Your emotions are caused by your thinking.

You can change your thinking.

Rational thinking exercises can help reframe negative self-beliefs and emotions.

If you feel shame, recognize that no one else can shame you; only you can make yourself feel ashamed. Only you have the power to create your emotions—positive, negative, helpful, or unhelpful.

Hundreds of years ago, the Greek and Roman Stoics advanced that insight.

In his treatise the Enchiridion, Epictetus wrote: Men are disturbed not by the things that happen but by their opinions about those things.

In his Epistles, Seneca stated: Everything depends on opinion. Ambition, luxury, greed, all look back to opinion.

Cicero, Montaigne, Schopenhauer, Shakespeare, and many others throughout history have all echoed similar sentiments.

If, for example, you experience an emotion when someone insults you, it's natural to assume that the opinion and judgment of others can make you feel a certain way. In fact, this is false. Should someone insult, mock, ridicule, or disparage you on social media, for example, for saying something they disagreed with or claimed was uninformed, like, "you are ignorant," keep in mind it's just their judgment, their opinion. And their opinion cannot change you as a person.

No matter what anyone says, you always remain the same imperfect human who, at the very worst, acts imperfectly. You never become a worthless or bad person.

For example, someone insulting you about being overweight is sometimes called "fat shaming." If you do feel ashamed, here's the good news: it's unnecessary to lose weight in order to get over your feeling of shame. No one can make you feel ashamed of your appearance. If you're overweight or even obese, no matter how much others disapprove or critically point it out, you can refuse to make yourself feel hurt.

Irrational Beliefs and Shame

Avoid telling yourself one or more of the following irrational beliefs:

I must not be disapproved of.

I must not look like a glutton.

I should be in control of my eating.

I must be at a perfect weight.

I am an inferior, weak, disgusting person. I must be thin to be acceptable.

I can't stand this uncomfortable feeling of shame.

It's awful to be overweight.

Suppose you're disturbed because you have a demand, for example, "I must not be fat."

You can practice the Three Minute Therapy exercise to address this. Here's an example:

A. (Activating Event) I was called "fat."

B. (Irrational Belief) I must not be fat.

C. (Undesirable Emotional Consequence) Shame.

D. (Disputing or Questioning the Irrational Belief) What is the evidence that proves I absolutely must not be fat?

E. (Effective New Thinking) There exists no evidence to prove I must not be referred to as fat. Although I strongly prefer never to be viewed this way, there is no reason why I must not. Since I don't run the universe and I don't control others, I will be thought of the way others choose to view me, not necessarily the way I wish to be thought of. Although I do not like this possibility I definitely can rationally stand what I do not like.

F. (New Feeling) Concern, disappointment, displeasure.

Practice writing out these exercises daily to change your thinking with the goal of avoiding shame by developing unconditional self-acceptance.

© Psychology Today