THE TRIPLE A (AAA) STREN

The “triple A” stren provides an important tool to understand and manage your mental “workings,” and to make a difference that you will like. 
 
AAA = Arousal → Assumption → Action

           I am indebted to Albert Ellis, the developer of Rational Emotive Therapy, for the triple A stren.  He has elucidated this concept slightly different, what he calls the “ABC” sequence:

A = an  Activating event,
B = one’s Belief, and
C = the Consequent action.

He explains this idea dates back to the philosopher Epictetus who proclaimed  “Men are not disturbed by things, but by the views which they take of them.”   Humans create most of our troubles because we passively assume “A” leads immediately to “C.”  He has developed a system of self-understanding that redirects you to focus on “B”, the major cause of “C.”  We best manage ourselves when we recognize it is not the event that causes unhappiness; it is our faulty beliefs in response to the event.  By assuming “A” is the source of our stress, our thinking is prone to blaming … some “it,” “other,” or “our self.”  Blaming leads to harmful aggression.  By recognizing the importance of “B”, we are more likely to take personal responsibility for our reaction, examine our thinking, and direct our attention to constructive problem solving.  We are interpretive beings that make assumptions from the data and information we receive.  I prefer the label “assumptions,” but “beliefs” are equivalent to describe the interpretations we make of the arousal event that results in action.  I refer to the collection of assumptions and/or beliefs that are the basis of the action we take “our assumptive world.”

Elsewhere, I have described three stages of our development, each with its own “master” director:
            Stage 1: master nature, our genetic inheritance
            Stage 2: master nurture, what we acquire from our parents, teachers, culture, and
                   other “nurturers”
            Stage 3: self-mastery, what we choose for ourselves

Our assumptions are acquired from three sources: our genetic inheritance, our parents and other “nurturers,” and lastly, those we independently create and/or modify as we acquire physical and mental maturity.  The perspective, and therefore the assumptions, of each of these three “masters” who would direct our thinking are distinct.  The action course we take is the outcome of which masters set of assumptions dominate.  The survival instinct we inherit emphasizes a physical reaction, what has been called “fight or flight,” as our automatic early response to life’s challenges.  During our immature early years, our nurturers provide us a characteristic language to think.  Its words emphasize blind obedience to authority.  Survival through symbolic means is preferred to physical means: position, title, wealth, appearance, economic, political, and religious dominance.  Physical aggression is usually prohibited, a “no-no!”  We passively acquire our nurturers’ assumptive views and usually sustain them through habit.  Winning, “beating” others in competition, being right, agreeing with and depending on their rules is the prevalent pattern.  Such assumptive views are usually taught using “prescriptive” (should, have to, must, ought) and “dichotomous” (good/bad, right/wrong, black/white, either…or) language.  [dichotomous = limited to two usually contradictory sides]      

           The early language and assumptive views provided as part of our nature and nurturers’ teachings are insufficient to serve us well in our mature years.  More critical, they clearly are increasingly disastrous in our rapidly changing contemporary world with the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction.  As creatures of habit we are prone to stay stuck, dominated by the first “scripts” provided by our genes and early teachers.    Instead of making our best bargain with life’s ever changing challenges, by allowing our early (prescriptive and dichotomous) language and passively acquired assumptions to persist, we become our own worst enemies.   The triple A stren creates a mature way of thinking compatible with our growing self-mastery.  It provides our thinking a far wiser perspective, emphasizing knowledge and reason in making assumptions more so than instinct and the habitual thinking provided by our nature and nurture.  Updating our passively acquired “assumptive world” is accomplished by simple changes in our language and the study of the wisdom provided by others.  Taking charge of our assumptive world is the key to using our best to do our best, to feel good and do good.   
 
           If you stay stuck in the first stages of your development, you will likely interpret events from a “right/wrong” “good/bad” “‘O.K.’/‘not O.K’” perspective.  If you begin to use the AAA or ABC sequence to examine your “assumptive world,” you will gain a valuable insight to add to your self-management skills.   This tool will help you move on to the third “self-mastery” stage of development.  Skills in originality, cooperation, loving, and wise direction of your actions using knowledge and reason are more common from this perspective.    

           After many years of listening to persons having difficulties, therapists have identified common assumptive views that make a significant change in one’s well-being.  Many of the “faulty” assumptions that get us into trouble and their more adaptive counterparts are identified in the stren “Life’s Wisdom.”   In a popular self-help book, A Guide to Rational Living in an Irrational World, and other writings, Ellis identifies common “irrational” beliefs we passively accept that are the source of most unhappiness and he proposes more appropriate alternative beliefs. 

           The following examples are provided to help you understand the powerful influence of your assumptive views.  Ask these questions:  What makes the difference in the resultant action, the event that gets our attention or the mental interpretation of the “data”?   Can you identify the mediating assumptions?  Are there relatively automatic assumptions that may be attributed to one’s inherited “fight/flight” response pattern and/or “prescribed” by early nurturers?  Are there alternative assumptions that you might create?  Would they lead to alternative action and different outcomes?   Can you recognize that each of the three masters that would direct our thinking (nature, nurture, and the self of self-mastery) may perceive the same event from their own perspective, make a different interpretation, and take a different action?    

Example 1

Harry and Joe each live near the cemetery.  Harry regularly takes his lunch to relax there.  He says “What a beautiful serene place to relax.”  Joe avoids going anywhere near the cemetery.  He may even have panic episodes thinking about the “unnatural” things that go on among the dead.

Example 2

On two occasions, I observed similar events.  In the college cafeteria, a student asked if the soup contained meat.  “I am a vegetarian.”  Assured that there were only vegetables, he began to eat.  Everyone at the table commented that the soup was quite good when the vegetarian noticed on his fork what was unmistakably a piece of bacon.  He immediately threw up.  In another instance, an orthodox Jew had the same reaction when he discovered that what he assumed was beef was actually ham.

Example 3

We are born with a “natural” response to avoid pain.  Yet there are many individuals who deliberately cause pain and injury to themselves, and do so with satisfaction.  Asceticism is the practice of the belief that the greater the pain experienced on earth, the greater will be the reward in eternity.  My dictionary indicates ascetics commonly believe that pain “releases the soul from bondage to the body and permits union with the divine.”  What other assumptions might lead individuals to flagellate themselves or inflict self-pain?

Example 4

H. was required to have therapy by his school because he wore a swastika on his arm, boasted that Arian people were superior, was bullying classmates, and threatened destructive acts.   An interview with H’s mother provided some insight.  The man who impregnated her immediately abandoned her.  Though of middle class upbringing, her lack of adaptive skills led her to drift into progressively poorer, more dangerous living conditions.  She was raped on two occasions, once by a black man.  Her bigotry was quite overtly acknowledged; her son expressed her views as though a mirror reflection.    

Example 5

A baseball fan is talking with three umpires and asks: “How do you know what is a ball and what is a strike?”
            Umpire #1:   “I calls them the way I sees them.”
            Umpire #2:   “I calls them the way they are.”
            Umpire #3:  “They aint nuttin until I calls them.”

Example 6

William James was reading a book while visiting an illiterate native tribe.  The tribal leader approached him and offered to exchange most of the tribal valuables for the book.  Why?  The chief observed James staring for hours at the book.  He concluded James’s prolonged gaze into the strange object was the source of the magical power attributed to James. 

            We are required to make multitudes of assumptions to explain the world about us.  Our assumptions clearly powerfully influence how we deal with the motion pictures of our mental screen.  The events themselves are at first merely occurrences devoid of meaning or already impassioned with nature’s and nurture’s assumptive views.  For each person, there is a unique perspective.  Where does one’s perspective come from?   What events were key in forming your “assumptive world”?

Some “practical” theory: My “assumptive view” of the “how” and “why” this triple A stren works is provided in the hope it will help you to effectively apply this powerful mental skill.  Earth’s creatures come in many sizes and complexities.  Some have no brain; others have prominent ones.  The variety of responses available to an organism is related to the size of the brain.   Simpler organisms may respond only to light or heat.  Their response is totally predictable and automatic.  More complex creatures have specialized functions to digest food and get rid of wastes, and to reproduce; these “organs” may also work well without need for a brain.  Some may have a “net” of nerves.  Things get more interesting as we observe creatures with an identifiable central nervous system or new organ we call “the brain.”  The simplest brain may provide coordination and increased effectiveness of various organs.  Acting like a computer, it may store information, respond to complex tasks, but lack conscious awareness.  It is “brainy” but “mindless.” 

           Salmon face the near impossible task of “fighting” fierce rapids to lay their eggs upstream.  Thereafter, they die, providing their carcass for their young to devour and sustain themselves.  Would you make such a sacrifice?  Perhaps you feel you have even done more!!!  You will accept though that you have a choice not available to the salmon.  Birds teach their young to fly and then encourage them to “fly away.”  We observe four legged creatures nourish and protect their young to a point, and then stop abruptly when some “nurture” hormone is “turned off.”  You see, most earthlings appear to be slaves to stereotyped automatic behavior regulated by prescribed mechanisms.  The emphasis is on a simple life cycle -- birth ® mature sexually ® reproduce ® die.  Yes, we humans also serve our nature and nurture, but we add a very special characteristic.  We may considerably influence our destiny.  The power of our mental processing permits us to modify nature’s rhythm.  Though we may assume a sheep like role and allow ourselves to be guided by a “herd instinct,” we are provided a choice.   We may create and assert our individuality.   This guide addresses that process.    

           At what point is the brain sufficiently large to permit conscious awareness and “mental” activity?  It is difficult to “label” exactly at what level of complexity mental awareness might occur because its first occurrence is so primitive and its development so gradual.  We observe a second outcropping of the first primitive brain and further outgrowths in more complex creatures.  The human brain is actually a composite of five specialized brains.  It contains over a hundred million cells and each cell has multiple branches.  You can picture a mature tree and its myriad of diverging branches; you’ve seen many, no two of which are identical.  You likely cannot picture the diversity of our brain, which is millions of times more complex.    It is apparent that there are many levels of “mental” sophistication from the first occurrence of mental awareness in earthlings to that of human consciousness.  I find it interesting that when compared to our more primitive ancestors, the size of our brain has not only enlarged but is “growing” in complexity more rapidly than any other organ.  Our brain is, so to speak, the growing tip of change.   We also know that mental problem solving increases with the development of other resources, for example the development of five complex sense organs that provide awareness of what is “outside,” and growth of the capacity to use knowledge.

           We can understand the sources of our assumptive views.  Nature and nurture provide all of earth’s creatures with relatively automatic predictable response patterns to manage life’s challenges.   Events of significance arrive by our senses and/or our internal state.  Chemical changes occur such as release of adrenalin (a short acting chemical that releases energy) and steroids (long acting “stress hormones” for longer lasting events).  These messengers provide information and may lead to a state of arousal.  An immediate automatic “reflex” response commonly follows.  Our first quick response has been “programmed” by our genetic inheritance and/or acquired through some earlier learning or “conditioning” experiences.  We become mentally aware of the first reaction when a thought “pops into our mind.”  This first automatic reaction is short-lived.   A second more persistent response follows.  The second response is what we do with the thought.  More complex organisms, as us, think about the thought.  We interpret it.  “What is the meaning of this information?”   We make an assumption.  We then take action depending on what assumptions we make about the information.  The outcome of such chemical and mental arousal is action provided from the repertoire of “choices” within our inherited and acquired patterns.
 
           Our genes urge “fight or flight” survival responses, and seek to obtain pleasure and avoid pain.  Our genes predispose us to physical aggression, and mental aggression such as resentment and blaming. Our parents, teachers, community, and other “nurturers” prescribe (and “inscribe”) a second script which directs how we are to think, feel, and act.   The “prescriptive” language acquired from our “nurturers” during our second stage of development predisposes us to deal with stress emphasizing mental means and obedience to their authority.  Though physical aggression is often restrained, symbolic punishment may take the form of resentment, social sanctions and/or directing anger inward, leading to guilt, shame, depression, worry, anxiety, and prolonged stress “dis-ease” such as muscle tension (backaches, headaches), elevation of blood pressure, and the like.  Procrastination, substance abuse, changing a job, spouse, residence, and other means of avoidance may be substituted for actual “flight.”  

           Nature and nurture each propose a characteristic pattern of action suitable to their different perspectives.  These “prescribed” patterns are “tried and tested” for their adaptive value.  Until recently, nature and nurture have ruled over all creatures, directing who they are and what they do.   We humans are likewise so dominated  … for a considerable period of our life.   However, owing to the immense degree of mental development, there is a dramatic addition to the scheme of things.  We have added a third master controller.   We stand apart from all other earthlings by the degree that we may attain self-mastery.  It is not until our third “self-mastery” phase of development, beginning in our second or third decade, that our mental “stuff” has sufficient power to challenge the relatively automatic and habitual thinking patterns of our first two masters.   We no longer have to “rent” our life style; we may own it!

           In virtually all earth creatures, stress leads to arousal followed by a relatively predictable action from among limited alternatives.  The “instinctual” and habitual response patterns have been derived from genes and/or acquired from early nurturers.  The response may be a simple reflex such as the withdrawal of a limb from something hot.  More complex creatures may experience mental awareness and make an interpretation or “assumption” about the information.  A cat sees a dog.  Is it better to run or fight?  The physical and mental responses provided by nature and nurture are relatively limited, stereotyped, automatic, habitual, and predictable.  Arousal results in action predetermined by the influence of the instinctual patterns we inherit and/or the habitual patterns we acquire from our nurturers.  Thinking, feelings, and action are characteristic of their genetic and “nurturer” origin. 

Stress → Arousal → reflex, automatic, or habitual physical and/or mental response

           Our response system is unique by the degree our mental activity moderates our choice of action.  We become aware of information about our common physical world.  We are aroused; energy is produced.  We interpret the data.  We make assumptions!  Unlike other earthlings, our mental world has flexibility, creativity, originality, perspective of past and future, immense data, and abstract reasoning.  We are not bound to act on our physical and mental information from relatively limited, automatic, predictable patterns.  We interpret the information and we assign it a meaning.  We create an assumptive understanding.  Our understanding or assumptive view, not the information, directs our action response.  Our acts are primarily the outcome of our assumptions.  As explained elsewhere, our complex mental apparatus creates a second internal existence and a personal “self” identity.  Our private mental world dominates our life’s experience more than the common external physical world.  Rather than arousal resulting in a relatively automatic response or reaction, our intervening assumptions may assume responsibility for the resultant action.

Stress → Arousal → Assumptions → reflex, automatic, habitual, and/or creative adaptive physical and mental Action.

           Could you imagine that just as our first chemical responses in our body and the first thoughts that pop into our mind may be automatic, so might our first “assumptions” be automatic.   Our first assumptions are usually those habitually ingrained by the genetic program we inherited or more commonly acquired from our early “teachers.”  Humankind is unique by the “second” more prolonged “thinking” response.  We create an elaborate system of assumptions that are meant to help us understand the world about us and make appropriate responses to life’s challenges.  We “organize” these assumptions into a system that forms our “world view.”  The set of assumptions may be reasonably integrated or it may be quite disorganized.  Our assumptions may be effective; they can also be the cause of problems when they are faulty.  The assumptions we make are of far greater importance than most people realize.  Once we have an understanding of this, we can pay more attention to the assumptions we make and use this knowledge to make a difference.  By making more appropriate assumptions, we take more effective action.  “Feeling good” and “doing good” is largely determined by our collection of assumptions, our “assumptive world.” 

           We create an elaborate second, private, “inner” mental world co-existent with the life we experience in the common world.  Our superior mental capacity permits us to acquire immense data about our world, complex language to manipulate the data, initiate original action, exercise free will, and emancipate ourselves from the prescriptions of nature and nurture.  Our life’s experience has become dominated more by this second mental world than the common outside world we share with other earthlings.  I call this newer portion of our mental world the “self” of our third self-mastery stage of growth.
                       
           This new power has changed everything.  For the first time in earth’s history a creature is not connected primarily to the outside world in present time, with here and now information.  Our mind may travel in time, linger past or present, create mental motion pictures, influence feelings, and originate action.  We no longer are merely subject to nature and nurtures whims; we increasingly are acquiring the power to alter nature and our nurture!  Our private conscious awareness, through its own mental managers, has become the dominant influence of our life’s experience.  Instead of directly responding in the relatively automatic stereotyped patterns to life’s events, we mentally process data about the events and assign them a meaning.  The data no longer dominates the response.  Rather, our interpretation of the data leads to action.   Interpretation permits us flexibility and originality of response.  The interpretation of what appears in our mental awareness is our “assumption” or “assumptive view.”  The collection of assumptions that we have acquired and create comprises our “assumptive world.” 

           When the appearance of information arouses our mind’s attention, nature and nurture view the data from their own perspectives.  They may make separate interpretations and assumptions about how to react or act on the same data.  Many of the habitual patterns of thinking we acquire in our first years are no longer adaptive to the adult, relatively civilized, contemporary society we have created.  Indeed, often they are harmful.  By the time we reach the third stage of our development, we have already acquired quite a large collection of assumptions.   Together, these assumptive views, or our “assumptive world,” strongly influence our behavior.  Actions that we derive from assumptions that are not currently adaptive are the major cause of our distress.  And as long as we continue to think and act according to the prescribed patterns of our first controllers, we clearly will not attain the peace-of-mind and peace-in-the-world that reason and wisdom persuade are universal desires. 

           Like other earthlings, we are creatures of habit.  Though we are prone to think and act in “servitude” to our nature and nurture’s way, we are gifted with the opportunity for emancipation.  The new “self-mastery” way of thinking is quite easy to learn and apply; the letting go of the old thinking pattern is the more difficult task.  The triple A stren reminds us to critically appraise our assumptions and consider more adaptive ones.  You make a giant step forward when you recognize that your life’s experience is largely determined by your collection of assumptions and beliefs, by your “assumptive world.”  When you take responsibility for your assumptions, you take charge of your third stage of growth and will not remain a “victim of your fate.”   The most effective path to self-mastery is acquiring skill in challenging the automatic, no longer adaptive interpretations of the events we face, and substituting “wiser” assumptions.   We are capable of creating far more productive means to manage our life than aggression, blaming, intolerance, guilt, resentment, depression, avoidance, worry, and the physical maladies commonly associated with the manner of thinking we initially acquire.  Will you choose to exercise your option to become what you are capable of becoming?

           The critical insight is that our life’s experience is dramatically influenced by our manner of thinking.  The two perspectives of thinking provided by our nature and nurture, once efficient and effective, have lost much of their adaptability for our third uniquely human self-mastery stage of development.  To the degree we permit them to persist, our nature disposes us to physical aggression, i.e. “fight,” or alternatively, to “flight,” i.e. symbolically “running” by procrastination, denial, substance abuse, changing jobs, spouses, location and the like.  Our nurture disposes us to various forms of symbolic aggression to attain dominance, “win” at others expense, be “right,” “good,” and put “others” in the negative category.  It disposes us to maintain resentment, beat on ourselves in the form of shame, guilt, and put-downs that lead to depression and in the extreme, suicide.  The habitual patterns of thinking instituted from the perspective of our genes and nurturers are no longer adaptive for an adult in the relatively civilized, rapidly changing contemporary society we have created.  The patterns that were “wise” in your earlier dependent circumstances lose their effectiveness because they fail to maintain and “update” your assumptive world.  If you allow them to persist as masters of your mental resources, they commonly become a major source of harm, worse than “ineffective.” 

           We can make a difference.  We require a new way of thinking, one compatible with the power of self-mastery.  Our assumptive world is the most powerful determinant of our thinking, feelings, and actions.   You will feel good and do good when your assumptive views are “wise” in its manner of thinking.  The AAA stren will remind you to focus on the most important influence on your life’s experience, to “update” your assumptive world with current wisdom, and enable you to more effectively manage yourself.   Simply said, you will go through life feeling mentally “beaten up” if you stay stuck in the thinking tools provided by your early masters.  Acquire the strens of self-mastery and wisdom to create a quality life experience.

           This stren provides a basic skill to add A New Way Of Thinking (ANWOT), one that is effective for our self-mastery phase of life.  The strens in this guide promote ANWOT and provide effective insights to use this new power wisely.  Once you recognize the powerful influence of your assumptive views, you may intervene to “update” them, to flexibly create more adaptive assumptions that work, and to get unstuck from the limited, prescribed and habitual patterns of your nature and nurturers.  You can replace what likely was useful previously, but may now be maladaptive, with a new way of “descriptive” thinking (ANWOT) that is characteristic of the third self-mastery stage of development … problem solving, originality, creating love, flexibility, tolerance, cooperation and other conflict resolution skills, and the power to “feel good” and “do good.”  The marvelous news is that since we ourselves cause much of our distress by our manner of thinking, of dealing with life’s stresses, we are capable of creating alternative problem-solving skills.  We passively automatically sustain nature’s and nurture’s problem solving perspectives.  Self-mastery requires active “willful” skill development.  Apply this “triple A stren” if you would be master of yourself!

 

Summary:  Humankind has many similarities to other earthlings.  It is the differences that set us apart.  While these differences may be by degree rather than totally unique, the differences are to such a degree that they provide us a distinct identity.  Becoming our own person requires the application of knowledge about the special capability provided by our most recently developed brain.  I highlight the following qualities:

1. We have an immense data system.  “Knowing” is based on information.  We have a dictionary of words and symbols that identify events and ideas that enable us to catalog them and to share them.  Our data extends beyond personal storage – technology (libraries, computers, communication media, etc.) provides knowledge of history, events current throughout the world, and predictions of future events.  Other earthlings “know” their environment primarily only by their immediate experience and limited “language.” 
      
2. We engage in thinking and “reflective” thinking.  Our mental life is like a continuous motion picture, “a stream of consciousness.”  Nature and nurture stimulate thoughts and thinking; they provide the initial story line.  We also commonly stay stuck at this level.  Humankind’s complex mental processing system, what I call our “self,” permits us to think about (“reflect” on) our thinking, to modify and/or create the action.  We may become the producer and the director of our mental motion picture.  Other earthlings almost invariably follow the script provided by nature and nurture. 
   
   
3. We simultaneously dwell in two worlds: the common physical environment we share and our personal mental universe.  Language and symbols substitute for physical reality and create an elaborate private internal world.   Our mental experience has “perspective.”  In it, we may travel through time; we may dwell on the past, present, and/or future.  We may revisit and “freeze” time.  For example, “resentment” is a repetitive dwelling on a past experience.  Unlike other earthlings that primarily live in their immediate connection to the outside world, we not only travel back and forth in this life but we commonly create elaborate assumptions about a life beyond life.  Such assumptions profoundly influence our life’s experience.  You will acquire a powerful tool with the recognition that the complex “motion” of our mental motion picture is primarily made by our assumptions about our data, not by the information itself. 
   
   
4. Our life’s experience is determined more by our “assumptive world” than our physical world.   Other earthlings primarily automatically react or respond to here and now information provided by their body or senses, by their nature and nurture.  Thanks to our complex brain and its elaborate mental processing capacity, we humans manipulate information, interpret it, and form beliefs.   We make assumptions using the data recorded in our memory and our current experience.  I arbitrarily label this collection of assumptions, beliefs, and personal interpretations of data our “assumptive world.”  Our thinking, feelings, and actions are more powerfully influenced by our mental assumptive world than by the here and now information provided by our body and our senses.
   
   
5. Nature and nurture have preprogrammed many of our assumptions.  Assumptions that occur immediately in response to data are usually relatively automatic, stereotyped interpretations, genetically determined or acquired from past experience.  They commonly have become “habitual” and urge instant or “reflex” responses.  They may have been effective in past situations but many lose their usefulness in the present situation.  Learn to look for and recognize them.   Nature predisposes to fight or flight behavior; nurture favors “prescriptive” behavior, “shoulds”.  Our tendency to respond to information habitually and “uncritically” commonly gets us into trouble.  We rarely are confronted with emergencies where instant action must be taken.            
   
   
6. Humankind are unique by the degree we may direct our life’s experience by assumptions of our own creation.   Organisms without consciousness respond reflexly; more complex organisms with consciousness have reflexes and add complex but relatively predictable mental responses.  Humans have a vast repertoire of reflexes and mental responses plus the ability to reflect on our thinking, modify it, and initiate original action.  ANWOT stimulates self-examination and ownership of our views.  We may “override” and update the assumptions that have become habitual and develop new alternative paths for action.  Freedom is the opportunity to choose among alternatives
   
   
7. Wise assumptions result in productive self-mastery.   Self-mastery, i.e., making a difference in our experience, may be rewarding or create harm.  Faulty assumptions lead to maladaptive action.   The triple A stren is the process for examining our maladaptive assumptions and substituting ones that work.   Effective self-mastery requires the use of wisdom in the creation of our assumptions.
   
   
8. Regularly apply the AAA stren to critically appraise your assumptions using the new way of thinking (ANWOT).  You will wisely guide your life’s direction through self-mastery, more so than through the perspective of instinct and/or habit.

           
The critical point of the triple A stren:  Other earthlings primarily respond to the information provided in the here and now by chemical and electrical messages.  Human earthlings primarily respond not by the information from our body and our senses, but we respond to the assumptions we make about the information provided by chemical and electrical messages.  Our mental capacity provides the means to examine and modify our assumptions.    Our life’s experience, unlike other creatures, is primarily determined by our assumptive world.  Our assumptive views are effective when they lead to “feeling good” and “doing good.”  Most of the misery we experience is of our own creation resulting from inappropriate or ineffective assumptions we hold about ourselves and the world about us.  The triple A stren is an effective tool to identify the assumptions that get us into trouble.  It reminds us to focus more on the assumptions or beliefs that lead to action more so than the arousing or activating event that gets our attention.  The AAA stren is most effectively used to strengthen our assumptive world and fulfill our reasonable wants.

AAA = Arousal → Assumption → Action