Designing the Mind: The Principles of Psychitecture

by Ryan A. Bush

But the pursuit of self-mastery has further developed to encompass three major components: cognitive, emotional, and behavioral.

Reappraisal is an in-the-moment strategy we can use any time we are dealing with an undesired emotion. But in order to build a truly better mind, we are going to have to go a bit deeper to the core of emotional psychitecture. We don’t simply want to become aware of our harmful emotional reactions or change them as we are dealing with them. We want to remove them on a systematic level. We want to reprogram the cognitive algorithms which gave rise to them.

In order to reprogram bad emotional algorithms, we have to examine the beliefs at their root, identify the distortions, and practice their rational rebuttal until it has been internalized. This method for obliterating bad emotional algorithms and replacing them with adaptive ones is known as cognitive restructuring.

Cognitive restructuring is the fundamental tool of emotional psychitecture, and psychological research has found it to be highly effective for eliminating negative emotional responses.

Every time you log an emotion, take a note of the situation which triggered it, and if possible, the chain of thoughts which immediately preceded it.

By correcting the mistaken reasoning, you can permanently reprogram the algorithm and eliminate the undesired emotion.

use the method called Socratic questioning to challenge these distorted cognitions.

Once you understand that your painful emotion is the result of a distorted thought, you can begin to restructure the algorithm.

You restructure the core belief that x means y, and once you have done this, your brain will learn that similar lines of reasoning are invalid the next time a similar situation arises.

It is in our power to have no opinion about a thing, and not to be disturbed in our soul. For things themselves have no natural power to form our judgments.

With enough practice, you can learn to instantly identify the irrational thoughts that will cause you to suffer. You can develop the knowledge and discipline to take control of the ongoing story your brain is spinning. But in order to do it, you have to build the habits of noticing every distortion that enters your awareness, resisting the urge to indulge it, and shooting down each one before it takes your emotional trajectory down with it.

Make the psychitectural pursuit your highest priority, and watch your experience, your life, and your being transform. No matter who you are or where you are starting from, know that you have the power to transform your software and attain self-mastery. You can design your mind.