Beginning Session #3
I just got done listening to the audio portion of session 3 and am praying that I will be abal to replace negitive thoughts with positive believable thoughts. It sounds like it is going to be pretty tough to do. Since this is a very important session, say Lucinda, is there any one that can offer me any suggestions to help me be more positive at the way I think? I tend to have a lot of negitive thoughts, especially about being panicky and driving with others. Can anyone help with some up lifting words of advice for me? Thank you in advance and God bless.
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christinepsc
- Posts: 39
- Joined: Mon Dec 24, 2007 1:26 pm
jharmon1,
I'm just starting to learn to counter my own negative thoughts by pretending that I 'm talking to a friend, rather than to myself. I use words that I would say to someone else, like, "It doesn't look good right now; maybe it will turn out better than we think." As I practice being encouraging to myself, as I usually am to my friends, I realize that I'm nicer to my friends than I am to myself. Why am I so hard on myself? Probably because of the criticism that I received and believed when I was a young boy. I have enough critics in my life; I don't need to be one, too. I don't need to be perfect. I do need to be able to laugh at my mistakes, to not take myself so seriously, to not expect myself to be perfect.
As I read your message about replacing negative thoughts with positive, believable thoughts, I remembered that, in my early youth, I had believed that there was a lion standing in the nightly shadows of the kitchen doorway that led to the basement in my parents' house. I don't know where I ever got that idea. Each night, I had to go through the darkened kitchen in order to get to the steps that would take me to my second floor bed. I zipped through that kitchen as fast as I could, always with one eye on that doorway, in case the lion came out. The lion was never there, of course, but I thought that he was. I don't know how old I was when I believed this, and I don't remember at what point I stopped believing it, but for a while, anyway, it was a very real fear for me. I don't remember ever having told anybody in my family about it. Maybe I was afraid that they would laugh at me for being so silly. Anyway, I have new fears now, like a fear of failure in my job. That's my "lion in the kitchen" now, I think. It helps me to think of it in that way, as the lion that was never there. I've been in my current job for 4 and 1/2 years now, and I haven't failed yet. In fact, one of the Commissioners who oversees my work tells me that I'm the best they've ever had in the position. So, why is my "lion in the kitchen?" I don't know. Maybe I feel a need to have a fear like that to motivate me. Maybe I need to trade my anxiety (my "lion") for excitement about the challenge that the job presents, and, instead of fleeing, emotionally, standing and fighting, giving it my best shot, and accepting that, some days, things will work out as I had hoped, and some days, they won't. I can't control the universe, but I can control the way that I think about it, and how I react to it.
As Lucinda says, the only failure is in not trying. I'm trying, and so are you. Congratulations.
BFG
I'm just starting to learn to counter my own negative thoughts by pretending that I 'm talking to a friend, rather than to myself. I use words that I would say to someone else, like, "It doesn't look good right now; maybe it will turn out better than we think." As I practice being encouraging to myself, as I usually am to my friends, I realize that I'm nicer to my friends than I am to myself. Why am I so hard on myself? Probably because of the criticism that I received and believed when I was a young boy. I have enough critics in my life; I don't need to be one, too. I don't need to be perfect. I do need to be able to laugh at my mistakes, to not take myself so seriously, to not expect myself to be perfect.
As I read your message about replacing negative thoughts with positive, believable thoughts, I remembered that, in my early youth, I had believed that there was a lion standing in the nightly shadows of the kitchen doorway that led to the basement in my parents' house. I don't know where I ever got that idea. Each night, I had to go through the darkened kitchen in order to get to the steps that would take me to my second floor bed. I zipped through that kitchen as fast as I could, always with one eye on that doorway, in case the lion came out. The lion was never there, of course, but I thought that he was. I don't know how old I was when I believed this, and I don't remember at what point I stopped believing it, but for a while, anyway, it was a very real fear for me. I don't remember ever having told anybody in my family about it. Maybe I was afraid that they would laugh at me for being so silly. Anyway, I have new fears now, like a fear of failure in my job. That's my "lion in the kitchen" now, I think. It helps me to think of it in that way, as the lion that was never there. I've been in my current job for 4 and 1/2 years now, and I haven't failed yet. In fact, one of the Commissioners who oversees my work tells me that I'm the best they've ever had in the position. So, why is my "lion in the kitchen?" I don't know. Maybe I feel a need to have a fear like that to motivate me. Maybe I need to trade my anxiety (my "lion") for excitement about the challenge that the job presents, and, instead of fleeing, emotionally, standing and fighting, giving it my best shot, and accepting that, some days, things will work out as I had hoped, and some days, they won't. I can't control the universe, but I can control the way that I think about it, and how I react to it.
As Lucinda says, the only failure is in not trying. I'm trying, and so are you. Congratulations.
BFG
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C. Florence
- Posts: 1
- Joined: Sat Jan 19, 2008 12:04 pm
BFG,
I like you idea about talking to myself as though I am talking to someone else. I would rarely say to soemone else what I say to myself. Or even say it out loud. Just imagine telling everyone how I feel every moment of the day as when I say, "My head hurts again." "I don't feel good." No one else wants to hear that stuff constantly and neither do I. i am going to try your method today.
I like you idea about talking to myself as though I am talking to someone else. I would rarely say to soemone else what I say to myself. Or even say it out loud. Just imagine telling everyone how I feel every moment of the day as when I say, "My head hurts again." "I don't feel good." No one else wants to hear that stuff constantly and neither do I. i am going to try your method today.