21 Ways to Stop Worrying by Dr Albert Ellis, 1991

This presentation by Dr. Albert Ellis was recorded live at The Institute for Rational Emotive Therapy in New York City on October 16th, 1991. Dr. Albert Ellis, president and founder of the Institute for Rational Emotive Therapy, has been a psychotherapist in New York City for over 40 years. 1990 marked 35 years since he first developed REBT. Rational Emotive Therapy is the original cognitive behavior therapy, a short-term problem-solving approach to mental health. Dr. Ellis is perhaps the most well-known of modern psychologists, both because of his prolific production of books and articles and his iconoclastic approach to the challenges posed by modern life.

The following lecture and demonstrations are based on techniques described in Dr. Ellis's formidable repertoire of writings, including "How to Stubbornly Refuse to Make Yourself Miserable About Anything—Yes Anything!" and the classic "A New Guide to Rational Living."

First, I'm going to define worry, or its technical name, which is anxiety. We usually call it anxiety, but the public calls it worry, and it takes many different forms, which you may or may not recognize in yourself. The first is called ego or worry, or ego anxiety. People worry about their doing poorly and putting themselves down for it. And "poorly," as I'll say in a little while, usually means not succeeding at what they want to succeed at, and also not succeeding in their relationships. They worry much more about their relationships, often than anything else.

But ego worry, or ego anxiety, has many forms, such as anxiety itself, and shame, and shyness, which usually means scared shitless, and embarrassment, and humiliation, and insecurity feelings. It's often called, and I often call it, self-downing, putting oneself down, inadequacy feelings, lack of confidence, withdrawal from things that you may fail at or may be rejected at. Feelings of hurt very frequently have self-downing in them, and unassertiveness. Again, the reason why people are unassertive is because they're afraid to fail and will put themselves down for failing. Procrastination very often stems from worry. "If I do this thing poorly or not perfectly, then I'm no damn good." And sometimes hostility is a cover-up for worry. And when you're hostile, you're really worried underneath. You're first worried, anxious, and then to cover it up, sometimes you get hostile.

And this form, ego anxiety, which is usually the most dramatic form of worry, because you put you down, and nobody presumably is more important to you than you. But actually, the irony is the opposite, because when you're worried, you're making other people and other things more important than you, and saying, "I personally, as a human, am no damn good when those other things go wrong or I make them wrong." And the core of most anxiety, one form of it, the main core of this form of ego anxiety, is self-downing. "I must absolutely do well and be loved, adored, approved by other humans, especially significant others," meaning those that I think of as significant. And it's awful or horrible or scary to fail, to be rejected, to look foolish, to make a fool of myself, to even appear anxious. Not only to be anxious, but it adds another vector: that if I appear anxious to other humans, that's terrible. To speak poorly, etc., etc. There are a million of them.

But normally, they're involved with two main things. And one is performance. Performance anxiety is the issue. But the other thing is really a form, in a sense, of performance, and that is approval. But I really tell myself, or you tell yourself, because of course, I'm not worried about any damn thing anymore. I'm rational. So we'll talk about you rather than me. You tell yourself that I not only have to perform well—school, at work, at sports, at, you name it—but especially again, at love. I have to win the approval, gain the approval, perform correctly to win the approval of other humans. So the big and most dramatic form of worry, and probably the most common form, is ego worry, ego anxiety, performance anxiety, the dire needs for approval, not just the wish or the want or the preference for performance and approval. Everybody has that. Every human who's in the least human would have that. But the dire necessity to perform well, and to perform well in human, especially love, relationships.

Then the second form, which I called years ago, discomfort anxiety or discomfort worry, is not as dramatic, but it's very, very pervasive. And sometimes it takes the form of hostility. That you are the people in whom I'm interested, in whose approval I really not only want but need, that you must treat me kindly, have to treat me fairly, must take care of me, so that you'll give me exactly what I want, and not force me to do things that would provoke anxiety, worry, or provoke, bring on any discomfort. So frequently, it takes a form of hostility to others. But much of the time, because hostility to others is very dramatic, it results in such things as fights and feuds and wars and genocide. That's very dramatic, even in the goddamn movies, it's very romantic. Uh, but the other is less romantic, but very, very, very prevalent, and sometimes more prevalent. And that is the discomfort anxiety, which is sort of a synonym for low frustration tolerance, or it could easily be called self-pity. You pity yourself and worry in that way and tell yourself it's awful, and I can't stand it when I have hassles, when I'm in pain, when I get rejected again, not just in love, but in almost anything, for a job or anything else. When I have uncertainty, I absolutely need certainty and order. When I'm in any kind of danger, whether it's real danger, physical danger, or danger again of failing, of rejection. And of course, in the last analysis, it's awful to die, to be dead. I should, of course, live forever now that I'm here.

And another way of putting this: people not only worry about the roughness, the hardness, the hassles of the world, but they whine and scream that it's too damned hard, and it shouldn't be as hard as it indubitably is. And there's only some hardness allowed, a certain degree, mild degree of hardness is allowed, but not more than that. But then to make things really rough, all these forms of worry, shame, humiliation, self-downing, ego anxiety, discomfort anxiety, etc., etc., etc. Because there are many real forms of them. And don't think that if you have one, you can't also have the other. You can be worried about one, how well you do; two, how well those other bastards in the world do you in; and three, about the goddamn conditions, the world itself around you, the environment, the ecology, and everything else. So you can be talented and worry about all three. You have no trouble doing that.

But then to make things infinitely worse, most humans, just about all of them, are born with a tendency to worry about worry. You see, they—that really complicates things. Because once they make themselves worry, and I'll show you partly how they do this in a minute, I've already briefly said so, but I'll show you in more detail. But once they make themselves worry about anything, then they realize, they observe, they see that they are really off the goddamn wall and worried. And that's very uncomfortable. And also, as again, we'll say a little later, it leads to greater failure, including the failure of people observing that you worry. So they worry about worry.

Schematically, it goes as follows in the famous ABCs of REBT. That you have goals and values. And your goals and values are normally to succeed, to be approved, to be comfortable. Those are the three basic goals and values which practically all humans, practically all over the world, have. They have them about different things, different sports here than in other places, and different kinds of work here, but they practically all have the same basic values: to get along with other humans, to be approved by them, to succeed in various kinds of tasks, not just one task, and especially important tasks like vocational tasks, quite important, and to be comfortable, to not be diseased, not be in pain. Those are the three basic things. So those are your goals and values.

And then you go to A, in the ABCs, activating events, sometimes called adversity, where those values are not exceeded to, where you get rejected, you do fail, or you're in discomfort. And then it's the consequence. You have a choice of making yourself feel appropriate sorry, regretful, frustrated, annoyed, which are negative feelings, but they're pretty good feelings because they send you back to A to change it, or if necessary, if you can't change, to live with it. But you would feel sad and sorry and regretful if you failed, if you got rejected, if you were uncomfortable, if other people did you in. Those are all kinds of things that you don't want. They're against your goals and values. So it's C, you have a choice: feeling appropriately sorry and sad, or inappropriately horrified, terrified, worried, worried, worried, worried.

And let's suppose that you pick C. Now, how do you pick C? You pick it mainly by taking your perfectly sensible, normal, healthy, rational beliefs that "I don't like A. A is a pain in the ass. I wish the hell it weren't so. The rejection, the frustration, the lack of success, the failure, etc. I wish it weren't so. But alas, it is. Now, what do I do to change it or live with it?" Then you feel, if you stick to that preference, that desire, that wish to have A, not the B way against your values, that it's fine. So you produce C, consequence, good consequence, even though it's a painful feeling. But then, alas, being a screwball, a talented screwball to begin with, and a worrier who takes A and whines and whales about it instead of trying to live with it or correct it, you go on to demand, a command, that adversity, activating events that are against my interest and values, absolutely under no condition should not must not exist. And as soon as you take your desires and raise them or change them into Jehovian commands that "I must do well, and you must treat me well, and the world must recognize how noble I am and do well by me," as soon as you tell yourself that crap, that horseshit, then at C, consequence, you produce anxiety, worry, shame, all those things I mentioned a few minutes ago.

But as I said, being very good at this game of plaguing yourself, you're a born self-plaguer. Why are you a born self-plaguer? Because you are, because you're a goddamn human, because humans are crazy, because that's their nature. They don't need their mothers and fathers to help them, though they get some help from their mothers and fathers. But as I always say, if you were lucky enough to be born an orphan, you'd still be out of your [ __ ] mind. That's your nature to upset yourself, to worry. You do it. You don't need aid from your mother and father. They help, as I said, they're really good at that. But you don't need them. So you choose to feel anxious, worried, ashamed, downed, self-hating, hating other people at C. And then you notice that you say, "Ah, I am worried. I am upset. I am anxious." And then you could sanely say, "As I dislike, as I don't want, as I wish it weren't so, what a pain in the ass a pain in the ass that is." And then again, it's C about your worry yourself. You would feel sorry and disappointed. "Isn't it too damn bad I'm worried? But I am. Now, what the hell do I do about it? Or if I can't get rid of it, I'll live with it."

But you don't do that. You really push it. You look for things to plag yourself with. So you say, "Hey, again, I'm really very worried. I'm really very anxious. I'm very, very ashamed or very self-downing. Be as I should not ought not must not be." And then you create anxiety about anxiety, depression about depression, guilt about anger, etc. So that's your nature to do this. To first stupidly, foolishly upset yourself, as all humans do some of the time. Now, some of you are really talented, so you do it all the time. And you can go to therapy here. But all of you do it some of the time. And then once you upset yourself about anything, you upset yourself about your upsetness. So that becomes very complicated. And the problem is to really first un-upset yourself about your worry, about your anxiety, about your selfing. Accept it, see it, recognize it, feel it. And then don't down yourself for having it. And then go back to it, as I'll show you how to do in a few minutes, to minimize or preferably get rid of it. But you'll never get rid of all anxiety all the time, because that would be utopian and inhuman. But you can get rid of much anxiety, or even most anxiety, most real worry, most of the time, if, of course, you're bright enough to listen to what I'm going to say now. If you're stupid and you don't listen, then you'll never get rid of it. But I'm not going to upset myself about that. That's your problem.

Okay, so now, what are some of the main other causes? I just gave you the main causes of worry, anxiety, and worry about worry. Your demand, your command that you have to perform well, that people must do your bidding, that you have to be loved and approved the way you want to, and that life must be easy, particularly for a doll like you. So those demands, you're going to upset yourself with. But what else of things are there? Other factors in life which lead to anxiety and worry. And alas, there are. And some of them you don't really control, you only partially control. For example, we know statistically when we study them, people are much more anxious, not to mention depressed, when they make major life changes. They really change their profession, or move to another city, or something like that. When so-called traumatic events occur, something really harsh happens to them. It could be illness, it could be a disease, it could be death in a family. There are many traumatic events. Now, actually, these events in themselves are not traumatic. It's the way you look at them. But most people call them traumatic because most people look at them very badly and do upset themselves about it.

And the other thing that contributes to worry is the meanings you give to frustrations. The more frustrations you have, you'll probably worry more. But it's not really because of the frustration, it's the meanings that you give to them, defining them as horrible and awful when they're just as usual, a pain in the ass, period. Lack of personal hardiness. Some people are raised and born hardier than others. So if you're vulnerable, if you're weak and unhardy, that will enhance your worry. Lack of leisure or too much leisure, which is really funny. Because if you have lack of leisure, then you're frantic and you have to run around, do all the things, don't have much time for yourself, so that increases worry. But if you have too much leisure, then you're not occupied with enough other things. So being a talented screwball, you sit back and worry, worry, worry, and consume most of your time of your leisure doing that, or a lot of it. Overloading of work frequently leads to anxiety. And again, it's not really the overloading, because first of all, you overloaded yourself. But it's the way you look at it. But many people, and most people, if they're overloaded at work, will start making themselves anxious. The belief that you can't control events, or what Martin Seligman calls learned helplessness. He found years ago that even animals, when you take events out of their control and they see that certain bad things will keep happening to them, give up. They get learned—I'd say self-learned helplessness. But humans are more talented screwballs than animals, so they do it more. And even when they can control events, but they'd have to push their asses to do something hard to do, so they say, "No, I can't. It's too much work." But as soon as you decide that outer events are beyond your control, you very frequently worry about it. And then sometimes you get to hopelessness. "It'll never be any good. Or bad time, I get what I want, I'll be dead, dead, dead, or homeless, or something like that. It's hopeless." Then you really start worrying. That's just another degree of the same thing. And a lack of commitment to anything that you're doing, just meandering through life without commitment, will again tend to let you increase worry.

All these things, once again, don't really make you worried. But most people, when they occur, do worry about them. So they are contributing factors. They're not really direct causes. Most people see them as direct causes. "There was a traumatic event, and now naturally I'm worried." But really, they always have to tell themselves, be their belief system, something about the traumatic event. Now, the degree of self-downing, especially worry, depends on the degree of stress in your life, what you are put upon to do by your family, by your wife or husband, by your children, by your boss, etc. There are all kinds of stresses and strains. And how you insist, commands, that you have to conquer them. So the various degrees range from "I have to do well, conquer, live with, and get along with these stresses." "I have to do outstandingly well," which is much more so. "I have to be perfect, do perfectly well." So just try that one on for size, and you'll see how worried you are. "I must have certainty. Everything in the world must be in perfect order the way I want it." And, uh, some people stupidly say, "I must be immortal. Give me a guarantee of immortality, or else I won't play in this goddamn ball game." And since they can't get that guarantee, it may exist, but there's no guarantee. They get very worried.

So worry is rather complicated. Worry, anxiety—it's often called stress today. But the stress means one, there are stress sores in my life, and they do exist. And then the stress that I feel about them is really another name for worry or anxiety. Now, worry, of course, or you wouldn't be here today, has different disadvantages. It—I'll show you in a minute, it also has some advantages. But it has many disadvantages. And one is that you just feel rotten when you're anxious, not just concerned, but anxious. Then you usually feel upset and rotten. And then you work inefficiently, which is one of the great errors of life. Because most people worry, especially about a job they're going to do or a test they're going to take, in order to do better. But the more they worry and say, "I must do it well, I must do it well, I must get an A, I must get 100%," then you get inefficient because you're not—not really focusing on the subject, what you're doing, the matter, the test, the job. You're focusing on, "Will I succeed? I have to succeed." And then that distracts you. So anxiety, worry, is one of the greatest distractors of life.

Another disadvantage is the one I sort of hinted at before, that it is very often not always visible to others. So they see that you're worried. And especially at a job interview, or an interview for any kind of thing, getting into school, people don't favor that kind of thing. We don't think that anxious, worried people are great candidates for getting into school, or getting a job, or even loving them, marrying them, etc. So that's a disadvantage. And then statistics show that there's a fairly high correlation between anxiety, worry, and various so-called psychosomatic illnesses. That in many illnesses, such as high blood pressure, and not cancer, but high blood pressure, and stomach disorders, and things like that, that the correlation can be as high as .4 between the ailment that you have and worry. Worry very frequently upsets your whole system. And if you're prone to various psychosomatic reactions, then that will help knock you off by itself. It might not, but other factors get in there. And of course, the big one I mentioned before, the big disadvantage of worry is anxiety about anxiety, worry about worry. Because almost everybody who worries, and really intensely worries, then gets worried about worrying. And saying, "I must not worry, I must not worry, I must not worry." And then they worry four times as much. So that's a real disadvantage. You get so preoccupied with that secondary symptom—the primary symptom is anxiety itself, and the secondary symptom is anxiety about anxiety—you get so preoccupied with that that you never get back off to the original anxiety and even find out what you're originally worried about, because now you're so worried about your worry that that preempts everything and makes all progress stop.

However, worry has advantages, especially if you divide it, as often we do, into appropriate concern—I'm concerned that I do well, I'm concerned that you love me, I'm concerned that I be comfortable, I'm concerned that I have few or no diseases—and inappropriate horror, terror, panic, etc. So if you keep it closer to concern, that is very helpful. Because if you weren't concerned, you wouldn't even live. You'd eat the wrong things, and you wouldn't do your exercises, and you wouldn't watch—walking across the street. So concern, which laps over into worry, but is not exactly the same thing, is exciting. It's adventurous. And anxiety itself is sometimes exciting. It's interesting. Gives you something to think about. It pushes you. Concern pushes you to achieve. "I am concerned about doing well," and then you'll study your books, or practice your public speaking, or whatever you do. So that's good. And anxiety, or certainly concern, serious concern, is self-protective. Again, you wouldn't live, 'cause you'd walk off cliffs and fall out of high windows if you really weren't concerned about them. Uh, concern leads to enjoyment. Because you hate the hassles of the world, you're concerned about them and the blocks, and then you look for more enjoyable things, look for a better job, look for a better love relationship. So that leads to greater enjoyment. And sometimes, if you're just concerned and not really terribly anxious, it leads to greater health. As we now witness in our concern in the last 10 years about the proper foods, the proper exercise, and other health hazards. We are concerned about them, and I think we're doing more about them today than we did 10 and 20 years ago. And also, of course, concern helps society. Because you're not only concerned about yourself, but you're concerned about your family, you're concerned about your friends. And in the last analysis, or even first analysis, you're concerned about other people. You don't want to do anything which really harms others, because you don't want to be harmed. So concern has enormous advantages.

And even when it laps over into over-concern, anxiety, don't think that it's completely deadly. People always ask me, "Well, why is the goddamn human race so over-concerned, so anxious?" Because it doesn't do that much good and it has great disadvantages. And the answer is probably that in caveman and cavewoman days, you had to be very, very concerned, practically anxious, because you had great hazards such as lions and tigers and fire and other humans to fight with. And consequently, unless you were on the—very, very concerned about it, and practically watching every second, 'cause humans, don't forget, are thin-skinned animals, you probably wouldn't have survived. So anxiety may have helped humans to survive in the old days, and we still preserve it. It doesn't easily go down. And it would be nice if we got it only into appropriate concern, but it overlaps with inappropriate over-concern. And evolution—nature doesn't give a [ __ ] for the happiness of humans, just for their preservation. Evolution is oriented toward preserving the human race, not necessarily making it happy. So consequently, over-concern, anxiety, even terror, even horror, may be inbuilt into the human race. It's very easy for us to tap into it. Even though today, with police force, presumably a police force in New York City, and with other safety factors around, we have insurance, for example, today against the house burning down, and we live in houses that are not subject to rain and even earthquakes very easily, they can survive. So there's less reason for utter safety than there was thousands and thousands of years ago. But we still better be very concerned, especially when a lot of humans live together, because then they have to cope with other humans.

But get back to the main psychological causes of anxiety, worry, terror, fright, etc. The usual thing is first, the need to succeed, to be outstanding, to be great, to be perfect, etc. Then the very, very usual one, and probably again made the human race survive, is the need for approval. Because humans are gregarious animals, and if they just live by themselves or with one or two others, as few animals do, they don't—all birds don't go in flocks, and all animals aren't in great groups, some of them are. So the need for approval probably stems from the gregariousness of humans, but it gets escalated to the horror of disapproval and the dire necessity for status, wealth, sex, a mate, romantic love, etc. Soon you take anything that's good, like gregariousness, getting along socially with others, and mating—those are good things—and you make them into dire necessities. That's what REBT says is the essence of what we call neurotic disturbance: taking almost any preference, goal, value, desire—practically all of which are okay if they're just in that range—then saying, "Because I like it, it has to be," or "Because I like it, it must never, never exist." Now, as soon as you say that, you get into trouble.

And then the next thing, which is reasonably common in, I think, all social groups, is the dire need for fairness and justice. That in your original family, you need—you think justice and fairness. And then among your peers, your mate, your children, even your acquaintances, most people take the desire for justice and fairness, which helps humans survive again very much so, and they make it into a dire necessity. And then in low frustration tolerance, where you have to have the surroundings, the condition, the environment good. You have that in your original family, where you start demanding it. And I think that little kids start early in life, at one or two, they whine and scream that they must get their way. And then a little later on, they get ego. But originally, it's probably low frustration tolerance. And then you have low frustration tolerance or discomfort anxiety at school, in work, in with your various interests and hobbies, sports, creative ideas that you may have, music, art, science, and of course, with social ills. You have it: "There must not be pollution, there must not be corruption, there must not be anti-consumerism, too high prices." So again, it's all good as long as you're within the realm of desire and wish and preference. But as soon as you're saying, "Because it's good, I must, must, must, must have it," then you start getting worried. Because one, there's always a chance you won't have it, no matter how much you say you must have it. And even when you do have it, and that's the real horror, or I say the real disadvantage of worry, even when you have what you say you must have, you worry, "Will I have it tomorrow? Will I do well tomorrow? Will I be loved tomorrow?" And the answer is, who the hell knows? You never do know whether you're going to be loved tomorrow. There are no guarantees. And what we call neurosis, or most emotional disturbances, is inventing guarantees and then saying that you must get them. Well, lots of luck on that stupidity.

Now, what do you do? Most of this talk, I've outlined what worry is, but most of it will still be on what to do about it. All right? Now, first of all, you can change some of those activating events, those adversities in the world. You can go for economic betterment, for example, ecological change. We have a lot of people working in that area today. You can move to a new neighborhood or a new job when things are rotten. You can sometimes get rid of bad things by marrying, but sometimes you bring on more bad things, which is unfortunate. Or sometimes you get rid of bad things by divorcing. Sometimes that's a happier way of getting rid of them. Going away to school. You can change those activating events. Vacations will temporarily change, but then unfortunately, you have to come back to the goddamn hassle. Simplifying your life, the things you do will often help you. Getting more structure, figuring out how to plot and scheme your life and plan it. Sometimes taking time out in vacations is one way, but you can take time out without vacation, just temporarily. To take weekends off, you can take a few hours off or a day off to break up the stress sores of your life, the things you better do to get along in life, and that includes work and relating to others and all kinds of stressors into smaller pieces. Because many people worry because they have to do too many things at once. So sometimes by breaking them up into smaller pieces, one good way to worry less.

But people won't take it, most of the time, at the age of life, the activating events, is to just accept the fact that you're going to often have mediocre solutions to them. And then you just accept that, and that will help you live with them. Plan things beforehand, the things that you do, and then presumably you worry a little less later. Don't again try too much. Then there are many kinds of problem-solving. In REBT, we usually try to get people over their emotional disturbances first—their upsetness, again, their anxiety, their terror, their worry, their self-downing, their rage at other people, their self-pity and self-hatred. And then we go back to A, those activating events, to try to show them how to problem-solve better. We do both. But you, in your own life, when you have real hassles at activating events, adversities in your life, they usually are at work or in school or in family or wherever they are, even in sports, then you can try problem-solving techniques, such as analyzing the situation, considering alternatives. People get hung up when they don't consider alternatives. Try many kinds of solutions before you accept one. Validate and check your solutions to your problems. Seek better solutions, even when you get one that seems to work so far. You can often get better. Assume that a solution to a given problem is possible, not needed. You don't have to, but it's possible, and that something can be changed. So you can do many things such as these to problem-solve. And that again largely makes activating events in your life stress sores better. Doesn't make them completely better, but better. But you can do that kind of thing.

And you can inoculate yourself against stress. Donald Meichenbaum, who is a good cognitive behavior therapist, has specialized since about 1970 in stress inoculation. To inoculate yourself against it, and to do that, you get information about stressful things, and you train yourself in coping skills, showing that you can do better than before. You don't have to, but you can. And then you figure out how to do that and apply your new coping skills to graded problems, first in your head, imaginary ones, make them up. Then actual problems in the world. And you can use reinforcement principles that whenever you do use stress inoculation, you figure out a solution, you reward yourself for having gone through this trouble. And then you could even penalize yourself if you didn't.

But REBT, as I said before, mainly tries to get at the core, the philosophic core of how you make yourself over-concerned, worried, frightened, un-needlessly frightened. Since you better be frightened of real dangers, again, when you're walking across the street, frightened about closing your eyes and not seeing the way, and even if on a very dark night without lights, you'd be frightened. So you better be fearful of many real dangers. But worry normally means fearful about not-so-real dangers, or exaggerated fear that you really made up about the dangers. And the first thing you do in REBT, we have, as usual, many thinking techniques and many behavioral techniques, many emotive-evocative techniques. But among the thinking techniques, whenever you're worried about anything, you use our cardinal rule: "Should." Whenever you're really upset, look for the goddamn "should." Look for the "must." Such as, "I have to do well. I must. I must. I must. I must be approved by others. People have got to treat me nicely and fairly and nobly. And conditions must be exactly the way I want them to be, demand them to be, and never be against them." So you look for those "musts." And I defy you to find any real inappropriate worry or horror or terror that doesn't have those "musts." Maybe there is such one, but I've never found it. And if you come, as many of you have, to my Friday night workshops, I think you see that whoever volunteers on fire, I show them right away there "musts." Because you can figure them out if you look for them. And assume that whenever you really panic, you're really terrified, you're really off the goddamn wall, that you are consciously or unconsciously sneaking in a "must." So you find it and rip it up.

And you go to what we call the derivatives of "must," which is first, moralizing. Because "I have to do well, and you must treat me nobly and kindly, and conditions of got to be the way I want it. It's awful, terrible, and horrible if I don't." And you rip those up. And you see if you really think about them, that awful and horrible and terrible are definitions you make up. There are many very, very bad things in the world, meaning against your goals, against your values, against your interest. But none of them are really awful. Even the very bad ones, because awful normally means completely, totally, 100% bad, which just about nothing ever is. More than bad, 110% bad, which you wouldn't think anybody would believe in. But the whole world believes in 110% badness when they define something as awful. And better than it must be, it's 82% bad, and it must only be 80% bad. Therefore, it's awful. So you face the fact that you create the moralizing. You don't create the badness in the world. There are many other people who are great at creating badness for you, some of your close relatives, for example, and some of your best friends. They're very good at creating badness. But you moralize about the badness. And along with the moralizing, you say, "Because it's so damn bad, as it must not be, I can't bear it, I can't stand it, I can't tolerate it." And that's arrant horseshit. Because "I can't bear it" means one, I'll die of it. And very few of you will die losing ping-pong. And you will be able to stand it. Some people do kill themselves, commit suicide, because they lost the ping-pong game or anything else. Very few of you will die of lack of love. Somebody you love somebody madly because you have poor taste, of course, and love them badly, and then they don't love you in return. Well, I haven't found a single person who died of that. But some screwballs kill themselves because they say, "I can't stand it, I can't bear it," instead of, "I don't like it." But if I stop telling myself this crap, this horseshit, that I can't stand it, then I get back to—there are almost always, I won't say always, alternative solutions. Because if you love X, believe it or not, you can also love Y or Z. X is stupid enough not to love you back. And whatever your goal is, whether it's work or play or anything, you can find alternatives. And "I can't stand it" means nothing in the whole world but this X will satisfy me. Well, that's a stupid definition in your head. So you say, "This may satisfy me more than anything else, 'cause it may. But damn it, I'm going to also be satisfied, if I have to be, with second, third, or fourth on the list." So you always can stand what you don't like until you're dead. And then you won't have to worry about it. Once you're dead.

And then the biggie, of course, is because I'm not doing as well as I must, and I'm not being—is loved and adored and approved as I should absolutely be, "I am no damn good. I am a turd for acting turdly as I must not act." And that's utter crap. It's the about the worst idea ever invented by humans. But about 100% have it much of the time, not all the time. And to get that, again, it's a nutty definition. You're defining yourself, your being, your essence, your personhood, in terms of some performance or act. And no matter how poorly you do it, your acts and performances, and all of us will very definitely do very poorly at times, not all the time. The fact is that you are not what you do. And you better never define yourself in terms of your performance. Because again, as I said before, even if you're doing remarkably well, then you say, "Oh, that makes me a good person," which is stupid of you. But you say that. But then you start worrying, "Yes, but next time when I do poorly, back to [ __ ] it goes on." So that's going to work at all. So you only define yourself in terms of things that cannot be disputed easily, such as your existence. You say, "I'm okay because I'm alive and kicking." And once I'm dead, maybe I'll be a [ __ ] then, but I won't worry about it now 'cause I'll be dead. Or a much better solution, which we're almost the only therapy that really teaches, if you're really wise and you read all my books, just to show how wise you are, then you will not rate yourself, your essence, your being, your totality, at all. And you only rate what you do. Because everything you do either aids your goals and values and desires or sabotages it. When you have a good public interview, a good interview for a job, for example, that aids you getting a job. When you have a bad interview and you spit in the eye of the interviewer, that doesn't help you get the job. So all your acts, and these practically every single one, can be giving a rating from zero to let us say 100, not 101 or 110, but you are not your action. You are not ratable. There's no way you can say, "I am good or I am bad." I do good or bad things. I am a human. I'm alive. I think I'm human. I'm not a werewolf. So I'm probably a human. But I do many good, bad, and indifferent things. So I'll rate them and them alone. And never say, "Never," never say, "I am a good person or I am a bad person." That would be the elegant solution. But if you're not right enough to get that, then you go to the lesser one, the pragmatic one. "I'm okay because I'm alive and kicking. Because I choose to be okay." That'll work. It's not good philosophically, but it'll work. It's not good philosophically, 'cause somebody else could come along and say, "I think you're a [ __ ] because you're alive and kicking." And you can't prove that you're not, and he can't prove you are. So then you're in trouble. So wise, you just stick to, "I'm not okay and I'm not not okay. I just exist. Now, what the [ __ ] do I do to enjoy myself?" Then you wouldn't be any trouble.

But the "must" again leads to another big thing, which Alfred Korzybski, whose lecture I'm going to give a lecture on him in November, the memorial lecture, he was a great engineer and philosopher. He pointed out among others, and he especially pointed out that as soon as you say, "I must do well," or "I must be loved," or "I must have comfort," or something, that's a very great overgeneralization. Because what you really mean is, "I must at all times, under all conditions, do this." And now that I failed, then you stupidly say, "Oh, always fail and never succeed." You wouldn't think any human would think that crookedly, but about 102% do, very often. So we say, dispute the, disputing the scientific method, prove that I'll always fail. Now I fail. So, F—you can't. There's no way to prove that I'll never get the person I love, or anybody that I really love. You can't. So whenever you get a "must," a "should," an "ought," a moralizing, and "I can't stand it," a self-rating, "I am good or no good," or an "alwaysness" or "neverness," then use your head, use your logic and your reason and the scientific method of alternative seeking. Look for other alternatives. Dispute it. Question and challenge it actively, over and over, until you pretty much give it up. Now, you'll sneak it back, because you are naturally a fallible [ __ ] up human. That's your nature. Unfortunately, you not only had a mother and father to help you be this way, but they gave you genes, and we know how crazy they were to begin with. So we know you have no chance of being sane, such as maybe I now am, very little chance of that. So therefore, you keep looking for your nutty, irrational, meaning self-defeating beliefs, and you go over them and dispute them and challenge them and think about them. Use your head, not to upset yourself, which you're largely using for today, but to un-upset yourself. Un-upset yourself a few million times. And then after a while, this crap falls apart, and you rarely—I won't say never—upset yourself and make yourself really terrified, really horrified. Again, you just do it occasionally. So you dispute, dispute, dispute. And when you dispute that "I must do well," you say, "Why must I?" And the answer is always, "I don't have to." Or, "Why must people love the doll like me?" And the answer is, "There's no goddamn reason. Didn't want they must. If they had to, they'd have to. But they obviously don't. They just have poor taste." Again, so they don't love me. Too bad.

Then you get to E, an effective new philosophy. That yes, I didn't do so hot this time, as I don't have to. And yes, I didn't get the love of this person now, as again, I need not get. And yes, the world is uncomfortable, as alas, it's going to be, and I don't have to have it thoroughly comfortable. So you get a new philosophy, which you keep going over till you sink it in. And one way you sink it in is you write out coping statements, E—effective new philosophy. And you go over them and think about them many times. "I never have to do well, but it would be preferable. I can cope with stress sores, adversities in the environment, and usually, though not always, do well. I never need, absolutely under all conditions, what I want. I will always, to some degree, fall on my face, be rejected, do stupid things, because I'm a fallible human, and there's no way I'm ever going to be perfect and infallible." So you write down coping statements and go over them about four and a half million times to just start believing them.

Then another thing you can do, another thinking technique, is called modeling. Where you look for people who are not that worried, even under adverse circumstances. You won't—you'll have a hard time finding some of them. But you can find people that you know, or people that you read about, biographies, who really had a lot of grim things, stress sores, happen to them, and they still weren't upset about them. And you model yourself. You see how they did it, and you model yourself after them, which you can do.

Then another thinking cognitive technique is reframing. Where you take the bad things in your life that you use to create anxiety and horror about, and you see them, look at them in a different light. And you see that the stress sores in your life, the bad activating events, are frequently very interesting and exciting, something to cope with, and they give you a challenge of overcoming them, if you stop whining and screaming about them. And they almost all have some good point. Because no matter how stressful or even bad a thing is, you can learn by it and find some good aspects of it. So you look for them.

And then one of the techniques I took from General Semantics is called "referring," where because you indulge in anxiety, horror, etc., you write down, you make a list of all the disadvantages of that indulgence, of giving in to your horror and your terror and your overly frightfulness. And you go over them and show yourself, give yourself motive to give them up. And the advantages of unconditionally, at all times, no matter how you do, accepting yourself. And then you won't worry very much if you have unconditional acceptance. And then you look at those advantages and the disadvantages of any addictions. Because most addictions, not all of them, come from worrying too much about something or other, and then you cover it up with an addiction, such as alcohol, overeating, gambling, or something like that. So you look at those disadvantages and the advantages, of course, of non-addiction. Then you use again, back to General Semantics.

Semantic precision. Because the reason you worry is you not only think sloppily, but you talk to yourself sloppily. And yet language gets into your thinking, and you're thinking back into your language. So whenever you find yourself saying, when you're upset, and you will look for it, you will find that "I should do well," change it to "I preferably should," or "I had better do well." But "I never have to," or "I absolutely need to be loved, approved, adored," change that to "I'd like it, but it's not a necessity." And "I'll never succeed now that I have failed several times," change that to "I find it difficult to succeed." That's my evidence, shows me. But there's no evidence that I never will.

Then one of the things we recommend all the time, since I found it works for our therapy clients so well. When I first started to do Rational Emotive Therapy in 1955, I had pamphlets which I wrote for professional purposes and gave them to my clients, and they read them, and they got better faster and more intensively. So now we have a whole slew of books, pamphlets, cassettes, audiovisual cassettes, etc. So find some good books, naturally our books and pamphlets, but other people's too. There are a few others who copy us, so they're pretty good too. And use psychoeducational methods for reading, for listening to cassettes, and especially anything which will show you how to unconditionally accept yourself. Give up all your commands and demands on yourself, on others, and on the world. Cuz that's what worry is. I demand that I do well. I demand that you treat me well. And I demand that the world give me what I want. And those are the things you damn well better give up.

And the other technique we found out many, many years ago that does well is teaching others. Use the methods that you learn here, or that you learn on yourself, and try various methods yourself. Some will work better than others. And if you start teaching these to other people, then you sink them into your own head. So learn some good, effective, planning, structured, rational self-helping techniques that you find are good for you, and giving up your overwhelming and overweening anxiety, and use them with others.

Now, in RE, we have found over the years, since I first formulated in 1955, that unfortunately humans do two things at once when they worry, when they're anxious, when they're over-concerned. And one is what I've been telling you so far. That is that they foolishly and stupidly, they really foolishly and stupidly, uh, upset themselves needlessly with their demands and commands. So they do that all the time. But alas, they do it not only repetitively, frequently from childhood onward. Some don't start in childhood, but they make up for it later. They start in adolescence or adulthood, and they continue forever. Once you start worrying about something, unless you use the method I'm talking about, you keep it up forever, till you practice and practice it. But they do it very powerfully, very vigorously, very strongly. So they have what we call "hard cognitions," not merely descriptive or cool or warm cognitions, but I very strongly and powerfully, over and over, "must do well," "must be approved," "must have comfort and ease." And therefore, when you use these techniques I've been talking about, you better actively and powerfully use them. Because you can easily tell yourself, as so many of our clients here at first do, "Yes, I guess I don't have to do that well and be that approved. I'll live and be happy if I don't." But underneath, they're saying, "But I really should." And that wins out.

So whenever you're using a sensible RE technique and it's not working, look for the fact that you're probably using it lightly, very, very lightly, not vigorously, and fight it very, very forcefully. And some of the techniques to use to fight it is, first of all, to acknowledge your anxiety, and no nonsense about it. Cuz innumerable people are really very anxious. They say, "Who, me anxious?" Or again, they drink the alcohol, take the drugs, and then they cover it up. Even decent medication like Xanax can cover up anxiety and stop people from seeing that they're anxious as they are. So first, you acknowledge that you really are over-concerned, not merely concerned, and don't kid yourself. "Oh yes, I'm just concerned, sensibly concerned about that." And you distinguish your inappropriate feelings, your horror, your terror, your panic, from your appropriate ones of sorrow, disappointment, regret, when things go wrong. And emotively, you work, especially on what I said before, and you work very strongly to always, always accept you, not what you do, but you, the doer, whether or not you perform well, whether or not anybody loves you, whether or not the goddamn world is very unfair and uncomfortable to you.

So the big thing is self-acceptance. It is the most powerful tool. Because if you really thoroughly accepted you, that would help you also accept reality and the world around you. Because one of the reasons you don't accept reality, and strong reason, is if that "I'm not capable enough of dealing with real dreadful things that happen." While self-acceptance says, "I never like really bad things that happen, and I'm not going to be deliriously happy about them, but I can accept them. I can often change them. And I never, never have to blame myself, even when I did these bad things actively. I created them. I'll blame what I did, never me for doing it." For the most powerful emotive tool is unconditional, at all times, acceptance of you, no matter what you do.

Then one of our other techniques that was invented by Maxie Maultby years ago, but we do it very, very a little more dramatically than Maxie did it. He's a rational psychiatrist. Is Rational Emotive Imagery. Where you imagine not good things happen. You see on the coping statements, you make up good things. "I can do it," or "The world's not as bad as it is," and that helps you get along in a world that often is pretty bad. But in Rational Emotive Imagery, you do the opposite. You imagine some of the worst failures that could happen to you, some of the worst discomforts, other people treating you very unfairly and unjustly. And you let yourself feel very, very upset. If you really imagine this vividly happening, you feel very, very upset. And then you'll be able to change, work on your feeling of upsetness, no matter what it is. You can change it to the appropriate feeling of sorrow, regret, frustration, and annoyance. Cuz we don't want you to feel happy when you imagine dreadful things happening. But no matter what it is, you can make yourself feel very sorry and regretful.

So when you imagine that you're failing, for example, cuz that's the people think that people most imagine failing, sexually failing, failing in love, failing at work, whatever it is. You really get in touch with the horror of it all, which you first tend to experience. And then make yourself change that, force yourself, which you can do, to change that to again, sadness, sorrow, disappointment, regret. And how do you do it? The answer is by changing what you're telling yourself. Because I've got hundreds and hundreds of people to use this technique. And I do it at this Friday night workshop that I do here on Friday. And I don't tell them how to do it. I, because you can do it without really being told how. But if you really work to change your feeling from an inappropriate horror to an appropriate concern and frustration and annoyance, the only way you usually can do it, I haven't found any other ways, is to change your thinking. And once you stop telling yourself, "Oh my God, look, that's happening. You're envisioning it. Isn't that terrible and awful and horrible and I can't stand it?" And instead, you tell yourself, "Shit, it really is happening, and I absolutely don't like it, but I can stand that. It's not the end of the world. Bad things will happen with it, but I can either change them or accept them." Then you will automatically, and you can try and feel sorry and disappointed rather than upset. But you have to do this technique. You don't have to be, you better do it about 20 or 30 days in a row until you get so practiced to changing your horrible feeling, your terrible feeling, your panic feeling, to that of concern and sorrow and regret. That after a while, you automatically start thinking of that thing, or it actually occurs. Because you might be thinking of giving a rotten speech, or handing in a terrible paper to your teacher or your boss, or something like that. You really feel horrified and panicked about it. But after you imagine it a while, you won't feel horrified because you're training yourself to feel just sorry and disappointed. And then you, it'll actually happen in practice. Sometimes your boss or your teacher or somebody else will criticize your performance a lot in vivo, and then you're able to feel sorry and disappointed. But the main thing is you really feel terribly upset, implode your feeling when you imagine this first thing happening, and then work your head off to change the feeling to an appropriate one. Because there are always appropriate feelings, no matter what happens.

And then the other thing which I invented years ago, we've used around here for many years, and I've just been giving it to my groups. I have five therapy groups every week, so we're inflicting it on them again, as we do every year or so, is my famous shame attacking exercises. And that's particularly good for people who put themselves down or worry about disapproval of others. Cuz practically all of you at times are in that class. And if you want to get over it, you really force yourself to go out in public and risk disapproval. You do something idiotic, shameful, ridiculous. Don't get arrested for doing it. Don't hurt anybody. But you do it really several times, and work on not feeling ashamed. Like our famous one where you get up at a lecture and you say something stupid before a thousand people and not feel ashamed. Or you, one of the women in one of my groups just this week, came in with one red sock and one white sock on, and she wasn't feeling ashamed. And it's certainly hardly anybody noticed it. During that, it's dramatically different. Or a really famous one which we've been using for years, but has now been upped and changed for the better, where you go to a drugstore at a crowded hour and you say, in a loud voice so everybody can hear, "I'd like a gross of condoms. And since I use so many of them, I should get a special discount." But now, one of our therapists, we give this to our therapists to do so they can inflict it better on others. Now he goes to a drugstore in Seattle where he works, and he says, in a loud voice so everybody can hear, "I'd like a gross of small condoms." And he's not feeling ashamed.

So you do those. You see, you can take those coping statements that I talked about before and forcefully, vigorously tell yourself, "I do not ever need what I want. I only prefer it. I can cope successfully with difficult situations. But when I don't, too damn bad. I'm never a shit. I just acted shittily this time. And I'd like to succeed all the time, but I never, never, never, never have to." And you go over those very, very costly. Then you can take a tape recorder and put on it some really nutty idea that you have, such as that you can stand any adversity whatsoever, and you have to be anxious when it occurs. And you vigorously for several minutes dispute it, very forcefully. And then you listen to it. Your friends listen to it. Your relatives listen to it, to see how powerfully you do that. And uh, one thing you could do, which is somewhat similar, but even more effective. You get one of your friends to hold one of your crazy ideas, your anxiety-provoking and inciting ideas, a nutty idea of yours. And you get him or her to think to it and not give it up. And then you have to talk them out of it. So you're really talking yourself out of your own shit.

So we have a lot of emotive, evocative exercises. And we use humor because when you're anxious, you lose your sense of humor. So we want you to reduce to absurdity some of your nutty ideas, like show yourself that you're a horrible, horrible shit whenever you lose a Tiddlywinks or something like that. And really make it absurd until you see how silly it is. And poke fun at your acts that you do stupidly, but never at you. But really rip up those acts rather than yourself. And use some of our rational humorous songs, which we'll get around to in a few minutes from now.

Now, finally, if you really want to get over anxiety, and the depression often it goes with it, and the horror, and the terror, and the panic, the main thing you do to keep it is to avoid anxiety-provoking situations. That's exactly the wrong thing to do. If you're afraid of public speaking, as I used to be years ago, and you never speak, you never speak, you never speak in public, you'll always be afraid. Whatever you, you're afraid of, that you're horrifying yourself about, you don't do. You escalate the fear each time. Cuz every time you don't public speak, you tell yourself, "It would be horrible if I did and fail." So then you get more fearful. So the main way you get over any anxiety-provoking situation, and you really using it to provoke yourself, is to do what you're afraid of doing. Now, don't do a stupid thing like again, jumping off a cliff. We're not talking about that. But whatever you're foolishly, irrationally afraid of, do that thing over and over and make yourself as uncomfortable as you can be doing it until you become comfortable and enjoying. Because that again is why practically the whole world is terrified of silly things because they run away. They run away. They won't go through discomfort. And the secret of practically all good, good psychotherapy and self-help therapy is to deliberately make yourself uncomfortable, uncomfortable, uncomfortable, until you become very, usually not all the time, but you usually well comfortable. And then very frequently, you'll enjoy it. If you do those shame attacking exercises, you'll be very uncomfortable at first. But do them and do them and do them, and then you find that they're humorous, funny, and you start enjoying it. The other people who are watching you may not enjoy it, but you do. So do what you're afraid of. Do it uncomfortably. Keep doing it. You can, if you want, reinforce yourself with something very, very pleasant, only after you do the shame attacking or the anxiety attacking exercise. And you can penalize yourself. You're really going to indulge in your silly anxiety, which most of the world does very frequently. Almost everybody does it. They have different ones. You all have different ones. But they have something. Almost everybody is making himself and herself anxious. Then if you won't attack it, you won't act against it, you won't feel against it, you won't think against it, then very often figure out some really obnoxious penalty. And every time you don't make yourself uncomfortable and you indulge in it, then give yourself that penalty. But again, anxiety is one fear which is afraid of real risks, like fighting a gang of thugs who instead of maybe giving over your money to them. That would be foolish because you can kill yourself that way. So it's one fear of real fear. But then two, it's horror, terror, panic about fears in your head. And almost everybody, when they make up, invent this horror, then refuse to take the risks of thinking and feeling against it and acting against it. So take some of your worst phobias, your worst anxiety, your worst fears, and force yourself to take risks. And again, don't jump out of windows. Not that kind of risk. But force yourself to take emotional and behavioral and psychological risks. And the more you risk, the less, less, less fear I can't guarantee you're going to have, but go try it and see.

Now, just to show you what the rational humorous songs are like. You all presumably have a song sheet. So it's a shame attacking exercise. In my god-awful baritone, I'm going to lead you with your terrible tenors, altos, and sopranos in song. So we'll just sing a few of them. And first, the second one on page one, which says "Rational Humorous Songs" at the top. "Perfect Rationality," which is against perfection. So I'm going to start you off, and then you're going to join right in. Okay? Ready? Go.

"Something the world must have a right direction, and so do I, and so do I. Something that with the slightest imperfection, they can't get by, and so do I. For I, I have to prove I'm superhuman, and better far than people are. To show I have miraculous acumen, and always rank among the great. Perfect, perfect rationality is of course the only thing for me. How can I ever think of being if I must the fly? Rationality must be a perfect thing for me."

"Okay. Against the dire need for love. Love me, love me only me. Love me, love me only me, or I'll die. Without you, make your love a guarantee, so I can never doubt you. Love me, love me totally, really, really try, dear. But if you demand love too, I'll hate you till I die, dear. Love me, love me all the time, thoroughly and holy. Life turns into slushy slime, lest you love me solely. Love me with great tenderness, with no ifs or buts, dear. If you love me somewhat less, I'll hate your goddamn..."

"The second one in the second column. You for me, and me for me. Picture you upon my knee, just you for me, and me for me. And then you'll see how happy I will be, dear. Though you beseech me, you never will reach me, for I am autistic as any real mystic, and only relate to myself with a great to-do. If you dare to try to care, you'll see my caring too will wear, for I can pare and make our sharing fair. If you want a family, we'll both agree, you baby me, then you'll see how happy I will be."

"I'm just wild about worry. Oh, I'm just wild about worry, and worry's wild about me. We're quite a tome to make like gruesome and filled with anxiety. Oh, worry, anguish I curry, and look for its guarantee. Oh, I'm just wild about worry, and worry's wild about me. Never wild about most be about..."

[Applause] [Music] [Applause]