04-02 REBT Coping Statements
- “I can stop PMO, even though it appears ‘hard’ to do so. It’s not too hard and no matter how much trouble it takes, it’s worth it!”
- “If I keep ignoring and never giving into my powerful urges to PMO, I will make it easier and easier to resist them”
- “I can fully and unconditionally accept myself- yes, even with all my flaws and failings”
- “PMO seems to quickly ‘cure’ my problems but actually makes them worse.”
- “At times, I’d like very much to drown my troubles in PMO but that is never a reason to do so.”
- “It’s most uncomfortable when I don’t get what I really want. But it’s not awful or terrible unless I choose to believe that it is and I choose to believe something more realistic and helpful.”
- “I’ll never like unfair treatment but I damned well can stand it and perhaps plot and scheme to stop it.”
- “No matter how many times I fail at this important pursuit, my failure never makes me an incompetent louse. It just makes me a person who may have acted incompetently at that time.”
- “I don’t absolutely need what I want but I can still be reasonably happy, though not as happy - when I don’t get it.”
- “I strongly prefer to be outstanding at my work, but I don’t have to be. Too bad if I’m not but it doesn’t make me inferior. I can always keep trying to do better without needing to do better.”
- “Many things can help make me sorry and disappointed but when I demand and command that these things must not exist, I then make myself panicked, depressed and enraged.”
- “Yes, I’ve often failed to do what I promised that I’d do, but that doesn’t mean that I can’t or won’t carry out this promise.”
- “I hate like hell being anxious and depressed but I don’t have to immediately dissolve these feelings in PMO. When I PMO, I temporarily feel better about my problems but I don’t get better. In the long run, PMO makes them worse.
- “People don’t enrage me by treating me badly. I pigheadedly choose to enrage myself about their bad treatment by demanding and commanding that they act better.”