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But what would happen if the word were YELLOW, but written in the color blue? Your response time to identify the colors correctly will be significantly slower when the word and the color do not match—so much slower that it will be noticeable even without a stopwatch or other instrumentation. This slowed reaction time is what is known as the Stroop effect.
Think of an example in your own life when someone said something to you that you found hurtful. You may have suffered greatly, but the truth is that this person was simply sharing an opinion and expressing it via sounds emanating from their voice box. How is it possible that such a thing “hurt” you? Obviously you were hurt by your interpretation of it or the map that these sounds created in your left brain. Next, imagine for a moment if there were no self to hurt? Would words directed at this “you” ever be seen as a problem?
If one group is asked, “How fast were the cars going when they smashed together?” they will report faster speeds than the group asked, “How fast were the cars going when they bumped each other?” Simply using the words smashed or bumped creates two different perceptions of the same reality.
When the reality of one pattern is challenged, subjects would increase their belief in some other pattern to compensate. That is, when the belief in the safety and security of the self was challenged, another form of self-identity increases.
“this is how I am, and this is how I want to be.” We create an image of ourselves, split that image, and then suffer when one imaginary image can't live up to that “better” imaginary image. We want to be smarter, more attractive, more successful, etc., and all of these ideas are our “problems.” The great tragedy here is that we never realize that none of these conditions will ever be met completely to the satisfaction of the self because the self must continue to think in order to stay in existence and therefore will always change the measuring stick—always adding a new “better” to fall short
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The trick is to become less identified with your thoughts, to not take them so seriously, to see them as “happenings” rather than “the way things really are.”
“In your world, the unspoken has no existence. In mine the words and their contents have no being. . . . My world is real, while yours is made of dreams.”
Friedrich Nietzsche, “He who has a why to live for can bear almost any how.”
Frankl believed that it is “the very pursuit of happiness that thwarts happiness.”
It isn't a thing that turns one into two but rather the space between. A space between one creates two.
My students know very well not to tell me to “have a nice day” because there is nothing wrong with a bad day or a bad mood.
As you can imagine—and numerous studies have confirmed this—complaining leads to increased levels of anxiety and depression.12 When someone says, “This line is too long,” or “Nothing ever goes my way,” or “I wish I was someplace else,” the statement becomes a belief, and the emotions consistent with the belief follow. In short, complaints turn into the belief that there is something wrong with reality. This often snowballs, as one complaint brings on a wave of emotion that influences other beliefs in turn, and more negative emotions result from those beliefs. All of these unhelpful complaints
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While some students do believe they love to complain, more often I find that students become aware of more negative feelings after a long complaint session. Rather than feeling good or getting relief from letting off steam though long, drawn-out complaining with friends, most said they usually felt worse.
How much fun would it be to gamble in a casino that you owned? There would be no way to really win because if you did win, you would lose and if you lost, you'd still win. The only way to have fun in your own casino is to forget that you are the owner. Only then would the wins be a rush and the losses seem tragic, even if neither was really the case.
