance and onset. We manifest these self-defeating perspectives in our automatic negative thoughts (ANTs). For the most part, our assumptions are illogical and cognitively distorted. Countering them requires devising a rational response. If our ANT corresponds to our SAD-indued fear of ridicule or criticism, a rebuttal might be an affirmation of our significance – mindfulness of the value of our contributions.

Reasonable. Unreasonable means without reason, which is a definition of insanity. We are either sensible and of sound judgment or are cognitively impaired. Unreasonable aspirations and expectations impact the soundness of our information. “I will publish my first novel” is an unreasonable expectation if we choose to remain illiterate.

Possible means it is within our power or capacity to achieve it. Because our social anxiety attacks our confidence and self-esteem, we tend to subvert our inherent and achieved attributes, which limits our recognition of possibility. 

Positive. For our purposes positive means we eliminate negative thoughts, words, or statements from our information. Rather than stating, “I will not be afraid,” preferable statements could be “I am confident,” or “I will be courageous.”

Goal-Focused. If we do not know our destination, the path will be unfocused and meandering. We focus the content of our information on our goals and objectives. For SAD persons, our overarching goal is moderating our fears, anxieties, and ANTs. 

Unconditional. Our commitment to the content of our information must be unequivocal. Any undertaking contingent upon something or someone else weakens its resolution and potential. Saying “I might do something” means “I may or may not do something.” How comfortable are we when someone says, “I might consider paying you for your work?” 

First-Person Present or Future. Our information is a self-affirming and self-motivating commitment to our current or future. The past is important to intention but irrevocable. “I can do this.” Future time as self-fulfilling prophecy is also fine: “I will succeed,” for example. 

Concise. We express our information in succinct statements purposed to initiate the rapid, concentrated, neurological stimulation that transmits the electrical energy from one atom to another in the course of its chain reaction. Brevity also makes it easier to commit our PPAs to memory because information changes as it evolves in recovery. 

The importance of productive neural input is indisputable. It expedites and integrates our three primary goals, each complementary to the others. The deliberate and considered replacement of our negative thoughts and beliefs with healthy, productive ones assists in changing the energy polarity of our neural network and simultaneously helps regenerate our self-esteem.

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Comments. Suggestions. Constructive Criticism.

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WHY IS YOUR SUPPORT SO IMPORTANT?  ReChanneling develops and implements programs to (1) moderate symptoms of emotional dysfunction and (2) pursue personal goals and objectives – harnessing our intrinsic aptitude for extraordinary living. Our paradigmatic approach targets the personality through empathy, collaboration, and program integration utilizing scientific and clinically practical methods including proactive neuroplasticity, cognitive-behavioral modification, positive psychology, and techniques designed to reinvigorate self-esteem. All donations support scholarships for groups, workshops, and practicums.  

The Facileness of Blaming 

Anxiety, Cognitive Distortions, Empowerment, Mental Health, Neuroplasticity, Psychology, Self-Empowerment, Social anxiety disorder, , , , ,

Robert F. Mullen, PhD
Director/ReChanneling

Subscriber numbers generate contributions that support scholarships for workshops.

“Dr. Mullen is doing impressive work helping the world. He is the
pioneer of proactive neuroplasticity utilizing DRNI—deliberate,
repetitive, neural information.” — WeVoice (Madrid)     

Cognitive Distortion #2: Blaming

We cognitively distort Blaming when we wrongly assign responsibility for things and happenings. Social anxiety disorder thrives by making us feel helpless, hopeless, undesirable, and worthless. The burden of responsibility for our negative self-image can be overwhelming and compels us to hold someone or something accountable.

Since we have determined that SAD onset is a consequence of childhood disturbance, we recognize that attributing blame for our symptoms makes no sense. The Fallacy of Fairness, however, alerts us to the perceived injustice of SAD, and our Emotional Reasoning compels us to assign blame. Something or someone provokes our fears and anxieties; blaming SAD for everything does not relieve the anguish of our negative self-beliefs. When we see ourselves as victims, we need to blame someone or something for our victimization. 

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One alternative is external blaming – holding others accountable for things that are our responsibility. Blaming someone or something for our personal choices and decisions seems illogical, but remember, SAD sustains itself on our irrationality. Besides, if we feel helpless, how can we hold ourselves accountable? If we believe we do not have the power to overcome our challenges, does it not make sense to blame someone else?

internal blaming is assuming personal responsibility for the problems of other people and things that go wrong which do not involve us. We view everything as our fault and think we are responsible for everyone. If our roommate is unhappy, it must be something we did. Internal or self-blaming can be expressed as power or weakness (Control Fallacies). When we blame ourselves for our symptoms, we feed into our perceptions of incompetence and ineptitude. Believing we have power and influence over other people’s thoughts, emotions, and behaviors can be seen as grandiosity. Both correspond to our low self-esteem and sense of inferiority.

There is a difference between internal blaming and taking responsibility. Holding ourselves accountable for our actions is the mature and ethical approach to emotional well-being and social responsibility. Internal blaming is when we take responsibility for things that we are not accountable for. 

Until we devise rational responses to our fears and social avoidance, we tend to assign blame for our negative thoughts and behaviors. The ability to look at our actions through the prism of intellectual awareness is a necessary component of the transformative act and indispensable to recovery. Rational response allows the flow of positive thought and behavior necessary for recovery, eliminating the need to blame. Until we master recovery, we will continue to search for avenues to unburden ourselves of responsibility. 

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WHY IS YOUR SUPPORT SO IMPORTANT?  ReChanneling develops and implements programs to (1) moderate symptoms of emotional dysfunction and (2) pursue personal goals and objectives – harnessing our intrinsic aptitude for extraordinary living. Our paradigmatic approach targets the personality through empathy, collaboration, and program integration utilizing scientific and clinically practical methods including proactive neuroplasticity, cognitive-behavioral modification, positive psychology, and techniques designed to reinvigorate self-esteem. All donations support scholarships for groups, workshops, and practicums.  

Chapter 5: The Trajectory of Our Self-Annihilation

Anxiety, Depression, Mental Health, Neuroplasticity, Psychology, Self-Empowerment, Social anxiety disorder, , , , , ,

Robert F. Mullen, PhD
Director/ReChannelng

Subscriber numbers generate contributions that support scholarships for workshops.

“Dr. Mullen is doing impressive work helping the world. He is the pioneer of proactive neuroplasticity utilizing DRNI – deliberate, repetitive, neural information.” – WeVoice (Madrid)

This is a draft of Chapter Five – “The Trajectory of Our Self-Annihilation” in ReChanneling’s upcoming book on moderating social anxiety disorder and its comorbidities. We present this as an opportunity for readers to share their ideas and constructive criticism – suggestions gratefully considered and evaluated as we work to ensure the most beneficial product to those with emotional dysfunction (which is all of us to some degree). Please forward your comments in the form provided below.

<5>
The Trajectory of Our Self-Annihilation

“Maybe the journey isn’t so much about becoming anything.
Maybe it is about un-becoming everything that isn’t really you,
so you can be who you were meant to be in the first place.”
— Paul Coelho

While we remain conjoined with our social anxiety disorder, we continue to view ourselves as helpless, hopeless, undesirable, and worthless. These become our core self-beliefs as a result of childhood disturbance. By dissociating ourselves from our condition, we perceive things more rationally. It is SAD that compels us to think irrationally, and it is this compulsion that causes us to view ourselves as helpless, hopeless, undesirable, and worthless. In my experience developing and implementing programs to challenge the self-annihilation of those living with SAD, I have identified the overarching integrant. We are lost. Like the preverbal wandering lamb, our flanks are exposed to the wolves of our irrationality. 

We are the personification of the fabled protagonist wandering, helpless and hopeless, in the forest. Our hunger for safety and comfort drives us to grasp onto anything that offers sustenance, no matter how destructive to our well-being. We encounter the house of candy and voraciously consume it even though our instincts advise us of the likelihood of villainy within. 

Mindful we are not accountable for having SAD should relieve us of the unjustifiable shame and guilt we have relied upon to rationalize our condition. Since we are not at fault for having SAD, we should no longer feel the need to beat ourselves for our condition. Yet we continue to do so. Why is that? The answer is obvious. While we are not accountable for the cards we have been dealt, we are responsible for how we play the hand we have been given. In essence, our resistance to recovery continues the cycle of guilt and shame that causes us to continually beat ourselves up. 

It is a common refrain that those who do not learn history are doomed to repeat it. That is especially true for social anxiety because we find ourselves trapped in a vicious cycle of irrational fears and avoidance of social interaction. Contrary to what SAD tells us, we are not stupid. We know, after decades of denial, that our thoughts and behaviors are self-destructive yet feel doomed to repeat them ad nauseam. Then we beat ourselves up for our failure to escape this prison of self-abuse. We hate our life, and we hate ourselves for putting up with it. 

So, in this chapter, we are going to learn the history of our negative thoughts and behaviors so we can put an end to this endless cycle of fear that alienates us from our true nature. We will see the development of our self-destructive proclivities as a series of stages. It is not a perfectly linear trajectory. It is a collaboration of associated events. For example, the onset of SAD corresponds to our negative intermediate beliefs which are associated with our perceptions of childhood disturbance. Like the simultaneous mutual interaction of mind, body, spirit, and emotions in all human endeavors, each stage in our trajectory complements, influences, and overlaps.

The negative cycle we are in may have convinced us that there is
something wrong with us. That is untrue. The only thing we may be
doing wrong is viewing ourselves and the world inaccurately.

Core Beliefs

It begins with our core beliefs that underscore our understanding of self. Core beliefs are our deeply held convictions that determine how we see ourselves in the world. We formulate them in childhood in response to information, experiences, inferences, and deductions, and by accepting what we are told as true. They mold the unquestioned underlying themes that govern our perceptions, and they, ostensibly, remain as our belief system throughout life. When we decline to question our core beliefs, we act upon them as though they are real and true. 

Core beliefs are more rigid in individuals with SAD because we tend to store information supported by our negative beliefs, ignoring evidence that contradicts it. This produces a cognitive bias – a subconscious error in thinking that leads us to misinterpret information, impacting the accuracy of our perspectives and decisions. 

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Childhood Disturbance

During the development of our core beliefs, we are subject to a childhood disturbance – a broad and generic term for something that interferes with our optimal physical, cognitive, emotional, or social development. The word disturbance generates images of overt and tragic abuse, but this is not necessarily the case. As explained in Chapter One, any number of things can be defined as childhood disturbance. It can be intentional or accidental, real or imagined. (The suggestibility and emotional creativeness of the pre-adolescent is legendary.) I gave you the example of the toddler who senses abandonment when her or his parental quality time is interrupted by a phone call. It is safe to posit that every child perceives disturbances daily. They are universal and indiscriminate. Cumulative evidence that a toxic childhood is a primary causal factor in lifetime emotional instability has been well-established, and experts speculate that each of us will develop at least one diagnosable emotional dysfunction at some point in our life. 

Negative Core Beliefs 

This confluence of developing core beliefs and childhood disturbance generates negative core beliefs about the self (I am abandoned) and others (you abandoned me). Feelings of detachment, neglect, and exploitation are also common consequences of childhood disturbance. It is our self-oriented negative core beliefs that compel us to view ourselves in these four ways. As helpless (I am weak, I am incompetent); hopeless (nothing can be done about it); undesirable (no one will like me); and worthless (I don’t deserve to be happy). Our other-oriented negative core beliefs view people as demeaning, dismissive, malicious, and manipulative. Other-oriented self-beliefs incentivize us to blame others for our condition, avoiding personal accountability. We hold others responsible for our feelings of helplessness, hopelessness, undesirability, and worthlessness. 

Emotional Dysfunction

The next step in our trajectory is the onset of emotional dysfunction as a result of childhood disturbance. Roughly 90% of onset happens during adolescence. Two exceptions are narcissistic personality disorder and later-life PTSD. The symptoms and characteristics of emotional dysfunction often remain dormant, manifesting later in life. The susceptibility to onset originates in childhood – emotional viruses that sense vulnerability. Experts tell us that SAD infects around the age of thirteen due to a combination of genetic and environmental factors. Researchers recently discovered a specific serotonin transporter gene called “SLC6A4” that is strongly correlated with SAD. Whatever the causes, it is our perception of childhood disturbance that produces the susceptibility to infection.

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Insufficient Satisfaction of Needs

Self-esteem is mindfulness of our value to ourselves, society, and the world. It can be further understood as a complex interrelationship between how we think about ourselves, how we think others perceive us, and how we process and present that information. Maslow’s hierarchy of needs reveals how childhood disturbance disrupts our natural development. The orderly flow of social and emotional development requires satisfying fundamental human needs. Childhood perceptions of abandonment, detachment, exploitation, and neglect subvert certain biological, physiological, and emotional needs like familial support, healthy relationships, and a sense of safety and belongingness. This lacuna negatively impacts our self-esteem which we express by our undervaluation or regression of our positive self-qualities. This does not signify a deficit, but latency and dormancy – underdevelopment of our character strengths and attributes due to inactivity. 

Negative Intermediate Beliefs 

The confluence of SAD and the disruption in self-esteem generate life-consistent negative self-beliefs sustained by cognitively distorted thoughts and behaviors. The onset of SAD happens during the development of our intermediate beliefs. These establish our attitudes, rules, and assumptions. Attitudes refer to our emotions, convictions, and behaviors. Rules are the principles or regulations that influence our behaviors. Our assumptions are what we believe to be true or real. Despite similar core beliefs, we each have varying intermediate beliefs developed by information and experience, e.g., social, cultural, and environmental – the same things that make up our personality. 

Negative Self-Beliefs and Image

These SAD-induced attitudes, rules, and assumptions result in distorted and maladaptive understandings of the self and the world. In psychology, experts present two forms of behavior – adaptive and maladaptive. Adaptive behavior is behavior that is positive and functional. Maladaptive behaviors are dysfunctional behaviors. that unique characteristic of SAD. They distort our perception and we ‘adapt’ negatively (maladapt) to stimuli or situations. To analogize, if the room is sunny and welcoming, SAD tells us it is dark and unapproving. 

Automatic Negative Thoughts and Behaviors 

We articulate our fears through preprogrammed, self-fulfilling prophecies called ANTs. Automatic Negative Thoughts (ANTs) are involuntary, anxiety-provoking assumptions that spontaneously appear in response to the places or circumstances that provoke our anxiety. Examples include the classroom, a job interview, a social event, and the family dinner. Dysfunctional assumptions caused by our negative self-beliefs impact the content of our ANTs. Even when we know our fears and apprehensions are irrational, their emotional impact is so great, they run roughshod over any healthy, rational response. We will delve deeper into all of this as we progress. Then, together we will develop a targeted plan to dramatically moderate your social anxiety.

We briefly discussed how SAD utilizes propaganda to convince us of the validity of our self-destructive thoughts and behaviors. Propaganda is the distribution of biased and misleading information. SAD utilizes propaganda to convince us of the validity of our self-annihilating thoughts and behaviors. We manifest the effectiveness of SAD propaganda through our maladaptive behaviors and cognitively distorted responses to our fears.

Cognitive distortions are the exaggerated or irrational thought patterns involved in the perpetuation of our anxiety and depression. Everyone engages in cognitive distortions and is usually unaware of doing so. They reinforce or justify our toxic behaviors. They twist our thinking, painting an inaccurate picture of our self in the world. We distort reality to avoid or validate our irrational attitudes, rules, and assumptions.

Part of our counteroffensive is recognizing these cognitive distortions to challenge and counteract them. Throughout this book, we will analyze and discuss each of the thirteen cognitive distortions most applicable to SAD and analyze how we utilize them to reinforce and justify our irrational thoughts and behaviors.

The bulk of this chapter focuses on the origins and trajectory of our life-negative self-beliefs, illustrating the slow but inexorable progression of the SAD army on our emotional well-being. We are now beginning to understand SAD’s tactical advantage. This will help us forge the tools and techniques to (1) defend ourselves and (2) overwhelm or conquer our fears and avoidance of social connectedness. In Chapter Seven, we will look at some of these tools both scientific and psychological.

One of the repercussions of living with SAD is our self-annihilation – our compulsion to beat ourselves up for our difficulties rather than embrace our character strengths, virtues, and achievements. You are challenging your social anxiety. That is positive neural information, the cornerstone of proactive neuroplasticity. Acknowledge your determination, take credit for it, and give your psyche a hearty pat on the back.

“If you do not change direction,
you may end up where you are heading.”
— Lao Tzu

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Comments. Suggestions. Constructive Criticism.

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WHY IS YOUR SUPPORT SO IMPORTANT?  ReChanneling develops and implements programs to (1) moderate symptoms of emotional dysfunction and (2) pursue personal goals and objectives – harnessing our intrinsic aptitude for extraordinary living. Our paradigmatic approach targets the personality through empathy, collaboration, and program integration utilizing scientific and clinically practical methods including proactive neuroplasticity, cognitive-behavioral modification, positive psychology, and techniques designed to regenerate self-esteem. All donations support scholarships for groups, workshops, and practicums.