7 teachings from Albert Ellis that will help you find calm in life

The day I learned about the life and teachings of Albert Ellis, I simply fell in love. After a long time of not making sense of psychology or “believing” much in it, I learned that by doing a good therapy, like REBT, Psychology can be a powerful weapon to solve most psychological problems. from the people.

This is how Ellis explains it, when he self-applied his therapy to overcome his shyness. and his fear of meeting and becoming intimate with women. And I have to confess that my head also turned completely upside down when I started applying it to myself.

For this reason, and so that more people know the father of rational therapy, I would like to show, as a summary, 7 of the teachings of Albert Ellis, a true genius.

1. The ABC model, basis of the teachings of Albert Ellis

From rational therapy it is postulated that it is not the situation or the adversity that is directly causing your emotional discomfort, but that It is ourselves, with our beliefs and thoughts, who self-generate suffering..

In this sense, The ABC model teaches the patient to put these concepts in order and see the relationship between thoughts and emotions.. A would be the activating situation, the adversity or the problem. B would be our thoughts and beliefs and C would be the consequences of those thoughts, that is, how we are emotionally and how we behave.

If my B’s are rational, my C’s will be healthy and normal, but if my B’s are irrational, my C’s will be very unpleasant and negative.

2. Irrational beliefs

They are the Bs in the model described above. But when we call it “irrational” we mean that They are not based on logic nor are they realistic, That is, they are thoughts that pass through our heads automatically without there being a reasoning process that questions them or confronts them with reality.

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As a result of them, people suffer in an exaggerated way and they don’t act in the best way. Ellis proposed 11 basic irrational beliefs, although there can be as many as there are people.

The problem with these beliefs is that, as the name suggests, the person believes them at face value and does not consider other approaches or alternatives.

3. Unconditional acceptance of oneself

The teachings of Albert Ellis tell us that All human beings have the same value, regardless of what we possess or our external characteristics. The external is changing and even perishable.

What we have today may not be there tomorrow and that does not mean we will have lost our value as a personwhich is intrinsic to us from the moment we first saw the light.

If we internalize this idea, which is reality, we will feel much freer and we will love ourselves without conditions, without having to be handsome, or successful, or have a lot of money…because that does not determine our value. The most important is our ability to love life and others.

4. Unconditional acceptance of others

Like unconditional self-acceptance, to be happy and at ease with others, we must practice unconditional acceptance of others, which Try to accept the other no matter what: handsome or ugly, white or black.Whether he is smart or not, he has money or he doesn’t.

Everyone can give us wonderful thingsregardless of its external characteristics, which, as has already been said, are not important.

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Furthermore, to free ourselves and not become distressed, it is very important to accept the people in our circle with their defects and virtues, and not try to change them or engage in endless discussions with them. We will not be able to change them easily. The key is to accept and value the virtues you have, because everyone has them.

5. Frustration tolerance

One of the keys to emotional health is practicing frustration tolerance, That is, accept that the world does not turn in the direction you want, nor that things will always turn out the way you would like.

This is a reality that many people refuse to accept and have a really bad time., and it is because of their irrational beliefs about the world. They think in terms of “should”: “The world should be the way I want” and, when this is not fulfilled, they become anxious or depressed.

Tolerance is about accepting that things will sometimes be favorable to us and sometimes not and that we must tolerate these discomforts.

6. The tremendousness

It arises when the person thinks that what is happening to them is something terrible, more than dramatic and he can’t stand it. The negative of a situation is excessively exaggerated.

It is a false idea that makes us even more anxious, because it has been shown that human beings have the ability to withstand almost any psychological blow.Therefore, the rational belief would be: “What is happening to me is very uncomfortable and unpleasant, but of course I can bear it.”.

7. Rational-emotive images

One of the teachings of Albert Ellis, one of the techniques that REBT uses to deactivate irrational beliefs, is visualizations. They help practice habits of rational thinking and facilitate healthy emotions.

It involves the patient imagining a situation that they fear in the clearest way possible, feeling all the emotions that arise from it. Subsequently, the person is encouraged to change his or her exaggerated feelings to appropriate feelings.

For example, changing panic to displeasure, depression to sadness… We can prescribe our own emotions if we make an effort to change the way we see things.