Garbage Rules

by Kevin FitzMaurice

Garbage Rules could be about exposing some terrible rules. Garbage Rules could be about some rules for handling garbage. Garbage Rules could be about how garbage is in control of our lives. This book is about rules for understanding how garbage rules your life if you let it. If your mind is focused on garbage, then you will think garbage. If your soul is focused on garbage, then you will experience garbage. If your heart is focused on garbage, then you will feel garbage. In this book, you will discover hundreds of ways that you focus on garbage, and thus receive garbage. If you become aware of this pattern through variation and repetition, then you can learn to switch to more effective and fruitful patterns. Most of the Garbage Rules are restated in various ways. This is helpful for four (1) repetition aids both learning and memory; (2) sometimes you will miss a concept presented in several formats, but grasp it in another unique format; (3) you may be so lost in self-talk that you don’t notice a concept the first few times you encounter it; (4) you may finally understand a concept after multiple encounters with it. The Garbage Rules are organized into categories that server as chapters. This organization is often arbitrary and only for convenience. In total, there are 1,613 rules about garbage. Exploring the Garbage Rules will help you in many ways and with many issues. Here are some of the ways and issues listed acceptance, assertiveness, attitude control, boundaries, charity, communication, compassion, contentment, coping, detachment, ego reduction, emotional responsibility, empathy, equality, forgiveness, happiness, humility, letting-go, motivation, parenting, peace, problem-solving, responsibility, right identity, self-control, self-reliance, serenity, surrender, understanding, universality. When you laugh at your thinking, feeling, and acting with garbage, then you can learn to rely less on garbage as a guide. Learn to surrender your dependence and devotion to garbage by observing yourself using garbage with garbage results. Make this book serve as a mirror so you can face and drop your faith, hope, and charity for garbage. The author’s works offer seven different approaches to self-help. 1. In Breathe, you discover methods for congruence, self-relaxation, self-calming, and self-centering. 2. In Garden, you discover methods for sorting out what thoughts work for you and what thoughts work against you. You also learn how to increase your productive thoughts and to decrease your unproductive thoughts. 3. In Not, you discover methods to stop using the number one mistake that underlies failure. You also learn how to be a more effective parent or leader. 4. In Ego, you discover methods to reduce your devotion to and dependence on ego. You also learn how to be free, happy, and more creative. 5. In Attitude Is All You Need!, you discover methods to sort out what attitudes are working for you and what attitudes are working against you. You also learn how to increase your productive attitudes and to decrease your unproductive attitudes. 6. In the five books Something For Nothing, Anything Goes, Acid Test, 3 Daily Dose of 2003-4, and 3 Daily Dose of 2005, you are given sayings and aphorisms to use for introspection, contemplation, and meditation. 7. In Garbage Rules, you are confronted with your reliance on garbage and the resulting garbage that reliance brings into your life. This awareness serves to motivate you to switch to healthier and happier styles. Please experiment until you find the one or two approaches that work best for you. Worry not if your approaches are the best for anyone else.

144 pages, Kindle Edition

First published February 12, 2012

About the author

Be it as a person's counselor or as a founding member of facilities for the homeless, Kevin Everett FitzMaurice, M.S., NCC, CCMHC, LPC, seeks to make others' lives better by helping others improve how they function. As a volunteer, he supports community services to improve others' living conditions. As a counselor, he "counsels" in the traditional sense: advising, directing, and nudging--or pushing--others into facing and resolving their issues.
Mr. FitzMaurice has a variety of formal and advanced training in counseling, which includes Addictions Counseling, Family Therapy, advanced Rational Emotive Behavior Therapy (REBT), Transactional Analysis (TA), and over 1300 hours of diverse training for continuing education units (CEUs). To make the best use of that extensive training, he takes an integrative approach, grounding himself in Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) and using the other theories to build upon that one core theory, rather than focusing on multiple theories and mastering none of them.
After more than twenty years in counseling, Mr. FitzMaurice has worked four years in the substance abuse field, directed two community mental health programs, and spent fourteen years counseling in private practice. In that time, he has refined many principles for and methods of counseling. He now puts those principles and methods into book form to share them with a wider audience, so more people can benefit than he can reach in person. Currently, he has more than twenty books written, most of which are available worldwide as e-books from Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Sony, Google, Kobo, and Apple.
The philosophical odyssey of Mr. FitzMaurice began in the late '60s. It has remained a mostly self-taught pursuit, with little formal training or education in philosophy. The odyssey started with Western philosophy and a study of pragmatism and atheism. For example, he read every work of Nietzsche that had been translated into English at that time. From there, he moved to the study of Zen, Buddhism, Hinduism, and a misguided experimentation with psychedelics to achieve states of superconsciousness. He continued into Eastern philosophy, pursuing Taoism and J. Krishnamurti. Next came a study of Christianity that started with seven readings of the Old Testament and nine readings of the New Testament from cover to cover, followed by a formal study of Western psychology. The ongoing influences for FitzMaurice's thinking continue to be Christianity, General Semantics, Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT), and an Eastern combination of J. Krishnamurti, Taoism, and Zen.
Academic Credentials: Master of Science (M.S.) in guidance and counseling, with a specialization in agency counseling, from the University of Nebraska. Associate of applied science in human services - chemical dependency counseling (with honors), from Metropolitan Community College.
National Certifications: National Certified Counselor (NCC); Certified Clinical Mental Health Counselor (CCMHC); Family Certification in REBT; Primary Certification in REBT; and Advanced Certification in REBT.
State Licensure: Licensed Professional Counselor (LPC) in Oregon; Licensed Mental Health Counselor (LMHC) in Iowa; Licensed Independent Mental Health Practitioner (LIMHP) in Nebraska.
Community Service: One of the original founders of the Francis House, Siena House, and Stephen Center homeless facilities still in operation in Nebraska. Supporter of the following charities: OxFam America, Amnesty International USA, Habitat for Humanity, and Green Peace.

Reviews

[Liz · Rating 5 out of 5]

One of the best books I have read in my entire life. Simple but powerful. It has changed the way that I view the world.