Past
I experience the exact same thing! I let events in the past play over and over in my mind. In fact, just this weekend I made a stupid mistake and contacted my ex-wife. Now, I fessed up to this mistake to my wife and I am so blessed and lucky that she understands what is going on. I don't know what I would do without her. I am convinced that my stress at work triggers these kind of thoughts.
After some careful reflection, I am going through the program again from start to finish. I need to learn how to comfort myself better. I believe that what I should do when I get these terrible thoughts about the past and how I "screwed up" or "looked stupid" or "why did that person do that to me" etc., is that I should remember:
1)I am not the same person I was then, I am better and I am still growing.
2)I am not the only person in the world, we ALL make mistakes and I need to forgive myself.
3)We cannot control other people, just how we react to them. Other people have hangups too and take them out on others. It's not MY fault.
Then I need to breath deeply for one minute.
I hope this helps
After some careful reflection, I am going through the program again from start to finish. I need to learn how to comfort myself better. I believe that what I should do when I get these terrible thoughts about the past and how I "screwed up" or "looked stupid" or "why did that person do that to me" etc., is that I should remember:
1)I am not the same person I was then, I am better and I am still growing.
2)I am not the only person in the world, we ALL make mistakes and I need to forgive myself.
3)We cannot control other people, just how we react to them. Other people have hangups too and take them out on others. It's not MY fault.
Then I need to breath deeply for one minute.
I hope this helps
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bevhembree
- Posts: 275
- Joined: Fri Dec 14, 2007 10:44 am
I obsess terribly. My therapist has me starting the book- Get Out of Your Mind and Get into Your Life. It's slightly different from this program in that you don't replace negative thoughts, you accept them. My negative thoughts were bad memories, and I just couldn't turn them into a positive thought.
"Here and happy because of my three little angels- Marie, Chad and Cady."
Boombie - There is something else you might like to try. What you want to do is desensitize to what you are obsessing about, and you are resisting by not wanting these thoughts. You are reacting to them - whether it is anxiety, or anger or whatever - you are definitely reacting. So, pick a time of day that works best for you. Sit down with pen and paper in hand and write out (don't do this mentally - do it on paper) write out these thoughts for twenty minutes. Write them over and over and over again until the 20 minutes are up. Then each day at the same time read what you wrote for 45 minutes. You'll be re-reading and re-reading the same thing, perhaps 4 to 5 times per session. (You WILL get bored.) Do this everyday until you no longer care one way or the other if these thoughts come in. See if this helps to eliminate them, because once it doesn't matter to you one way or the other if you have the thoughts or not, they'll top bugging you and you'll hear from them less and less and eventually they'll just be a memory that comes to mind on occasion.
"Life is not about comfort. It is about living." Dr. Howard Liebgold