Thinking Patterns Quotes

Hand Over Control

If anyone has ever called you a control freak, recognize that your controlling ways and hesitancy about letting other people do things their way is likely to be anxiety related. Your thinking patterns may be related to fears that other people won't do tasks to a standard that's acceptable to you, which may or may not be true in any given instance. Or your controllingness might be related to "should" thinking errors, along the lines of "I should be able to do everything myself," or fears that needing help is a sign of being a weak person.
A behavioral experiment you can try is delegating or outsourcing tasks you feel overwhelmed by. ~ Alice Boyes

I also think it's still easy for us - as women, as writers and as directors and producers - to let it fall into the same patterns. Like, "and then the woman brings in the food, because the woman's the one who makes food." It's easy for that to happen, because that's what we've always known. ~ Mary Elizabeth Ellis

I think the whole human-induced greenhouse gas thing is a red herring ... I see climate change as due to the ocean circulation pattern. I see this as a major cause of climate change ... These are natural processes. We shouldn't blame them on humans and CO2. ~ William M. Gray

The emergent movement is creating a mushiness to the thinking patterns in Christianity today. It's like we really can't stand for anything. ~ Eric Ludy

There have been many people whom I have admired, emulated and even modeled parts of my life after. I study how they do things, and then I go through a period of 'trying on' those same thinking patterns and behaviors. After awhile, what is not essentially me falls away while the useful parts remain. ~ Jack Canfield

When we are "time traveling", we may trip over problems from the past which distort our memory. If we are weary of dealing with lost causes or lame ducks in our history, we have to make up our mind and give up destructive thinking patterns. At that juncture, time has come to go back to the future. ( "A glimpse of the future" ) ~ Erik Pevernagie

Cognitive-Behavioral Therapy

There are almost no pure cognitive or behavioral therapists. Instead, most therapists use a combination of both techniques. This is known as cognitive-behavioral therapy. It is generally recognized as the best therapy for social anxiety.
In cognitive-behavioral therapy, a therapist helps you identity maladaptive thinking patterns and replace them with new ways of thinking. He or she also teaches you relaxation techniques and new behaviors that make you feel more comfortable in social situations.
Cognitive-behavioral therapy uses many of the same techniques that we explored in the previous chapter. Although you might make great strides on your own, sometimes it is easier and faster to have someone guide you. Often it is difficult for people to explore hidden beliefs about themselves. A professional therapist is experienced in working with people who are trying to change. Often a therapist will see connections in your situation that you cannot.

Carlos was terrified of speaking in class. Whenever the teacher called on him, his heart raced, he blushed, and his stomach felt upset.
His therapist first had him focus on his thoughts during class. As an experiment, she had him purposely answer a question incorrectly during biology class. To his surprise, the teacher didn't make a big deal out of it, and the other students didn't laugh. As a result, Carlos realized that his imagined consequences for making errors were gr ~ Heather Moehn

If you accept the existence of advertising, you accept a system designed to persuade and to dominate minds by interfering in people's thinking patterns. You also accept that the system will be used by the sorts of people who like to influence people and are good at it. No person who did not wish to dominate others would choose to use advertising, or choosing it, succeed in it. So the basic nature of advertising and all technologies created to serve it will be consistent with this purpose, will encourage this behaviour in society, and will tend to push social evolution in this direction. ~ Jerry Mander

Reflecting on various aspects of our lives is essential for a person to grow and adjust to changing phases in their life. Self-analysis entails examining a person's existing level of self-esteem and documenting the inner voice that speaks to a person, which is frequently either affirming of self-defeating. Failure to periodically engage in self-analysis, make crucial revisions in our personas, and modify our thinking patterns when we encounter transformative events in life can lead to mood disorders, burnout, and other emotional maladies. ~ Kilroy J. Oldster

When explicit thinking patterns were in charge, light waves of particular lengths were thought to stimulate Jenny's optical nerve, changing hue of her eye color. ~ Judy Byington

Cognitive Therapy

Instead of behavior, cognitive therapy emphasizes changing thoughts and beliefs. Cognitive therapists believe that irrational beliefs or distorted thinking patterns lead to social anxiety so they teach patients to think in more rational, constructive ways. ~ Heather Moehn

Letting go of the past does not mean that we should try to forget everything that has happened to us and not learn anything from our previous thinking patterns and actions. Letting go simply means that we do not allow the past to control our current thoughts and actions. ~ Gudjon Bergmann

It is good not to think of karma as an alien force that is outside of yourself. You are the generator of karma. Karma is the energy patterns that emanate from your life. ~ Frederick Lenz

Journaling Tips

-Try to write every day. Set aside a special time--perhaps right before you go to bed--to reflect on what happened during that day. Writing things down soon after they happen will help you to be honest and objective. If you wait, you may not remember the details as well, and maladaptive thinking patterns may cloud your interpretations.

-Record the date and time for every entry. Also, give each entry a title that reflects what you wrote about. This will help when you search for old entries about a particular day or topic.

-Don't worry about spelling, grammar, and punctuation, or organization. Being a perfectionist will lead to frustration. You aren't going to be graded on your journal--just write whatever comes to mind.

-Leave blank space for future comments. Reflecting on entries weeks, months, or even years after you wrote them will help you record your progress.

-Keep the journal in a safe place. Journal writing is most effective when you are completely honest. This may be hard if you are afraid your parents or siblings might read it. ~ Heather Moehn

Enlightenment is going beyond the normal thinking patterns of trigger-routine-and-reward habit loops. ~ Amit Ray

Change Your Inaccurate Expectations

Many social fears are caused by inaccurate expectations and "catastrophizing." One way to determine your expectations is to figure out exactly what you fear. For instance, if you are going to a friend's birthday party and you feel overly anxious, ask yourself "Why am I afraid?" "Because I am going to a party" isn't a good answer, because the party itself does not lead to anxiety. You need to determine what you expect will happen at the party to determine what is making you nervous. You might find that you believe no one will talk to you or that your friend will hate your gift. Once you identify concrete fears and expectations, you can work to change your maladaptive thinking patterns. ~ Heather Moehn

Chess can help a child develop logical thinking, decision making, reasoning, and pattern recognition skills, which in turn can help math and verbal skills. ~ Susan Polgar

All incidents which we experience are warily interpreted and translated in the dark chamber of our mind. They inspire us how to behave, how to think, how to act and prompt our predilections and our way of visualizing the world. The mind opens itself then to welcome the enchantments of life or to tear up destructive thinking patterns. The brain becomes truly a precious resilient partner. ( "Camera obscura of the mind" ) ~ Erik Pevernagie

Replace Maladaptive Thoughts with Coping Statements

When you feel anxious in social situations, you probably have many false beliefs and maladaptive thoughts, such as "I don't fit in" or "I'm so awkward." An important part of coping with social anxiety is to be able to recognize when your thinking is clouded.
Use your journal to record events that make you feel anxious, and examine what you were thinking at the time and why. It may help to refer to the list of maladaptive thinking patterns on pages 25 and 26 to help you see when your thinking is faulty. Remember that figuring out your faulty thoughts requires that you be totally honest with yourself. Once you have identified your maladaptive thoughts, you can work to replace them with more constructive thoughts, called coping statements. ~ Heather Moehn

We should be cautiously open to the spiritual and non-rational, and skeptical of the more invisible magical thinking - what we might call "magical reason" - pervading secular thought and experience in modern society. Science and technology are for most people a new religion, and their orthodoxies are believed with the same fervor. ~ David Watson

I've never seen a surface that I think is more seductive in image making. ~ John Sexton

You're sonically racist, Americans. You think we all sound the same, whereas I have definitely a mongrel accent. ~ John Oliver

The beliefs and behaviour of the Restoration reflect the theories of society put forward by Thomas Hobbes in The Leviathan, which was written in exile in Paris and published in 1651. Like many texts of the time, The Leviathan is an allegory. It recalls mediaeval rather than Renaissance thinking. The leviathan is the Commonwealth, society as a total organism, in which the individual is the absolute subject of state control, represented by the monarch. Man - motivated by self-interest - is acquisitive and lacks codes of behaviour. Hence the necessity for a strong controlling state, 'an artificial man', to keep discord at bay. Self-interest and stability become the keynotes of British society after 1660, the voice of the new middle-class bourgeoisie making itself heard more and more in the expression of values, ideals, and ethics. ~ Ronald Carter

After a few days in hospital, I was thinking, Oh, gee - I raised in a church, Protestant upbringing which I'd rejected as an adult - I'm lying in bed thinking, Hmmm, maybe I ought to pray. They always say there are no atheists in a foxhole ... and I thought, Here I am in a pretty good-sized foxhole ... and I thought Naahhh. I wouldn't respect any God who would listen to me after I'd rejected him so vociferously. ~ Chuck Close

But don't go thinking that I'm critical of you, Anton, because really I'm not. Not a bit! It's just that you're not here. I'm alone and I'm frightened and you're not here. And you're not ever going to be here for me. ~ Bette Greene

In the mini-series area, we are going to have a regular year-round, weekly presence on Encore of classic mini-series and a new mini-series that we are bringing. For the time being, I think the home of mini-series will be on Encore. ~ Chris Albrecht

I didn't go to university. They offered me a job as a junior reporter and I went off to work for the Southern Reporter. They sent me to college to do my NCTJ, which is a professional exam for journalists, and I started work as a print journalist purely because I was just a pest. They couldn't think of anything other than giving me a job to stop me hanging around. ~ Jill Douglas

I think short-term goals are important. Trying to set a missive for yourself for the entire year can be daunting, and it can feel too easy to fail or fall short of that. ~ Carrie Brownstein

With live-action I think we'd have lost the universal appeal of the Persepolis story. With live-action, it would have turned into a story of 'the Other' - people living in a distant land who don't look like us. It might have been exotic, but also a "Third-World" story. ~ Marjane Satrapi

I'm always studying something or trying to learn something, keep myself creatively occupied, because I think that energy can get kind of destructive if it doesn't have somewhere to go. ~ Rosemarie DeWitt

I think if anyone tells you the odds are slim, just keep walking. Just do whatever the hell you want to do, because they don't know what they're talking about. When you love something, and you work really really hard at it, you can do it. ~ Melissa McCarthy

Those that think that wealth is the proper thing for them cannot give up their revenues; those that seek distinction cannot give up the thought of fame; those that cleave to power cannot give the handle of it to others. While they hold their grasp of those things, they are afraid of losing them. When they let them go, they are grieved and they will not look at a single example, from which they might perceive the folly of their restless pursuits - such men are under the doom of heaven. ~ Zhuangzi

You know the great irony is that people think you have to have money to enjoy fine food, which is a shame. ~ Ted Allen

I'd think learning to play the guitar would be very confusing for sighted people. ~ Doc Watson

If there's one great thing I think that's happened over the years, it's that women are being accepted into a man's world in all different areas, whether it's flying an airplane or driving a race car. ~ Danica Patrick

Hey, say you are looking at a chess board. Is there anything you can't see? No. But are you guaranteed to win? Not at all, because you can't see what the other guy is thinking. ~ Malcolm Gladwell

I think we all have a bunch of different people inside of us, and then for a particular role you bring a certain side of that self of yourself forward to sort of play, but it's always really dimensionalised. ~ Vince Vaughn

What does it matter, if we tell the same old stories? ... Stories tell us who we are. What we're capable of. When we go out looking for stories we are, I think, in many ways going in search of ourselves, trying to find understanding of our lives, and the people around us. Stories, and language tell us what's important. ~ Kameron Hurley

Think about Isis," Jaz repeated. "And Sadie ... there
is a purpose. You taught us that. We choose to believe in Ma'at. We create order out of chaos, beauty and meaning out of ugly randomness. That's what Egypt is all about. That's why its name, its ren, has endured for millennia. Don't despair. Otherwise Chaos wins. ~ Rick Riordan

What was I thinking?" Chiron cried. " I can't let you get away without this."
He pulled a pen from his coat pocket. It was an ordinary disposable ballpoint, black ink, removable cap. Probably thirty cents.
Gee," I said. "Thanks."
Percy, that's a gift from your father. I've kept it for years, not knowing you were who I was waiting for. But the profecy is clear to me now. You are the one.
I remembered the feild trip to the Metropolitan Museum of Art, when I'd vaporized Mrs. Dodds. Chiron had thrown me a pen that turned into a sword. Could this be...?
I took off the cap, and the pen grew longer and heavier in my hand. In half a second, I held a shimmering bronze sword with a double-edged blade, a leather=wrapped grip, and a flat hilt riveted with gold studs. It was the first weapon that actually felt balanced in my hands.
The sword has a long and tragic history that we need not go into," Chiron told me. "It's name is Anaklusmos."
Riptide," I translated, surprised the Ancient Greek came so easily.
Use it only for emergencies" Chiron said, "and only against monsters No hero should harm mortals unless absolutely, of course, but this sword wouldn't harm them in any case. ~ Rick Riordan

Certainly after the tragedy in Neil's life, we were holding out hope for his recovery. It wasn't too promising at the time and obviously you get to the point of thinking that that is it. ~ Alex Lifeson

Echolalia is a mental disease which makes people immediately repeat things that well people around them say. But Billy didn't really have it. Rumfoord simply insisted, for his own comfort, that Billy had it. Rumfoord was thinking in a military manner: that an inconvenient person, one whose death he wished for very much, for practical reasons, was suffering from a repulsive disease. ~ Kurt Vonnegut

Think of all the hate there is in Red China, then take a look around to Selma, Alabama. ~ Barry McGuire

I think there's a certain numbness in modern society, that accepts certain kinds of violence, but represses other kinds of violence. ~ Nick Cave

I don't think anybody really loves the sound of their own voice, but the tweakability is huge. ~ David Lynch

If I was fighting myself, I always say that I would kill Mike Tyson but then again I don't know how hard a punch Mike Tyson can take and I don't know how hard Mike Tyson's punch is. I don't know. For me looking at me, I think I can beat me. ~ Mike Tyson

The deafest man can hear praise, and is slow to think any an excess. ~ Walter Savage Landor

You're just as good, and if you work harder, you can be better and you can be more than you think you can. ~ Kevin Costner

As we get older, a lot of societies, education systems and workplaces make us feel that playing is a waste of time. We end up suppressing stupidly brilliant questions for what we think are more serious responsibilities. ~ Jessica Walsh

I think in this day and age it's very important. ~ Lizzy Plapinger

If a man works without any selfish motive in view, does he not gain anything? Yes, he gains the highest. Unselfishness is more paying, only people have not the patience to practice it. It is more paying from the point of view of health also. Love, truth, and unselfishness are not merely moral figures of speech, but they form our highest ideal, because in them lies such a manifestation of power. In the first place, a man who can work for five days, or even for five minutes, without any selfish motive whatever, without thinking of future, of heaven, of punishment, or anything of the kind, has in him the capacity to become a powerful moral giant. It is hard to do it, but in the heart of our hearts we know its value, and the good it brings. It is the greatest manifestation of power - this tremendous restraint; self-restraint is a manifestation of greater power than all outgoing action. ~ Swami Vivekananda

It's over," Keelie said.
Too bad. But I want you to know, I will always love you."
She narrowed her eyes and said, "When you look at me and say that, are you thinking of Dolly Parton or Whitney Houston?"
Burt Reynolds," he said.
She nearly spit out her coffee when she laughed, then she said, "That almost makes me want to try again. ~ Becky Cochrane

Record companies would rather you stay dumb, not even think of it as a business, so they can either rip you off or get you out of the way in five years to make way for the new groups. ~ George Clinton

My father has always been interested in discarding the past. He's never much liked China or the whole idea behind China or Chinese ways of thinking. He's always been much more attracted to American ways of thinking. He feels Americans are more open - they tell you what they think - and he's very much that way himself. ~ David Henry Hwang

Someone once asked me if I've ever been in love. ..
I wasn't sure how to answer her.
Out of all the billions of people in the world, I've had a few mysterious encounters, a few scattered occasions where I met someone who seemed to awaken some unknown part in me. On the rare occasion, I've lost myself in someone. I became so consumed with her that I lost all sense of time and space. I forgot where I was, what I was, who I was, until there was only the two of us, melting together like a soul on fire, and the world around us faded into oblivion, until we were the only thing left in the entire universe.
I felt my skin tingle and my heart grow so full I thought it might explode, and I could not stop thinking about her, and I saw the untapped potential of an alternate future flash before my eyes, all the myriad memories of passion and pain and searing romance all overlapping, layers upon layers, like the stars. Then the world returned and there we were again, two ordinary people full of desperate, trembling longing, with only a dim recollection of the moment we both shared. But the vision of that alternate future still lingered in my mind's eye. In that world between worlds, I could still feel her, could practically taste her on my lips.
Have I ever been in love?
I'd like to think so.
Because if that's not love, then I don't know what is. ~ James Michael Rice

There are few people whom I really love, and still fewer of whom I think well. The more I see of the world, the more am I dissatisfied with it; and every day confirms my belief of the inconsistency of all human characters, and of the little dependence that can be placed on the appearance of merit or sense. ~ Jane Austen