Emotional Reasoning.
We take our emotions as evidence for the truth. Examples: “I feel inadequate, so there must be something wrong with me.” “I feel overwhelmed and hopeless, therefore the situation must be impossible to change or improve.” (Note that the latter can contribute to procrastination.) While suppressing or judging feelings can be unhelpful, it’s important to recognize the difference between feelings and facts.
My definition of “Emotional Reasoning” does NOT include examples of the negative aspect of that, as in “I do NOT feel that way, therefore it’s not true.” I’m reasoning that I could have written that definition with this example: “I do not feel adequate, so there must be something wrong with me.”
All this came to my emotional mind this morning when I read this news headline:
That is all emotional reasoning. I know that two of those statements are true, no matter what I’m feeling. And I have many emotions about the third statement, so who knows if it’s true?
Do you see emotional reasoning in any of my photos from yesterday?
While artfully couched in the iconography of the Christian nativity, the songwriters were making a political statement: a plea for peace, and a reminder of the ravages of war.
The song opens with the night wind speaking to a lamb, long a literary symbol of peace. Soon we hear the line, “A star, a star, dancing in the sky//With a tail as big as a kite.”
“The star was meant to be a bomb,” said Gabrielle Regney.
Later we hear the lyrics “A child, a child, shivers in the cold,” which Regney said is a reference to the “real children” who inspired the song.
And the line, “Let us bring him silver and gold” was a reference to “poor children,” said Regney — a reminder of the human cost of war.
But no matter how you interpret the song, Noël Regney and Gloria Shayne left no mistake about the central message at the climax of the song.
“The biggest part for them was the ‘pray for peace’ line,” said Regney. “That line, ‘pray for peace,’ was very big for both of them.”
If you look at the good comments in yesterday’s post, you might notice that some good people had some trouble discerning whether that post had good news.
The news in today’s post is that I can relate to that confusion. When I look at the news these days, I often ask myself and others, “Is this good news?”
It’s probably not news that I’m going to share many new photos and relate them to today’s topic. I ask you, good readers, is this good news?
Is this good news that my son Aaron took so many photos of camera-shy Michael? I guess it depends on your perspective and on who you are.
It’s smart to define your terms, so here’s a definition of smart:
smart
smärt
adjective
1. (informal) having or showing a quick-witted intelligence.
“if he was that smart he would never have been tricked”
synonyms: clever, bright, intelligent, sharp-witted, quick-witted, shrewd, astute, able
2. (of a person) clean, neat, and well-dressed.
“you look very smart”
synonyms: well dressed, stylish, chic, fashionable, modish, elegant, neat, spruce, trim, dapper
verb
1. (of a wound or part of the body) cause a sharp, stinging pain.
“the wound was smarting”
synonyms: sting, burn, tingle, prickle
noun
1. NORTH AMERICAN informal
intelligence; acumen.
“I don’t think I have the smarts for it”
2.sharp stinging pain.
“the smart of the recent blood-raw cuts”
adverb
1. in a quick or brisk manner.
“it is better for tenants to be compelled to pay up smart”
Are you smart enough to notice that one word evokes intelligence, fashion, quickness, and pain? I’m smart enough to notice that I’ve never used the word “smart” in a blog post title before but not smart enough to know why that is.
My smart boyfriend and I have been having many discussions lately about how smart the U.S. President is or isn’t and how much this presidency smarts.
Let’s see if I can find any smart photos on my smart phone.
“Fake it ’til you make it” (also called “act as if”) is a common catchphrase. The purpose of “fake it to you make it” is that by imitating confidence, competence, and an optimistic mindset, with the hope that it leads to realization of that imitation in an individual’s life.
The phrase, “Fake it till you make it,” is very similar to the idea of Aristotle that to be virtuous one must act as a virtuous person would act. Although Aristotle did not have actual evidence of this, he was wise enough to come to the conclusion that acting as if you were something could lead you to become something.
…..
In some cases “fake it until you make it” it may be recommended as a therapy technique for combating depression. In this case, the idea is to go through the routines of life imitating as if one were enjoying it. Although it feels forced in the beginning, by continuing to engaged in this behavior eventually it will become real. This is an example of a positive feedback loop (Based on the research of Francesca Gino, Maryam Kouchaki and Adam D. Galinsky.)
The phrase is often mostly associated with Alcoholics Anonymous although it does not appear in either of the books that form the foundation of the AA program, Alcoholics Anonymous or The Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions.
I don’t know who makes those Wikipedia descriptions.
Do you ever fake it ’til you make it?
I won’t fake the fact that I have used that catchphrase in individual therapy and group therapy. “Fake it ’til you make it” is an invitation to practice more helpful thoughts and behaviors, even though those thoughts and behaviors might feel new, unfamiliar, and therefore “fake.”
I also won’t fake the main reason I am quoting that catch phrase today. The news makes me make this declaration: We in the United States have a president who — unprecedentedly and un-president-ally — is faking it until he makes it. This kind of faking it ’til you make it makes me have many worries, concerns, fears, and other unfaked feelings.
I’m not faking it. I read this before I started making this fake-it-’til-you-make-it post:
Look: We have known this since the campaign, but every once in a while it’s worth stopping and saying it. On issue after issue, Trump sounds like a student who vaguely recognizes a few phrases and is repeating them until the next student is called upon.
Here are some non-faked photographs I made yesterday:
I can’t fake it — there are MANY Fake It ‘Til You Make It’s on YouTube. Here’s the one that’s making it to this post:
Please don’t fake it — make some comments below.
Non-fake thanks to all who help me make this blog and — of course! — to you, for making it through today’s post.
For Fourteen Hundred and Ninety-Two days, I’ve been blogging at WordPress. For about Fourteen Hundred and Ninety-Two months divided by two, I’ve been aware of this rhyme:
In Fourteen Hundred and Ninety-Two,
Columbus sailed the ocean blue.
This inspires me to write my own rhymes this morning.
Yesterday was a day of too much, so I hope this post doesn’t contain too much for my readers.
Early in the day, I met with my friends Janet and Ray, with whom I’ve had too much fun over the years, and we had too much to eat for brunch. Janet, Ray, and I talked about too much, including how the new President of the United States had done too much during his first week in office. We wondered if it was all too much for the country.
Then, I went to Janet and Ray’s wonderful home in West Boylston, Massachusetts, which has too much space for any two people with grown children. I loved their place too much and took too much time taking pictures. I told Janet that, with all those photos, creating today’s blog post might be too much for me. When I have too much to share, I often include too much imagery without too much explanation.
After I spent too much quality time with Janet, Ray, and their son Spencer, I took too much of my realtor’s time on the phone trying to decide whether to put a bid on a house which might have too much space for me and my boyfriend and which has a price that might be too much.
Finally, just when I thought I’d experienced too much for one day, I took a phone call from Joyce from a professional psychotherapy society.
I had too much concern that Joyce was going to ask me to serve on a committee. I had decided that would be too much for me, since I’m recovering from too much heart surgery. Instead, Joyce asked me if I wanted to be President. Because that was too much to take in, I asked
President of what?
Now I need to decide, before too much time passes, whether being President of that amazing organization would be too much for me. Because I don’t have too much confidence about my Presidential skills, I wrote too much about that to Janet, including this:
I am in a state of shock right now because I just got a call from a member of my professional group psychotherapy organization and THEY ASKED IF I WANTED TO BE PRESIDENT! A very big deal. I didn’t see that coming. My explanation for this is that this is part of the national trend of having Presidents with no experience.
Have I written too much?
Would seventy photos from yesterday be too much for you?
If any of those photos are causing too much eyestrain, you can enlarge any one without too much effort just by clicking on it.
I’m choosing this song without taking too much time to think about it:
Any comment you might leave would not be too much for me. It would be just right.
As usual, I have too much gratitude for all who helped me create this post and for you, of course!
The Year(s) of Living Non-Judgmentally 