Firstly, as I said, “Please note that I am not against self-help. I love it. I teach it!” … “Naming all self-help books bad or good is like saying all team leaders are bad or good.”

Secondly, thoughts absolutely affect emotions. There’s not a disconnect between the two. You can think better thoughts and change your emotions. HOWEVER, there’s a murky grey zone here hurting many lives: 1) What emotions are you trying to change with your thoughts and why? 2) What emotions are you avoiding with your thoughts? Ask yourself these two questions and you’ll be ahead of many people.

This is such a big issue I see in people I work with and myself. The biggest problem with self-help junkies is they get stuck in their head, manipulating emotions instead of just letting them flow.

The majority of people (ESPECIALLY guys) are too logical and too rational – especially in those studying self-help because we’re taught to be in control of ourselves.

Let’s use an example. You get angry over a friend not inviting you out. Most self-help would tell you to not let it affect you. NLP would get you to reframe it, “Maybe my friend is hanging out with another group of friends for tonight.”

Good use of positive thinking changes a limiting perspective of, “My friend hates me because he didn’t ask me out” to something like “Who knows why I didn’t get asked out. There’s a million possible reasons. Whatever.” Good.

What’s going on however? What’s the message of anger sending you about not getting asked out? Do you feel rejected? Do you not love yourself enough that you need to see your friend wants to be with you tonight? Does the relationship suck? Do you need to receive value from other people because your seeking something from childhood? The possibilities are endless.

Some people don’t dare ask these questions because it brings forth emotions like shame and guilt they will not touch (they think these are “bad”). Wayne Dyer in Your Erroneous Zones is a well-known figure who’s fueling this problem of emotional avoidance. “Kill guilt because it’s a useless emotion.” Please! This is such a serious issue plaguing self-help.

The issue isn’t in how you think. If you manipulate your thoughts, you put yourself in an elusive state. Emotional manipulation with thoughts is dangerous because you avoid the messages emotions send you and stop yourself accessing your complete being. My Big Talk course teaches you to accept these dark parts of yourself you prefer to avoid, which enables you to not fear rejection, embarrassment, approaching people and lets you deeply connect with others in conversation. Unfulfilling relationships exist when both parties don’t know how to access their dark sides.

I guarantee you’ll see a growing surge of experts recognize the importance of emotional work over the coming years (I saw a few leading experts acknowledge it last year – David DeAngelo in Man Transformation is one).

Also relating to Tonya’s comments, I’m not saying discipline is unnecessary! No WAY! Read and reread the self-discipline myth. So much is preached about positive thinking and self-discipline that the article uncovers the other, overlooked side of these issues.

I think everyone needs to read the article over and over. It’s not a one off, light reading.

Resting the matter of self help aside I want to express my thoughts on the “ thoughts “ myth you talked about. Your article projects the concept that there is a disconnect between thoughts and emotions. I disagree. Emotions follow thoughts. Emotions are mind states, caused by predominant awareness about something, and this predominant awareness about something is the definition of thought.

Emotions can be easily identified while it is generally hard to find the basic thought that creates an emotion. But since thoughts create emotions, it is really essential to have better thoughts to create better emotions. What we really want are better emotions, and these better emotions could be generated by better thoughts.

So, thought management is very essential, in personality transformations and that is where the Positive thinking, affirmations, visualizations etc. come in. But, the focus and practice on Positive thoughts should be gentle, comfortable and easy leading. The basic idea is not to worry or get agitated on the occurrence of negative thoughts, but gently leading the mind to more positive realms.

Also, I find the concept of discipline very essential in personal transformation. Disciplining is based on the concept that mind and body are part of the same system and influence each other. Of these two, it is easier to control the body than the mind, and by controlling the body one can indirectly but effectively control the mind. So discipline is aimed actually at the body, but can provide powerful leverage for the control of the mind.

I believe that without a disciplined approach to your courses, no gain is possible. Again the very program of disciplining should be gradual, easy leading and comfortably bearable.

To sum up, I feel that the objective of any training programs is to enable better thoughts through better disciplining. I cannot understand how else it could be.
Regards.
G.Ramasubramanian
Corporate trainer and Master NLP Practitioner
9444128486
nlptrainerram@gmail.com

Maybe you let the self-help gurus off lightly!

As it happens, I’ve just finished reading Steve Salerno’s 2005 book “SHAM: How the Self-Help and Actualization Movement Made America Helpless” and that’s a pretty ferocious attack on the “self-help industry” by comparison. It was published just before “The Secret”, unfortunately for him, so he’s had to be content with savaging that on his blog. And I saw a review elsewhere this morning of Barbara Ehrenreich’s more recent book “Bright-sided: How the Relentless Promotion of Positive Thinking Has Undermined America”, which I haven’t read yet.

Steve Salerno has mentioned on his blog that there’s a growing “anti-self-help guru movement” and I think he could be right. Kudos to you for writing this article.

Like you, I still believe in “self-help/self improvement/personal development” but there’s a lot that’s vague, shallow and poorly understood going around out there these days – I think discerning what’s of value has become a new life skill for the 21st century!