Dr. David Burns

What else does your sadness show about you that's... How does that help you? What are some awesome things about it, or why is it appropriate?

Yeah, the sadness is the source of your compassion.

Yeah, that's really neat. How about guilt and shame?

Yeah, well, as long as you found some for guilt, that's good enough. The inadequacy is really huge. What are some really awesome things about feeling inadequate?

Honest about areas to improve. And what are some other awesome things about inadequacy?

Yeah, because you see, although you feel ugly, the other people will be perceiving you as this good-looking, hunky, successful, intimidating, smart guy, right? Yeah. Yeah. And then that could make them be hard to be with you because they would feel inadequate. And that your humility adds to your attractiveness. Do you see that? Yeah, that makes sense.

That there's a beautiful warmth about you, which is pretty awesome. What's really great about your loneliness?

Yeah, like right now. Yeah, that's exactly right. That's so cool. I love it. What's great about embarrassment and humiliation?

Is that important?

Yeah. Yeah, it's kind of lacking in the world these days, too, sometimes.

How about hopelessness? You're 85% hopeless. What could possibly be good about that?

That's huge. What are some other cool things about hopelessness?

Okay, well, this was the second hardest for me, and it took me like a month or two, and I used to have these Sunday hikes. I'm starting them up again. I can't go as far because I've developed low back pain when I walk, so I'm trying to figure out some way to get over that. Maybe I need to come to you for some back-strengthening exercises.

But we used to go six, eight miles, and I was up on this thing called Roos Ridge, and this woman was telling me that she was hopeless. I think she thought she wasn't, like, smart enough, and she's a really good-looking woman, but she thinks she's not very smart, and she's socially anxious, and she's afraid she'll have a date, and her mind will go blank, and then the fellow won't like her.

And I was asking her, well, what's great about hopelessness, and suddenly kind of popped into my mind. And the things, one of them was, does it show that you're a critical thinker? In other words, you're looking at a lot of failures in achieving what you want. Yeah. Is that important?

And also, does it protect you from disappointment?

Yeah, yeah, and that's important. And then we're almost done with this, and then we'll get on to what you were asking for. But how frustrated would you want to feel? You say that's helped you in your, well, or like what are, again, do we write down frustration first? Oh, yeah, we've already done frustration. And then so we're down to angry at yourself. What's good about being angry with yourself?

Oh, yeah. Yeah. Awesome. Now let's see how many positives we've got here. Two, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten, and then eleven, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16. And we've got 16 positives for all of these negative feelings. And we could add to this list, but we've got a pretty big list right now.

And are these things we've listed like embarrassment helps me function in socially desirable ways and hopelessness protects me from disappointment and loneliness has allowed me to develop independence and it has also motivated me to seek out the community of other people and learn new things and the frustrations motivated me to work hard and shows I haven't given up and

All these advantages, are they real?