Mental and Emotional Karate

Mental and Emotional

Karate

Ray Mathis

Smashwords Edition

Copyright 2013 Ray Mathis

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Table of Contents

Introduction

Chapter 1: The first thing you need, Unconditional Self-Acceptance

Chapter 2: Time to build a suit of armor

Chapter 3: Your goal with your emotions

Chapter 4: Identifying the thoughts that cause your feelings

Chapter 5: How to correct any crooked thinking

Chapter 6: A step-by-step approach to bullying and other life events

Chapter 7: Asserting Yourself with I Messages, at least with most people

Chapter 8: The Mistaken Goals of Bullies

Chapter 9: Some questions to ask yourself

Chapter 10: Why it might be hard to change, what it'll take

Summary

About the Author

Acknowledgements

Introduction

I'll start this book the same way I do when I work with students who are being bullied.

What do you think those other kids get out of doing that to you? What's it give them a sense of when they know they can get a reaction out of you anytime they want to? What do they get to think they have over you?

It usually doesn't take too long for them to answer Power. Then I ask them:

How would you like me to teach you how to take that power away from them and keep it for yourself? How would you like me to teach you how to not be hurt by what they say? How would you like me to teach you how to keep other people out of your head? Because I can do that if you let me?

And I'll do the same for you if you give me a chance. It'll take some practice, but it's doable. I'm living proof that's it's possible. Right now it may seem hard to believe that it would be possible. However, remember the Olympics in the summer of 2012? We all watched teenagers do things in gymnastics that made us wonder, How can someone learn to do something like that? The answer is some good coaching and lots of practice.

Many years earlier, those kids probably sat in a gym for the first time watching older kids do things, and wondered the same thing. Years later, they're on the world stage doing those same things. All because of good coaching, but most of all practice. There's an old saying, Where there's a will, there's a way. If you've got the will, I'll show you the way. Think of today as being like your first day in the gym.

When I was young, kids would say things like I know you are, but what am I? when others kids called them names. As long as they kept repeating that out loud, they were invincible. However, if they even once started thinking, How dare you call me that? or You can't call me that, their suit of armor evaporated instantly. There's much to learn from that example.

During WWII, Dr. Victor Frankl was in a Nazi POW camp. The Nazis killed his entire family, but he survived, and wrote a book about surviving the holocaust. When asked how he did that, he said something that is now fairly famous:

Everything can be taken from us but the last of human freedoms. To choose one's own attitude in any given set of circumstances. To choose one's own way

The Nazis were never able to get inside his head. What he taught us is that people can keep others out of their heads. It's what I'm going to teach you how to do.

When other people say things about us that we don't like, it's like they're fishing, either on purpose or accidentally. They put this juicy bait on a hook, and cast our way. Unfortunately, most of us are like the equivalent of large mouth basses when it comes to resisting such bait, or attempts to hook us. We jump at the bait, swallow it hook, line and sinker as they think Gotcha and proceed to reel us in, relishing at their catch. We end up in the equivalent of a bucket in their boat, and ultimately the equivalent of a trophy on their wall. If you give me the chance, I'll teach you how to not get hooked when others are baiting you.

There's a scene in the first Iron Man movie that might be a good metaphor for what I can do for you. Before he becomes Iron Man, terrorists are holding Tony Stark captive against his will in a cave, and his future doesn't look good. So he builds himself a source of power, and a suit of armor to get free. I can give you a new source of power and help you build your own suit of armor to break free of any captors in your life, if you give me the chance.

I'm going to often write in second person where I think it might be appropriate. I don't know what your history is, if any, with bullying. I'm going to assume that you have some reason for reading this book. Please forgive me if I'm wrong.

Chapter 1

The first thing you need - Unconditional Self-Acceptance (USA)

Why it is important

The simple reason is that if you do have others beating up on you verbally, and maybe even physically, the last thing you need to be doing is be beating up on yourself in any way. It's bad enough they do it, and we can't always stop that. However, you can learn to stop doing that to yourself, and I'm going to teach you how. However, whether you do or not is ultimately a choice you have to make, that you alone can make. I can't make that choice for you. No one can. You may already have some deep ruts in your brain to beat up on yourself, and it'll always be easy to slip back into those, even after I teach you how to stop. Expect that, it's part of being human, and brain physiology. The last thing you want to do is beat up on yourself for that too.

I'm going to talk about how shame comes about in general first because many people who get bullied have often been shaming themselves a good deal about other matters before the bullying started. Shame is the feeling people generate when they believe they haven’t lived up to their own or others expectations. Life is full of expectation from others. When people are young there are expectation from parents, siblings and other family members, friends, teachers, coaches, religion, and society. When we get older, there are added expectations from bosses and colleagues, spouses, in-laws, and children. Many of our own expectations originate from expectations that others have of us. It's perfectly understandable for that to happen. The key point is that all these expectations create many opportunities for feeling shame.

How someone comes to believe they don't live up to expectation can be very complicated and convoluted. First, sometimes expectations others have and people have of themselves are unrealistic, and can be a set up to feel shame needlessly. Second, whether someone believes they do or don't live up to expectations is often as much a function of perception as it is reality. Sometimes, people do a great deal and they or others still don't believe they live up to expectations. It's not always what they actually do, or how they actually are, but simply how they and others look at things. Perceptions don't always match reality. People could, for example, be very talented, and think they're not, and others might think they are. They could have accomplished a lot, and think they haven't, while others think they have. They could be doing fairly well at dealing with something, including being bullied, perhaps better than most others would, and think they aren't. Finally, people are often attractive or handsome by most peoples standards, and they think they're not.

The important point is that there is often a lot of perception involved, and perception does not always match reality. However, the bigger the real or perceived difference there is between all these expectations of them, and what they actually do or how they are, the more shame they will generate.

I believe young people have an innate tendency to want to please adults, especially their parents. It would make sense there would be such a tendency. Starting way back in cave man days, if parents weren’t happy with children, they would be less likely to survive. Young people often have thoughts and expectations of themselves like the following:

1) I have to make them happy

2) I can’t disappoint them

3) I have to make them proud of me

4) I can’t let them down

5) I have to please them

6) I can’t upset them like before

7) I have to do what they want

This can set them up to feel even more shame. It's nice to want to please others, but thinking you HAVE TO is often too much of a good thing and ends up causing young people to feel shame needlessly.

I believe a good case could be made that adults as well have an innate tendency to want to please others. It could have served a survival purpose in our history as a species as well. Many young people carry these same beliefs listed above with them into adulthood and future relationships and endeavors. These beliefs set many adults up to feel worse than they need to just like they do young people.

The set up comes partly from thinking we have to, instead of just wanting to. However, it also comes from the fact that people can’t really make others happy or proud, and they don’t upset them either. That's something that we'll discus in more detail in Chapter 2. We all have a host of cognitive choices we make constantly, that we alone can make, that really determine how we feel about anything. For example, how we look at what happens, what we focus on, what we compare things to, what we expect in the first place, and how much importance we attach to what does, or doesn't happen. We could do a lot of things others want us to, and those people could still choose to be unhappy, disappointed or even angry about something we didn’t. The opposite is also true. We could do less than others want, and they could still choose to be happy, pleased and proud. How they end up feeling is really a product of a host of choices they make, choices that we can't make for them.

Most people have enough of a job to manage how they end up feeling about themselves and their lives without taking on the extra responsibility for how others feel. Unfortunately, some people put that added responsibility on themselves, and have others that try to put it on them. In Chapter 2, I'll teach you how to not take unnecessary responsibility for how others make themselves feel.

As I said earlier, the reason for talking so much about shame is that many young people have a head start on making themselves feel shame even before they start getting bullied. That just makes it easier for them to shame themselves for how they handle being bullied.

Shoulding on Yourself

People make themselves feel ashamed. I realize there are a lot of other people who sometimes say things to kids that they might take to heart and repeat to themselves. That's part of being human, especially when you are a kid, and those comments come from adults, or a lot of other people your own age. Whether it's someone else saying things, or a person saying things to themselves, the verb should or shouldn't is often used in constructing whatever comments are being made. That's why it's called shoulding on others or yourself.

It's those specific thoughts someone has, and repeat to him or herself, which really cause someone to feel shame. Not what others say and do. If someone was criticized or ridiculed and said either out loud or to him or herself, Sorry, that's not true. I don't believe that. I don't agree with that at all he or she wouldn't feel shame. If they never again repeated others comments to themselves, they wouldn't either. Whether they originate with others, or from within, it's the thoughts YOU have about yourself, and your life, that cause your to feel shame, or not to.

Here are some common ways young people might should on themselves if they are being bullied:

I should be able to handle this better than I am

I should be able to fight my own battles

I shouldn't let them get to me

I shouldn't have to rely on adults to help me

Some of the above thoughts might even have originated with the comments of those bullying someone. It's fairly common for those bullying someone to taunt the person being bullied about needing to have adults protect him or her. And if someone does struggle to deal with what is happening to them, he or she would just make him or herself feel even worse by repeating such thoughts to him or herself. However, it's the act of repeating such thoughts to oneself that really creates the shame. Which is good news in a way. It means you can stop doing that and stop feeling ashamed, and don't have to wait for someone else to give you permission. Easier said than done unfortunately, because once someone does repeat, rehearse and practice such thoughts in his or her brain, they form ruts, and it's easy to slip into those ruts again and again.

There are some additional ways kids being bullied might should on themselves.:

I should have more friends than I do

I should be like everyone else

I shouldn't be the way I am

Remember that perception can play an important role in whether we believe we live up to expectations or not, and perception isn't always reality. People just usually think theirs is. We could have a lot of friends, and think we don't. Besides, is there some rule that says you have to have a certain number of friends? Is that written down somewhere in some book that I missed growing up? As for the second should above, if you know anything about biology and human genetic, you know we are all a WHOLE lot more alike than we are different. Sometimes the perceived differences are simply a matter of what we choose to focus on, or who or what we choose to compare ourselves and our lives to.

Finally, as for the third should, there are some things we can control, and some things we can't. We can't control genetics we get that may play out in some way we don't like. We also can't control what our past history has been, what others have said and done to us that influenced who we are today. However, we can learn to control what we think about ourselves, and our lives, and use that power to make the best of things.

While I'm on the subject of shoulding, here are some other shoulds someone being bullied might have that could cause them to become depressed.

This shouldn't be happening to me

I shouldn't have to deal with this

It shouldn't be so hard

It should be easier than this

And unfortunately, it is happening, someone does have to deal with it, and it IS hard, and others aren't going to make it any easier. Once again, the bigger the difference you create between such demands of life and your reality, the more depressed you would become. In other words, if it does keep happening, and you keep saying it shouldn't, meaning it must not be, it's not going to stop it, and doing that just makes you feel worse than is necessary or helpful. You still have to deal with it, and I'm going to teach you how.

The key thing to take away from this discussion so far is that it's what people think or tell themselves that really determines how they feel, not what others say, or what happens. That includes whether they feel shame or not. As I'll discuss shortly, having such thoughts when you're being bullied is perfectly understandable, and part of being human, and certainly nothing to be ashamed of. I'll explain what I mean by understandable very shortly.

However, freedom, power and control over our lives lies in the fact that we all have a choice as to what we want to think, or say to ourselves. Remember Dr. Frankl's famous quote in the introduction. That's not something others can really dictate, unless we let them. It's understandable if they do end up having an inordinate amount of influence over what we think, especially if there are a lot of others saying and doing the same things. However, with good coaching and practice, we can all learn to have control over what we think or tell ourselves. And we can learn to stop making ourselves feel bad, and feel better instead, regardless of what others might think or say.

You should be ashamed of yourself

As I said above, some kids are already into shaming themselves before they start getting bullied. They often get encouragement to shame themselves from adults in their lives. Some even have a long history of being told, You should be ashamed of yourself. For whatever my opinion is worth, an adult should never say that to a kid. They have no right to, and if it's someone like a teacher, it's unprofessional to say that to someone else's child. Adults have every right to not like what you kids or do, and to let them know that. It's how they do that is important. For example, if a student did something I didn't like, I'd simply say:

I don't like what you just said/did. I don't want you to say/do that again

I might let him or her know there might be a consequence if he or she persisted, and if he or she did, invoke that. However, there is absolutely no need to say You should be ashamed of yourself.

You have to be careful what you wish for as an adult. Some kids will fight back with anger against attempts to shame them into compliance. That's not always fun to deal with, but if you told them, You should be ashamed of yourself, you asked for it. Others WILL shame themselves, and that can have tragic consequences of many types. Young people shame themselves enough, and often too much already, without encouragement from adults.

Keeping Secrets

Shame also makes people want to keep what they think and feel, or any problem they might have a secret. People even do this with medical problems that they have through no fault of their own. Shame can also make people less likely to seek out or accept any help that is available to them. They do all these things because they believe that what they think and feel, any problem they have, and even seeking or accepting help, all reflects badly on them.

Dr. Albert Ellis used to say the shame blocks change. It keeps people from getting the help they might need, and doing the kind of work