Our emotions are the mirror of our beliefs. By changing beliefs, you can control your state, your feelings, many of your emotions. If a person believes: “There is no such thing as a good morning!”, sooner or later he will achieve that every morning he will have a regularly gloomy one. Belief «Life is like a zebra — there will definitely be a black one behind the white stripe!» — will definitely provoke a depressive background after days with high spirits. Belief «Love can’t last forever!» pushes to the fact that a person does not follow his feelings and loses them. In general, the conviction “Emotions cannot be controlled” (option “Emotions are harmful to control”) also lead to destabilization of the emotional tone.
If you don’t like any of your emotions, try to unearth what belief it reflects and find out if this belief is correct.
For example, the girl was very upset because she took only third place in the competition. What is the belief behind this? Maybe «I have to do EVERYTHING better than anyone else.» If this belief is removed and replaced with a more realistic one: “Third place is a worthy place. And if I train, my place will be higher. Following this, emotions will change, tighten up, although, perhaps, not immediately.
Working with beliefs in the cognitive-behavioral approach of A. Ellis is, for the most part, convincing clients that no one owes them anything, did not promise them, and they have no one to be offended by. «Why did the world take my son from me?» — «And where did you get that your son will always be with you?» «But that’s not fair, is it?» “And who promised you that the world is fair?” — such dialogues are played from time to time, changing only their content.
Irrational beliefs are often formed already in childhood and are manifested by inadequate demands on oneself, others and the world around. They are often based on narcissism or a grandeur complex. Ellis (1979a, 1979b; Ellis and Harper, 1979) describes these belief-demands as three basic «Must»: «I must: (succeed in business, get the approval of others, etc.)», «You must: ( treat me well, love me, etc.)”, “The world should: (give me quickly and easily what I want, be fair to me, etc.).
In the synton approach, work with the main body of beliefs occurs through the Declaration of Acceptance of Reality: a document that brings together all the most common beliefs about life and people.