For this month’s resource recommendation, I read Telling Yourself the Truth by William Backus and Marie Chapian. *Winner of the Gold Book Award (500,000 copies sold) and Winner of the Gold Medallion Award (E.C.P.A.), which recognizes excellence in evangelical Christian literature.
What is it about: Wrong thinking produces wrong emotions, wrong reactions, wrong behavior, and unhappiness! Learning to identify your thoughts and change them is the first step on the road to healthy thinking. The authors explain what they call “Misbelief Therapy.”
Each chapter is broken down into categories of misbeliefs: anger, self-talk, depression, anxiety, lack of self-control, fear of change, and relationships with others. The last chapter is also dissects common ideas that can dictate our decisions, like “In order to be happy I must be loved by everybody” or “I want it, therefore I should have it.” These thoughts become beliefs that, if you let it, have the power to control your life! Telling Yourself the Truthcan show you how to identify your own misbeliefs and replace them with the truth.
Why did I read it: At HopeQuest, we offer this book to our clients because getting control of your thoughts, especially destructive ones, has great power to affect success in overcoming addiction. Addiction stems from negative experiences, emotions, and thoughts, that become so powerful that they start causing actions and eventually, a belief system. Taking responsibility for your life and choices and changing them is empowering for not just our clients, but anyone who reads this book!
Favorite idea: “What you think and believe determines how you feel and what you do. We hope you have decided you can change your emotions; you can be an adjusted and happy human being, no matter what you have experienced in your life and no matter what your circumstances are. The question now is, do you reallywant to be happy?”
