The Rational Basis® of Happiness Podcast

The Selfish Path to Romance. Download chapter one for free at DrKenner.com.

Right now, I want to turn to the phones and take a call from a woman who could definitely use a smile on her face.

"I want to end my life, but I have a daughter, and I can't do it with her. I don't know what to do. I hate my life. I'm so unhappy, I can't succeed in this world."

Okay, now that's very tragic. "I hate my life, I'm so unhappy, I can't succeed in this world. I want to end my life. I want to end it, but I have a daughter, and I don't feel I can do it." So what do you do when you're in that situation, when you feel so enormously stressed out, you feel hopeless, you feel it's beyond sad? You've already concluded that there is absolutely no hope in this world. How do you pull yourself out of that funk?

Well, one really good piece of information is, out of all the radio call shows to call, you called one that's titled "The Rational Basis of Happiness," and you're seeking advice. So there's a real lot of hope in you for you to take that action, and that's what you want to grow within yourself. You want to recognize that a part of you wants to live. This is not a done deal in your mind. A part of you desperately would like to be happy. Desperately, would like to live. Desperately, would like to have some good times with your daughter. So what do you do?

Well, I would say go to my website ASAP, right after I finish talking, and get the book Choosing to Live. It's a fabulous workbook written by two cognitive therapists. It's about how to defeat suicide through cognitive therapy. And it's written by Thomas Ellis and Dr. Corey Newman. Doctors Thomas Ellis and Corey Newman. Corey Newman is fabulous. I met him in person, and he is—ah, he could help you so much. And if you can't see him personally, which I know his book is tremendous.

So second, I'll give you some tips from their book. People commonly—there are common reasons that people want to—they get to the end of their rope. They just feel like life will never get better: "Nobody loves me," or "I can't succeed in life." There are real, fundamental views about themselves: "I'm a failure," or "I'm unlovable," or "I'm no good," you know, some variation on that theme. There are views about other people: "Nobody is there for me," "People leave me," "My relationships are broken," or "Everyone around me dies." You know, maybe you've had a lot of losses in your life. Or there may be conclusions about the world, which is the one that you're bringing. You know, "There's nothing left for me in this world. I can't achieve my values in this world." Or it can be your future: "What's the use? Why bother? Nothing ever goes right," and you're predicting a negative future right off the bat.

Well, the good news is that all of those are massive distortions in 99.999% of people's cases. There are wonderful things you can do, but when you pollute your mind with those ideas, it does indeed feel hopeless.

So how do you get yourself out of this funk? Well, one of the peculiar things that this book suggests that you do is to—hey,

I’ve got to interrupt this because we’ve got to pay some bills. 30 seconds, that’s it. A very quick ad, and then Alan will be back.

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How do you get yourself out of this funk? Well, one of the peculiar things that this book suggests that you do is to list—have an argument in your mind—list all the pluses of suicide, and you will notice with each one, there is a catch. And I'll give you just one: If you say, "I'm a failure, at least I'll go out with one success—you know, suicide—and it will help me feel in control of my death." And the catch is that death is the ultimate failure. You want to be a failure? Death is the ultimate failure, and it's the ultimate way of feeling out of control of your life.

If you ask questions that suicidal people typically ask, which are "Why? Why bother trying? Nobody cares. How can I ever change? Who would notice if I was gone? What's the point of going on?"—those are called negative rhetorical questions. They lead you nowhere. You want to replace those with positive questions, such as, "What are my reasons for hurting or killing myself?" and evaluate them. You want to see if there are other possible solutions other than suicide, since that is the ultimate failure. "What would I tell a close friend in the same circumstances? How else could I reasonably view my situation? What steps can I take to change my life rather than end it? Why do I sometimes not mind living?" Meaning, there are some good things—your daughter. "And how might my life be better in the future?"

If you start asking yourself those questions, your mind looks for different data, and it starts to erode away that hopelessness and give you some well-deserved optimism. You need to act on the optimism, and that's important. So your ideas really, really matter.

For more Dr. Kenner podcasts, go to DrKenner.com.

[Ad] Here's an excerpt from The Selfish Path to Romance, the serious romance guidebook by clinical psychologist Dr. Ellen Kenner and co-author Dr. Edwin Locke.

"If your partner occasionally comes home in a bad mood for some reason, learn to read the mood and help raise your partner's spirits. Your partner may want some sympathetic listening and support, or perhaps just some time alone to decompress. As you both learn to understand one another better, you will become more effective at helping improve each other's mood. Though you can help, you're not ultimately responsible for improving your partner's moods. Each person is primarily responsible for one's own mood. By controlling your own mood and not letting your partner's bad mood become contagious, you can better manage a temporary bout of the blues."

You can download chapter one for free by going to DrKenner.com, and you can buy The Selfish Path to Romance at Amazon.com.