FORTUNE TELLING

Since the beginning of human existence, a lot of objects have been invented. A user manual was created so that those who need them can use them. If we take a step back and look around, we can see that everything works in a certain system. The universe, in its own cycle, repeats certain situations every moment. For example, in our country, the sun rises in the morning and sets in the evening, and we have never heard of a day when this did not happen from our elders, and they haven't heard it from theirs. From this perspective, we can say that everything has a working mechanism. Human beings did not have a user manual for the universe and have come to where they are today by discovering it. They had to discover the sun, clouds, rain, storms, predators, and in short, nature in order to live. But what about humans themselves? What is the mechanism of a human? Does it have a user manual, or is it also something that had to be discovered while living?

Those born into a family are considered lucky. That family teaches what needs to be done and what should not be done, how to be protected, nourished, and raised, etc. We are physical, emotional, mental, and spiritual beings. The body works according to a certain system within itself, and when the necessary conditions are not met, it will fight to get what it wants. Since the beginning, mankind has discovered the body as much as it has not discovered the emotions, mind, and soul. When our mind and emotions lose their harmony, it reflects on our soul, and we don't really know how to use emotions and the mind effectively — at least not as well as we know how to use our body effectively.

However, when the mind is not in harmony with the emotions, we said it reflects on the soul, then what happens? Doesn’t the body get affected? I wish there were a manual for this, but unfortunately, mankind discovers it while living. When almost the entire society does not know its own working mechanism, how can the system work correctly? The person who started writing the user manual of life, probably left writing their own user manual until the very end. Luckily, some scientists are progressing on that path. Dr. David D. Burns is one of them.

Dr. David D. Burns has summarized how we make life harder by distorting our minds under 10 headings:

1. All-or-nothing thinking

2. Overgeneralization

3. Mental filtering

4. Discounting the positive

5. Jumping to conclusions

6. Magnification

7. Emotional reasoning

8. Should/Must statements

9. Labeling and mislabeling

10. Personalization

a. Mind reading b. Fortune telling

Actually, if we train our mind with these 10 headings to manage our emotions, our cognitive distortions will disappear. Although it may seem easy, like everything else, it requires effort. Dr. Burns discusses these headings in detail in his book Feeling Good. I would like to share with you an insight I had regarding a cognitive distortion that caused me to fall into error.

One area where people who are spiritually inclined or those with a heightened sixth sense can often go wrong is jumping to conclusions. Intuitive people can really sense when something is going wrong. This might indeed be true, and if it is exactly true, it’s not a cognitive distortion. But no matter how intuitive we are, having a mind that comments on things will not take us beyond fortune telling. Whatever is sensed, as negative as it might be, cannot go beyond a comment unless we know what is going on in the other person's mind. Perhaps while talking to the other person, they were thinking something entirely different, and their tone, expression, and even energy could have shaped accordingly. Don’t let such a beautiful formation like intuition distort you by turning it into fortune telling; let your feeling remain as it is, whatever it may be about. The information that will come to you will come regardless. This is a small contribution to your user manual: let your mind be in harmony with your emotions.

With love.