I always knew you were there Somewhere I always knew there was a way Someday I always knew you'd come true Somehow And I'm believing it now You're so sweet And you're so true Everything I ever knew Everything I wanna do It's all living in you By Richard W. Bray
Billy is as slippery As a soggy salamander His insides are abandoned And his words are full of slander Billy’s full of ridicule For folks who ain’t around When someone leaves the room He can't wait put ‘em down Ain’t got an ounce of honor But he’s loaded with ambition He's got the perfect skill set To become a politician Billy’s full of ridicule For folks who ain’t around When someone leaves the room He can't wait to put ‘em down With a smile as true as tinsel He tells you what you wanna hear He’ll saturate your ego And pour another beer Billy’s full of ridicule For folks who ain’t around When someone leaves the room He can't wait to put ‘em down Solitude is agony And silence terrifies He tries to fill the universe With blasphemy and lies Billy’s full of ridicule For folks who ain’t around When someone leaves the room He can't wait to put ‘em down By Richard W. Bray
Psychology is what crazy people study in college, and it only took these geniuses a few decades to figure out that Sigmund Freud was a quack and remove his nonsense from the DSM.
After so many years of trying to heal people by fixating on dreams, breastfeeding, and ancient mythology, the behavioral scientists finally came up with a kind of therapy that works better than the control group. It’s called Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT).
For several decades, psychiatrists focused on a bunch of irrelevant gobbledygook, like the id, the ego, the superego, the five psychosexual stages of development, and just about everything else that wacky old cigar-sucking fool ever conjured up in one of his cocaine induced frenzies. (I will concede that Freud was right about ego defense mechanisms…just like that proverbial broken clock.)
Another major source of 20th century American headshrinkery was B.F. Skinner, a crazy coot who stuck his own daughter inside a box designed to train pigeons.
CBT, which involves reflecting on how your thoughts, beliefs, and attitudes impact your behavior, is a lot more effective than the high-falutin snake oil that Freud was selling. We can all thank Albert Ellis, Aaron Beck, and others for rescuing psychotherapy from the nutjobs who were in charge for so long.
Ellis coined the phrase stinking thinking to describe the human tendency to engage in stupid and counterproductive forms of cognition.
Examples of stinking thinking include:
So if you’re doing these things, just stop it! And everything in your life will get a lot better. Actually, it’s a little bit more complicated than that in practice. But the theory behind it is pretty simple.
A lot of stinking thinking comes from obsessing about what other people are thinking and doing. So listen to yourself, and adjust your thinking accordingly.
Here’s a key tip: Instead of worrying about what other people are doing, focus on your reaction to what other people are doing. And stop wasting time trying to figure out what people are thinking. They have the right to think whatever they want as long as their behavior isn’t hurting anybody.
When somebody’s behavior puts you in a tizzy, ask yourself what it has to do with you. If someone is actively harming you, then by all means stick up for yourself and do what you can to avoid people like that. But remember: If you’re constantly getting in a huff about other people’s behavior, then you’re the one with a problem
Resentment is like taking poison and expecting someone else to die. You don’t forgive people because they deserve absolution – you forgive people because you deserve peace. Besides, you’re not God, so you could never grant someone absolution anyhow, even if they did something really shitty to you.
Don’t expect the source of your hurt to be the source of your healing. Closure is an effective plot device in a lot of really lame movies. But there’s no such thing as closure in real life. Life is all about the flow. There aren’t any points where everything comes together and it all makes sense. Ob-la-di ob-la-do life goes on bra.
You can’t take back the hurt you give. So try to be nice to people.
The mistake is thinking that the people who hurt you can magically make the pain go away. They can’t. Even if the person who harmed you wrote out a full confession – signed, sealed, and notarized – accepting complete and total responsibility for everything that’s wrong with your life, you’re still going to have to find a way to process your own pain.
Maybe you should try CBT.
by Richard W. Bray
Prices going up Not enough to eat People dying younger And living in the street Anger and resentment Pushing folks apart We need to get together And open up our hearts Love is the force Trace it to the source So many takers Legions of fakers Time to shut them down And bless the peacemakers Praise the blue skies Don't believe in lies Reach your hand out And listen to the wise Love is the force Trace it to the source by Richard W. Bray
Where do the people in my dreams come from? Do they have occupations In their dreamy dreamy lives? Do they wake up in the morning And kiss their dreamy wives? Where do the people in my dreams come from? Do they inhabit other people’s dreams Or only visit mine? Do they all hang out together? Do they live in space and time? Where do the people in my dreams come from? Do they exist in dimensions That humans cannot see? Do they go to bed at night And dream about me? by Richard W. Bray
it only takes you to open up the door you wash away the blue you refresh and you restore it only took you to melt my frozen heart you fix me just like glue when I’m falling apart In a cold and bitter world You’re a special kind of girl it only takes you to turn blizzards into fire doo be doo be doo be doo there ain’t no way to get higher it only takes you to right me when I’m wrong if the world disappears there will still be your song by Richard W. Bray
Fill the world with song
Sing until you're silly
Wild and beguiled
By Roses and Lilys
Stars on Alabama
The way you look tonight
Baby I'm amazed
When you hold me tight
Nobody to see us
Nobody to hear us
Pay no mind to stupid words
With nobody near us
Those ordinary things
That I gotta do
I throw em out the window
To be alone with you
By Richard W. Bray
Weak and wounded people Let the spirits in Play a demon's game The demons always win Entertain a demon And grovel at its feet Revel in destruction And tales of deceit Spin a tangled web Stab a thousand backs Demon grabs your virtue And eats it like a snack Dance with the devil Sing his favorite song Never ask yourself Where it went wrong Do all the things A demon says to do And never admit The demon is you by Richard W. Bray
When your life’s a walking shitshow And you fill the world with lies You don’t know why you’re empty Saying your goodbyes In a room where you say your name And try to tell the truth Don’t miss out on fellowship Searching for proof Alone on a computer You muffle your cries As you try to find your truth In other people’s lives Searching the whole world Looking for your purpose Cast your bucket down And try to be of service by Richard W. Bray
The quiet of the sky The passion of the trees The wisdom of the rocks Educating me Unremembered kindness Murmurs in the breeze The wonders of a world That willed itself to be Experience the grandeur Of a world that isn’t clean Open up your senses Pull away from the screen by Richard W. Bray
Laughter hope sock in the eye's Blog 