Inventory elicits insights on situations that cause emotional difficulties. In the page 67 questions, I discover how I am causing my own upset and failing to fulfil God's will, in belief, thought, and deed. There are errors, however, which are common to pretty much any area of my life where I am encountering major difficulties. Here are the common errors.
Mistakes
When I am upset, I am in ego. When I am in ego, my perception becomes fragmentary and selective: I select only what I can employ to bolster my victim narrative. The paltry evidence is then supplemented using four devices hijacked by the ego: speculation (imagining what is unseen), interpretation (attributing meaning), generalisation (inferring a general phenomenon from a particular one), extrapolation (inferring the unseen from what is seen).
Mistakes in relation to what I think I'm perceiving: selective perception, speculation, interpretation, generalisation, and extrapolation.
Question: where / how did I engage in each of the underlined mistakes? Be succinct. Give an example for each.
In relation to my analysis of the situation, I am always guilty of a number of the following cognitive distortions:
Always being right (starting from the premise that one is right then looking for evidence to justify it rather than examining the evidence to see if one is right); belief in fortune-telling (believing one can read the future); belief in mind-reading (believing one can intuit or work out what someone else is thinking); belief in signs (belief that the universe provides signs to enable decision-making, e.g. seeing a poster for holidays in Thailand and believing this is a sign that god wants you to move to Thailand); catastrophising (exaggerating risk or other negative circumstances); emotional reasoning (assuming that emotions are a faithful guide to objective reality); fallacy of fairness (reacting to unfairness (typically negative) as though an instance of unfairness breaks a cosmic rule); false generalisation (generalising based on insufficient evidence); filtering out counter-evidence (filtering out any evidence opposing one’s view to leave only evidence in support of one’s view); filtering out the positive (filtering out any positive events to leave only a negative evaluation); inappropriate blame (holding others entirely responsible when one has had a part to play in a situation, either practically or in terms of one’s emotional reaction); mislabelling (inferring the presence of a steady trait in someone’s character based on an individual action instead of evaluating the person as a whole); moralisation (insisting on adherence to (often arbitrary) moral rules regardless of situational factors); personalisation (believing one has a greater impact on others or is more of a causal factor in others’ behaviour or external events than is the case); splitting (all-or-nothing, black-or-white, always-or-never thinking).
Question: where / how did I engage in each of the underlined mistakes? Be succinct. Give an example for each.
Question: what other mistakes did I make, in belief, thought, and deed? Be succinct. Give an example for each.
Selfish
Energy I am pouring into upset could be poured into the elimination of self, the seeking of God, and contributing constructively to the situation: self-absorption, misdirection of energies.
Question: where / how did I engage in these? Be succinct. Give an example for each.
Question: where else was I concerned with my welfare and other's conduct rather than my conduct and their welfare?
Dishonest
There might or not be lying, lying by omission, distortion, or scheming. But there is always a loyalty to the ego's misrepresentation of reality.
Question: where / how did I engage in these? Be succinct. Give an example for each.
Self-seeking
Under self-seeking, I examine all of the ego's aims uncovered in the third column and flesh them out. These fall under the headings: pride (what others think of me), self-esteem (what I think of me), personal and sex relations (how other treat me), ambitions (what I want), security (what I need), and pocketbooks (my financial situation).
Question: what was I after in each of these areas? Be succinct. Give an example for each.
Frightened
The fears dovetail with the self-seeking. Every single item of self-seeking will be matched by a fear. What is the fear?
Question: what were my fears in each of the seven ares of self? Be specific. Be succinct. Give an example of each.
(Where was I to) blame(?)
Whatever situation I am in, I have placed myself in it, as a result of my own decisions.
Question: what was my chain of decision-making that placed me in this situation? Did I take due care in selecting an environment, an AA group, a workplace, friends, home situation, etc.? Did I remain in the situation or go back, even once I realised it was not God's will?
Question: where else was I to blame?
Faults
The St Augustine Prayer Book list of character defects (https://first164.blogspot.com/2010/05/st-augustine-prayer-book-transgressions.html) is a comprehensive list of human failings. The following extracts illustrate the most common faults when I am upset:
- Pride is putting self in the place of God as the center and objective of our life, or of some department thereof. It is the refusal to recognize our status as creatures [i.e. that which has been created by God], dependent on God for our existence, and placed by him in a specific relationship to the rest of his creation.
- Dependence on self rather than on God, with the consequent neglect of the means of grace—sacraments and prayer.
- Failure to recognize our job as a divine vocation, or to offer our work to God. Unwillingness to surrender to and abide in Christ, to let him act in and through us. Failure to offer to God regularly in intercession the persons or causes that have, or should enlist our interest and support.
- Distrust. Refusal to recognize God’s wisdom, providence and love. Worry, anxiety, misgivings, scrupulosity, or perfectionism. Attempts to discern or control the future by spiritualism, astrology, fortune telling or the like. Magic or superstition. Over-sensitiveness. Expectation that others will dislike, reject or mistreat us; over-readiness so to interpret their attitude, or quickness to take offense. Unfounded suspicions. Timidity in accepting responsibility, or cowardice in facing difficulty or suffering. Surrender to feelings of depression, gloom, pessimism, discouragement, self-pity, or fear of death, instead of fighting to be brave, cheerful and hopeful.
- Rejection of God’s known will in favour of our own interests or pleasures.
- Refusal to learn God’s nature or will as revealed in Scripture, expounded in instructions or expert advice, or discernible through prayer, meditation or the reading of religious books. Absorption in our own affairs, leaving little time, energy or interest for the things of God.
- Impenitence. Refusal to search out and face up to our sins, or to confess and admit them before God. Disregard of our sins or pretence that we are better than we are. Self-justification or discounting our sins as insignificant, natural or inevitable. Self-righteous comparison of ourselves with others.
- Shame (hurt pride), sorrow for ourselves because our sins make us less respectable than we like to think we are, or because we fear punishment or injury to our reputation, rather than sorrow for what sin is in the eyes of God. Refusal to admit we were in the wrong or to apologize.
- Vanity. Crediting to ourselves rather than to God our talents, abilities, insights, accomplishments, good works. Refusal to admit indebtedness to others, or adequately to express gratitude for their help. Hypocrisy. Pretence to virtues we do not possess. False humility. Harsh judgments on others for faults we excuse in ourselves.
- Arrogance. Insisting that others conform to our wishes, recognize our leadership, accept our own estimate of our worth. Being overbearing, argumentative, opinionated, obstinate.
- Anger is open rebellion against God or our fellow creatures. Its purpose and desire is to eliminate any obstacle to our self-seeking, to retaliate against any threat to our security, to avenge any insult or injury to our person.
- Resentment. Refusal to discern, accept or fulfil God’s vocation. Dissatisfaction with the talents, abilities or opportunities he has given us. Unwillingness to face up to difficulties or sacrifices. Unjustified rebellion or complaint at the circumstances of our lives. Escape from reality or the attempt to force our will upon it. Transference to God, to our parents, to society, or to other individuals of the blame for our maladjustment; hatred of God, or antisocial behaviour. Cynicism. Annoyance at the contrariness of things; profanity or grumbling.
- Pugnacity. Attack upon another in anger. Murder in deed or desire. Combativeness or nursing of grudges. Injury to another by striking, cursing or insulting him; or by damaging his reputation or property. Quarrelsomeness, bickering, contradiction, nagging, rudeness, or snubbing.
- Retaliation. Vengeance for wrongs real or imagined, or the plotting thereof. Harsh or excessive punishment. Hostility, sullenness or rash judgment. Refusal to forgive, or to offer or accept reconciliation. Unwillingness to love, to do good to, or to pray for enemies. Boycotting or ostracizing another for selfish reasons. Spoiling others’ pleasure by uncooperativeness or disdain, because we have not got our way, or because we feel out of sorts or superior.
- Malice. Ill-will, false accusations, slander, backbiting. Reading false motives into others’ behaviour. Initiation, collection or retailing of gossip. Arousing, fostering or organizing antagonism against others. Unnecessary criticism, even when true. Deliberate annoyance of others, teasing or bullying.
Question: where / how did I engage in each of these faults? Be succinct. Give an example for each.
Wrongs
Question: how did all the above impact others? This is where I look at the situation from their point of view. How would they feel they had been affected?