Morale For The Citizen Warrior

WHEN SOMETHING BAD happens, such as a terrorist attack, people tend to think about it pessimistically. It could be anything. If you try to convince a friend to read a book but he remains unconvinced, it is a setback. And a natural response to a setback is to think about it pessimistically ("I'm no good at convincing," "He is a hard-head.) But while pessimism may be a natural response, it is not the best response. Pessimistic thinking makes you less capable, and the thoughts themselves are usually mistaken as well. We are never so prone to exaggerations and distortions as when we feel down or upset.

When a thought-mistake (such as overgeneralizing or oversimplifying) makes you feel disheartened, discouraged, or helpless, it can stop you from taking action. There are specific, naturally-occurring thought-mistakes your brain is bound to make during difficult times, and these can make you believe you can do nothing about terrorism.

And when you are convinced you can't do anything about it, you won't do anything about it.

So one of the most important things you can do to halt terrorism starts in your own mind: Cure yourself of demoralizing thought-mistakes.

I'm not talking about positive thinking here. This is more like anti-defeatism or anti-discouragement thinking. Aim at making fewer mistakes in your thinking. This is more fundamental than positive thinking, and far more effective.

Cognitive researchers (scientists who study the effect of thoughts on feelings and behavior) have discovered that thoughts of hopelessness or helplessness can lead to anxiety and depression. These kinds of negative thoughts were once considered symptoms of anxiety and depression. But thought-mistakes actually cause anxiety and depression — and when you change the thoughts, the depression or anxiety disappears.

How do you change your thoughts? By repeating positive sayings? No. If you've ever tried that during difficult times, you know it doesn't work very well.

You change your thinking by arguing with the demoralizing thoughts as they arise in your mind. I'll tell you exactly how to do that in a moment.

But you'll run into two problems when you try to argue with your negative thoughts. First of all, negative feelings seem to arise on their own without being caused by thoughts, but, in fact, those feelings were preceded by a thought such as, "I will never feel happy again." A mental image flashes through your mind of yourself in the future, feeling terribly unhappy.

The thoughts go through your mind so quickly and so automatically, it's hard to notice. All you notice is the result: You feel bad. So that's the first problem people have with arguing with their own demoralizing thoughts: They often don't even know what thoughts made them feel demoralized.

The second kind of problem occurs even when you know you're thinking a depressing thought, but you believe your thought is true. For example, after a terrorist attack, you might think, "It's horrible that radical Muslims are out to kill us all, but there's nothing I can do about it."

You may be aware of thinking the pessimistic, defeatist thought, but if you assume you're correct, you'll make no attempt to argue with your thinking.

Rooting out defeatist thoughts can eliminate the defeated feeling. Arguing against those demoralizing thoughts can restore your fighting spirit and determination.

And when negative thoughts make you feel anxious, arguing with those negative thoughts can bring back feelings of calm and strength.

I cannot emphasize enough I'm not talking about "looking on the bright side" or trying to cover ugly reality with pretty thoughts.

The fundamental premise of cognitive science is that if you think the situation is hopeless and believe you can do nothing about it, you should look carefully at that assumption because it is usually wrong.

If your brain happens to be in the habit of thinking that way about certain kinds of circumstances, it is time to notice it and change it. This idea is powerful and effective.

In his book, Alone: The Classic Polar Adventure, Admiral Byrd described his brush with death from carbon monoxide poisoning. Byrd was stationed at a remote base deep in the interior of Antarctica in 1934, about as removed from any civilization as a man can get on this planet. He was utterly alone and without hope of rescue.

At one point in his ordeal, he gave up. He was going to die, he admitted to himself. This is how it would end. He wrote a note to the people who would find his body the following spring and then blew out the candles.

He lay there in the dark for some time, sad at his horrible fate. But then he remembered a scene from his past. He had been in a wrestling match, trying to win the championship at the Naval Academy. Near the end of the match, exhausted and in great pain, he decided he had no chance of winning.

But his mother was watching and he wanted her to be proud of him, so he used basically the same anti-demoralizing technique that cognitive scientists later discovered. And it worked. He had accidentally stumbled onto the secret of determination. His strength revived and he fought to the finish in that wrestling match. He didn't give up.

It worked then, he thought, so it might work here in the Antarctic even though his present situation was incomparably worse.

The single thought that revived him in the wrestling match was the realization that, as he put it, "although I seemed absolutely washed up, there was a chance I was mistaken."

That's an important key to becoming immune to demoralization: Admit to yourself that you might be mistaken about a pessimistic conclusion. Introduce some doubt. The doubt is legitimate. Most of us are far more confident in our negative assumptions than is justified by the facts.

IT IS HIGHLY EFFECTIVE

Disputing defeatist and pessimistic assumptions has been shown in many scientific studies to be extremely effective at permanently immunizing people against anxiety, worry, discouragement and depression.

For example, a team of researchers took thirty-three people with panic disorder who averaged five panic attacks per week per person.

Sixteen of them had weekly sessions with a therapist who provided emotional support. Seventeen of them had weekly sessions with a cognitive therapist who taught them to rethink their usual overreactions.

For instance, when a man felt chest pain, he was coached to come up with more likely causes than the first thought that came to mind (it's a heart attack). It was more likely to be heartburn, for example. And he was coached to remind himself that when these feelings occurred in the past, they had never amounted to anything.

In other words, he learned to doubt his automatic, habitual negative assumptions. He learned to recognize mistakes in his pessimistic thoughts.

At the end of two months, twelve of the cognitive-therapy people were totally free of attacks. Only four of the emotional-support people were totally free of attacks.

Among those who still had panic attacks, the cognitive-therapy people averaged one attack a week. The emotional-support people averaged three per week.

The researchers did a one-year follow-up. The success rate had not diminished in that time. Arguing with their own negative, pessimistic thoughts dramatically changed their lives permanently.

Similar changes in your morale (similar to cognitive therapy) can be achieved on your own using paper and pen. As a matter of fact, that's often one of the most common techniques cognitive therapists assign as "homework." Read how.

In his book, Learned Optimism: How to Change Your Mind and Your Life, Martin Seligman (a cognitive therapist and researcher) has a list of what to look for when you're arguing against a negative thought. Read his list here.

FIND MISTAKES IN YOUR THINKING

In David Burns' book, Feeling Good: The New Mood Therapy Revised and Updated, he has a list of what he calls "cognitive distortions." These are common thought-mistakes we tend to make in our thinking.

He has ten cognitive distortions on his list, and the list is complete (you'll find links to the list at the end of this article). Any mistake you find in your own thoughts are on his list because the brain makes imperfect judgments in a limited number of ways.

Our brains also process visual information imperfectly, which is why we have such things as optical illusions. When you look at the two lines to the left, one looks longer than the other. But they are the same length. No matter how carefully you look at it, the two lines definitely look different lengths. Even when you measure it and are completely convinced they're the same length, they still look like different lengths. You're witnessing a flaw in the way the human brain processes visual input.

Optical illusions demonstrate that our visual processing isn't perfect in certain specific ways. In exactly the same way, our logical processing (thinking) isn't perfect either, and we are prone to make certain kinds of mistakes simply because we're human.

David Burns' ten cognitive distortions is a list of the thought-mistakes the human brain is prone to make. The brain's tendency to make those mistakes combines with the brain's natural negative bias so that demoralization is much more likely.

So one way to argue with your negative thoughts is to memorize Burns' ten distortions. Then write out a demoralizing thought you have about terrorism or your own ability to do something about it, and see how many cognitive distortions you can find in your statement.

When you memorize the list first (before you have a thought-mistake of your own you might feel the need to defend) you can clearly see why they're really mistakes. You won't have the problem of overcoming your own natural defensiveness when you're analyzing your statements.

Having the list memorized ahead of time makes it easier to find mistakes and straighten out your thinking.

QUESTIONING AND DISPUTING your demoralizing thoughts is the best and most effective way to defeat defeatism. And one of the best ways to do that is to write down your negative thoughts and then argue with them.

If you would like to cure yourself of demoralized thinking and give yourself a solid morale for the rest of your life, do this exercise for a half hour every day for four months. Take any negative thought you have about anything, and argue with it. Find things wrong with it. Do this on paper. Write your negative thoughts in one color pen, and then argue with those thoughts in another color. This is the central exercise in cognitive therapy, and it is very effective.

Now you have a powerful weapon against terrorism. Terrorists use our natural negative bias and our natural thought mistakes to make us feel impotent, demoralized, helpless, and afraid. With this mental "technology," the terrorists' primary psychological weapon is neutralized.

After you've learned the method and immunized yourself against demoralization, it is time to help your friends and family immunize themselves too.

If you try to help a friend change their thinking and they become defensive or angry, what will you do? Stop talking to them about it? Give up? Or improve your ability to help without offending? It depends on how pessimistic your thinking is.

If you've gone through the trouble of cleaning your own thoughts every day for four months, you will probably not feel defeated by this setback, your determination to help your friend will remain strong, and you'll find a different tack.

One of your missions, as a Citizen Warrior, should you decide to accept it, is to help your friends and family cure themselves of their own hidden defeatism. This takes a particular kind of training. Your first step is to master the know-how on this page.

Do the exercise yourself for four months. Make yourself sit down and do it for a half-hour at a time. If you won't do it for yourself, do it for your children, your friends, your loved ones. Consider the process of writing down your thoughts and arguing with the pessimistic ones a kind of Citizen Warrior basic training drill. Then you're ready for Phase Two.

Phase Two in this mission is learning the principles in Dale Carnegie's book, How to Win Friends & Influence People. When you are trying to help people overcome their own demoralizing thoughts, you must be very careful not to drive them deeper into their negativity by causing them to defend themselves. Carnegie's principles are how you can do that. Study and vigorously practice his principles while you help your loved ones change their thinking.

So first cure your own defeatism. Then master the Carnegie principles while you help your loved ones cure their defeatism. This is one of the most valuable services you can give to your country to stop Islam's relentless encroachment. When you're ready, find out what a civilian can do to defeat the third jihad.

Find David Burns' ten cognitive distortions online at any of these locations: UWEC, Wikipedia, AngelFire, or JohnEmmons (toward the bottom of the page).

Make the process of changing your thoughts easier by calming your body first. This is similar to the increased effectiveness of cognitive therapy combined with antidepressants. With the body in a better state, thought habits are easier to change.

Read the list of Dale Carnegie's principles here.

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