The Challenge...Lesson 9

[NinjaFrodo]

a.marble1

I think if we bounce ideas and knowledge back and forth we will come up with some really amazing ideas!

Thats awesome you memorized them! Maybe it'd be good to put them into my affirmation scripts. I'm down to 15 pages of affirmations. Still so many of them! But i'm not done eliminating affirmations. Its just so hard to pick and choose.

You could be right about memorizing the 6 steps. We do store this stuff in our subconscious. I do use the breathing almost naturally when i'm about to face a limitation. I could use more practice on the acceptance and permission.

REally he is the founder? He must be really old!

Yeah I have some issues with the secret as well! It has some good points in that its good to focus on positivity and productivity but it comes off all selfish and it gives the message that if you have some deep seeded problems or negative feelings, don't talk about them. Only talk about the good things and then life will be good. I certainly agree that its not good to dwell on those things and not talk completely about them but its important to vent and get stuff off your chest and we all know ignoring negative feelings only makes them stronger. I do however like their idea that anything is possible and those stories about people recovering from ailments that were thought to be permenant. It says nothing about doing the best for everybody though.

Its a sign...you must watch the movie!!!

You are so much like me that its almost scary I enjoy reading the posts! I have heard of TEA before but nothing in detail. What is it and how does it work?

The pain-pleasure theory is a key theory to Tony Robbins's stuff. He talks about it all the time and its been around forever. Its the whole carrot-stick idea. You can either motivate yourself by beating yourself up with a stick or you can motivate yourself with a nice tasty reward...like a carrot (if your a rabbit).

I've come back to the expectations um at least 13 times now! It can still be a bit of a challenge but I notice when I replace my thoughts and figure out which cognitive distortion it fits into, I can figure out my expectations better.


Mike

[NinjaFrodo]

Karen L, THH, mcshope;

Heh seems like the house cleaning is a common thing among you 3 ladies. Getting ready for thanksgiving I guess does that.

I'll try not to post too much then!


Mike

[Paisleegreen]

Karen L--Thank you for your kind thoughts. I actually started doing some more volunteer work and it has made a difference. I use to be in a club where I got burned out doing too much volunteering for the wrong reasons or not as fulfilling reasons.

The volunteering I do now is more conducive to my life style and family life. The other type involved gardening & the like and I was more alone in that and wasn't appreciated in the same way. I still enjoyed it and learned much, but did spend a lot of energy and time.

It worked well with having children around and also when I ran a Daycare. What I do now is more service oriented and involves caring about people, not plants and pond critters.

Hope and THH--I've been gradually clearing up the house, but have no plans for company for Thanksgiving. Our Christmas/Thanksgiving party last weekend involved that to eliminate family traveling in the snow.

So I don't know yet what plans we're going to do for Turkey Day. I'll have to see what the children that are still left in town want to do.

I did have a great family reunion though, everything went well, if not super! I was able to listen to more of Lucinda's CDs over and over again. So that was great!

[a.marble1]

Yeah I think we can come up with some great stuff!

Really I think affirmation scripts should be used to make SPECIFIC changes, as shad says. I have my tape talk set to an interesting topic... can you guess? I'll mention it at the end of this post hehe

Napoleon Hill is sort of like, the FATHER of positive thinking, in the sense that, for 25 years, he studied the worlds most successful men and then wrote a book about all the common factors between them. A "Positive Mental Attitude" is at the top of the list, and is the basis of all he talks about. Faith is another which is of course a core asset of a postive mental attitude. The secret seems to be just a load of marketing without much substance to it, its sort of a rip-off and mixed up with too much superstition imo. But like I said its good because it introduces people to these concepts and take notice.

I actually saw "What the bleep..." Or at least part/most of it. Great stuff!

Yeah lol. TEA forms involve setting up a column for a negative thought, the errors in it, and then the analysis of it. In the book you get a list of errors VERY similar to the ones mentioned in Chapter 3 of the guidebook (next to big blue numbers) and you use these to identify the errors in your thoughts. Then in the analysis you explain what you have (objectively) learned once you spot the errors. You're supposed to try to not just put stuff to make yourself feel better but to seriously look at it objectively. There is some more to it, including a HUGELY important exercise the second part of which you use TEA forms. They only take 10-15 minutes a day. And you are supposed to feel relief withing 2 months but Im telling you I have had relief in less than two weeks! With a certain issue I've dealt with MOST of my life. Everyone should really get Sam Obitz' book. Its super short. I think we can possibly even start posting some of our own sample tea forms here as a group, as I have not seen any sample ones online anywhere. (The book does have them though) But its great to get more examples and current ones from real people .

The pain-pleasure theory is something I will be trying to keep in mind as far as how to motivate myself and to make positive changes, so thanks again for that

Yeah expectations, I just keep that in mind, it pops up once in a while throughout my days when I feel something is "off" and its a great tool to have that cognitive principle in mind about not having expectations unless they are really truly realistic

[Paisleegreen]

A Marble--I've heard of Sam Obitz' book. I'm even wondering if I have it somewhere.
Which CD does Lucinda have the positive self talk that she repeats herself?. The CD I have was damaged in that area so I only hear a few of them. Do you know how many she repeated for the listener to repeat?

Mike, I could have used your first 3 steps on my DD today. She was upset that I didn't mention her work in setting up our family Christmas Party on FB. I did an overall mention of it on my wall and thanked the family that hosted it. So now she is upset that I didn't say anything about her.

This child is very hard to please or compliment. But my goal is to keep working on me and as I compliment her or give any recognition, I need to be ready for her to be negative or reject it and for me to not take it personally.

[NinjaFrodo]

a.marble1

I have been having such a hard time deciding what to make the tape of. reading the affirmation 3X in a row and then adding you to the end has been impossible..unless I want the tape super long! I think having it said once is good enough if i'm listening to the tape several times a day.

Actually the scripts were for specific changes. I just want to change so much! Too much! I decided that I was just going to squish Problem solving, Motivation, Responsibility and Organization onto one tape and I did it successfully and its only 12 minutes long and I think I can handle that! Expectations like what you made your tape about is definately good. I had wrote out a script for that too! I had my anti-perfection affirmations on there and its amazing to see how it changed for me! I listened to the affirmations for a long time...I kinda lost track though so I couldn't tell you how long but I can tell you for sure the anti-perfection statements are still working and I hadn't listened to my affirmations in several months!

That sounds like an intresting read, the Napoleon HIll book I mean! Studying the worlds most successful people would bound to have lots of intresting finds! I was taught in communication class that the most successful people in the world were ones that wrote down their goals. Was this also something on that list too?

What the bleep is amazing! Its crazy though if you go into the settings you can do "deeper in the rabbit hole" and they show you even more footage depending on the level you choose. One thing I found most useful from that movie was about the neuropathways....linking certain things to other things and how we can break that pathway by continually breaking the thought pattern! It was very hopeful stuff!

You are talking about cognitive distortions! I do that when I do my thought replacements! Telling me about big blue numbers isn't going to help me...My program is 6 years old and is not the latest program. Writing about what you learned could be very useful and I never actually thought about it!

less than 2 weeks when you had been dealing with the issue for Most of your life...thats amazing!I would definately be up for doing the TEA forms!

The way you use the pain-pleasure thing is to get leverage on yourself. Making a list of pros and cons of a certain belief or behavior...you do it with the undesired belief or behavior and then with the desired one. Then you are more motivated to change it and then you can figure out what you are going to do to interupt the pattern and do that. You can also add the Feared Fantasy method after (David Burns's technique) which deals with the fear of being criticized for changing that belief or behavior.

Expectations are still a big one for me. I have so many shoulds! I will eventually redo an expectation script! But i'll use the tape I made for now and the panic/anxiety one from that website. That script of hers is good...there are alot of things in the other scripts I do not agree with and cannot accept. She mentions about changing negative thoughts when they enter her head. Some negative thoughts are important and its good to let yourself experience them and then let them go. Ie if someone dies and you grieve, if you have hurt someone you'd want to feel that guilt in order to change. There are some really good affirmations in them thought that I might copy for a script of my own.

Paisleegreen;

I think you are talking about lesson 10 and thats the affirmations for the obsessive thinking. They are also in the book but I know you don't have that either so I will post them when I create the next thread. I'm waiting till your guys's thanks giving is done though.

Ah you mean the options for the assertiveness practice? Yeah it sounds like they would have come in handy. It sounds like she is going through her own struggles and depression as well. When someone has a very hard time accepting compliments it is because they do not give themselves positive reinforcements or feel good about what they've done. Likely some unrealistic expectation or high expectation there too. Questioning, Accepting what she says and empathizing would come in very very handy. Contradicting would likely cause her to say you aren't listening or you just don't get it. Has this happened before?

Mike

[NinjaFrodo]

I know I said we would start lesson 10 today but with thanks giving I thought I would wait until later tomorrow night. I don't want anybody to feel like they are falling behind because of thanksgiving.


Mike

[mcshope]

HAPPY THANKSGIVING DAY TO EVERYONE!!!

It is going to be a busy day, I hope everybody enjoy this day.

I had a change in plans. My mother in law is coming today and the kids are coming on Saturday, so I have rushed the cleaning and hiding . My husband will cook today... well actually he will cook on Saturday too . He is the turkey expert.

Thanks Mike for taking into consideration Thanksgiving. I think it is good to start lesson 10 later today or tomorrow. I know you already celebrated Thankgiving, however I wish you a WONDERFUL day

Hope

[NinjaFrodo]

mcshope;

So you have thanksgiving day today but don't celebrate until the weekend? Is that how it works?

Thank you for the well wishes!

I still have to post about Guilt and Worry on here...yes I am worried and having anticipatory anxiety over posting about worrying!


Mike

[NinjaFrodo]

Worry/Fear and anxiety From David D Burns's Feeling Good Book

Cognitive therapy is based on the premise that your thoughts, not external events, make you upset. This is just as true for anxiety and panic as for any other negative emotion. You have to interpret a situation and give it a meaning before you can feel worreid or nervous about it. This idea has tremendous practice importance, because when you change the way you think, you can change the way you feel. You cannot have any emotional reaction to an event until you have a thought about it and have given it meaning.

(There is an example in the book this where Dr.Burns was in a taxi and he saw this elderly guy who was slowly driving his car down the railroad tracks, not across them but down them and there was a train a mile away. David jumped out of the taxi and yelled for the man to get off the tracks! The guy did not get off but simply pulled to a stop and waited until David ran up to the window. The man smiled at him in a leisurely, friendly way and asked if David knew the way to City Line Avenue. The guy had less than 30 seconds to back up his car before the train hit it! David said "Back up! Back up!" He slowly backed up his car and then turned and positioned it so the hoood was directly in the path of the oncoming train. David Ran and stood directly in front of the car , waving his arms wildly! He screamed "Back up! Back up!" and instead the man did the opposite and slowly crept forward inch by inch. The train was just a hundred yards away, coming fast with the horn blowing. He shouted "Faster! Faster!" Instead of speeding up , he smiled again and pulled to a stop. The train hit his car and crushed it! The point of impact was directly behind the driver's head. The back half of the car was smashed to bits but the front half was relatively intact, excpet for lots of broken glass. David's heart was pounding and he peered through the mangled window. The guy was uninjured. He slowly turned to david, still smiling. Then asked in a lazy, relaxed voice if David could direct him to City Line Avenue. He said all he needed was a few directions.

"direct you to city Line?" David asked. "Thats over ten miles from here and your car is smashed!" "Smashed?" he asked. He sounded suprised and skeptical. "Look at it," David replied. "You've just been hit by a train!. I'm astonished that you weren't killed." "What train?" he asked in a disbelieving voice. The guy had no anxiety whatsoever because he did not perceive that he was in danger!

Now there is a diffre.nce between healthy fear and neurotic anxiety The thoughts that lead to healthy fear are realistic like the one in the story with the train. they alert us to a danger that we need to deal with. David's fear probabbly saved that old man's life. In contrast, neurotic anxiety results from distorted thoughts that have little or no basis in reality. If you are having a panic attack, you may believe that something terrible will happen if you let your anxiety get out of hand. You might think you'll pass out from a stroke or have a heart attack or go crazy. Although these fears seem legitimate, they're quite unrealistic because: 1)Anxiety never causes strokes or heart attacks. 2)People who are afraid of passing out during a panic attack have never once passed out when in a state of panic. In fact, you cannot pass out during a panic attack because your heart is beatin rapidly and pumping extrea blood to the brain. 3)Panic attacks never lead to insanity or a loss of control. You are worrying about something thats blatanly unrealistic!

You believe these distorted thoughts because of the way you feel. You feel as if you're in danger, so you think you really must be in danger. You say, "I feeel so frightened and out of control that I must be on the verge of losing control." Or "I'm dizzy and confused. I feel like i'm about to pass out, so I must be on the verge of fainting."

Wish I had more on the subject.


Mike