I've been on the program since 6/18. I am on session 3 and do see a lot of positive changes in myself and my husband sees them as well. Here lately in the past week or so I can see that I'm starting to be very irritable and short tempered again. I am trying to do the positive talk and write down all my negative thoughts since that is supposed to be really essential in the recovery process. I have a hard time writing down negative thoughts so much though because as a mother to 7 children, I barely have any down time let alone to be constantly writing in a notebook. Plus sometimes the positive self talk just makes me more angry and frustrated and I don't know why. Any experiences with this? Thanks!
-Becky
confused about how to help myself
-
Ratobranco
- Posts: 2
- Joined: Fri Jul 18, 2008 8:28 pm
Hey Beckyl 
Try this little experiment.
Next time you feel really frustrated about something, try to *not* feel that way. Try to make yourself feel compassion or enthusiasm for whatever it is that is frustrating you.
Does it work? In time, you will see that it doesn't. Eventually the feelings that you are packing deep down inside will just boil over.
Now try this. Next time you feel frustrated, sit back and let yourself be frustrated. Allow it. Let it in. Let the feelings happen. Open up to them.
Don't fuel the feelings by arguing with yourself or analyzing things or trying to think your way out of the problem. Just let go of all the mental straining and let whatever you are feeling naturally unfold in your mind and body, without trying to force or squelch it away.
In time, you will find that the feelings become a bit lighter, a bit easier to manage. Things calm down. You regain your center and can get back to what you were doing.
As has happened to almost all of us, you have become entangled in your own mind. The natural response is to start thinking and analyzing and fighting and squirming and ruminating and so on. But this just gets you more entangled. To get free, you have to drop the rope, rather than pull harder. Relax your mind, come back to the present moment, and just let things be as they are, including the fact that you are having unpleasant feelings.
As for the thoughts, your mind is going to produce all kinds of weird thoughts. This means absolutely nothing. It means that you're mind is working properly. It is thinking about the things that it is most afraid of--and that is exactly what it is designed to do.
Right now, the average joe on the street is not specifically scared of anxiety or depression. So he doesn't think about them, he just lives his life. As a result, his mind doesn't make noise about anxiety or depression. It makes noise about different things "Does she really like me?/What are we doing this weekend?/I need to get a haircut/Do we have milk/bla bla bla/etc."
But since you've experienced anxiety and depression first hand, you know how bad they can be, your mind is understandably scared of them. That is why the anxious thoughts and feelings happen so often.
It's not you that is causing them to happen. Your mind is causing them to happen because it doesn't want them to happen. That is the paradox of the mind. If you try to control the automatic thoughts and feelings that happen in your mind, you will get exactly the ones that you don't want. But if you accept your thoughts and feelings without judgment and let go of efforts to control them, they will dry up and blow away, only to be replaced by other thoughts and feelings, all in the continous cycle of mental life--arising and passing away.
You are not your mind. So you don't have to blame yourself or map your feelings onto your self-image. It's not you.
When the thoughts happen, let them happen. Look at them as thoughts, not as the realities that they claim to be. They tend to almost always be unrealistic, and the only reason we take them seriously is because they evoke feelings and mental images that scare us. But these are just feelings and mental images, not evidence of anything real. Look around you: everything is fine. It is the mind, with its unlimited power of irrational imagination, that makes it seem like there are catastrophes awaiting.
We may not be able to control the junk that our minds randomly conjure up, but we certainly don't have to get fooled by this junk or get caught up in it.
Look at the thoughts as a kind of internal chatter that just happens, nothing serious that you need to get wrapped up in. You're mind can think of literally anything, no matter how ridiculous or catastrophic it may be. The random junk that pops up inside it on a daily basis says absolutely nothing about you.
You probably hear negative messages from your mind on a daily basis. That little voice saying "You're worthless...", "You're a bad mother", "You bring this on yourself", bla bla bla bla bla bla wa wa wa waaaaa!!!!...
Its nothing new, you've heard it before. If you just kind of let it happen, and don't really take it too seriously, it will start to have less power over you. It won't mean as much. That is where you want to get to.
Seriously, what gives your mind the right to have an opinion about who is good and who is bad? Why are its judgments anything special? Whatever. We need to shake that stuff off and move on.
It's like a parrot that is always yapping about something. Sure.
If you take this approach, the thoughts will eventually start to happen less often. You won't be as scared of them. Then, lo and behold, they will stop coming to visit you.
It's like a child. If you kind of just let the child whine when it is in a bad mood, and don't give it too much serious attention or consideration, it gets bored, and it doesn't want to whine anymore. It wants to go to sleep or to eat or to do something else.
When you find yourself worrying about some catastrophe that might occur in your life, ask yourself "Is there anything prudent that I should be doing to prevent this catastrophe from happening?" If so, take action. Some worries are actually legitimate. For example, if you're worried about your health, look at your diet.. maybe you need to eat healthier. If so, make the necessary changes.
But if there's nothing you can do, just let go, release your grip. You've done your part. Let God or nature take care of the rest. You can't control everything. Trying to control everything is what makes life so difficult and complicated and entrenched for people like us.
A good lesson: control is usually the problem, not the solution. Remember that.
Now here is the most important thing I'm going to tell you. Suppose that God or the White Queen informs you right now that your anxiety and depression are hereby cured. Done. Gone. Forever.
What would you do with your life? I'm not talking about how you would feel (obviously happy), I'm talking about what you would do... with your hands and feet. In other words, what do you want your life to be about? What are your values, your goals, your priorities? You probably haven't thought much about these kinds of things, because you are stuck in a constant fight with anxiety.
But I would ask you to think about them.
Where do you really want to go with your life, in terms of actions, activities, hobbies, vitalizing stuff, the stuff that makes life worth living?
If you make a commitment to get into those things now, even though you don't currently feel very good, you will make progress. You will grow out of whatever low you might be in.
If you commit to actually doing the things that you want in your life regardless of the kinds of thoughts and feelings that you are *currently* experiencing, the issues in your mind will naturally resolve themselves. Things will start to fall into place on their own. You will start to not focus as much on how you are feeling, it will no longer be such a dominant concern, and as a consequence you will start feeling better.
So challenge yourself. Make a commitment to do something this week that you value even though you may not feel confident or self-assured or positive. Just put all the mind stuff past you, focus on what you can control--your hands and feet. Go to a party, a movie with your kids. Do something with your husband. Live now, don't wait for anxiety and depression to give you permission to live. They never will, believe me.
Prove to your mind that you are the one in control, and that regardless of the thoughts and feelings that you might be experiencing at any given moment, you are going to live on your terms, in the pursuit of what you care about. You will accept the inevitable moments of pain--and there will surely be some--in order to do what you are here on this earth to do: live a vital and meaningful life.
You may not be able to control your automatic thoughts and your feelings, but you can control your hands and feet. And that is all you really need to be able to control. If you put aside the internal mind stuff, and instead focus on the world that exists outside you, on your values, goals, priorities, dreams, what you want to accomplish in this life, rather than on what you are feeling at this moment or that moment or the next moment, your feelings will fall into place on their own. Trust me. You will have good ones and bad ones. That's just how life goes.
But right now, you're getting a raw deal. You're fighting as hard as you can to get the good ones and, as a result, you are only getting the bad ones.
You are in a war right now. What is happening is the enemy--your mind--is shooting bullets at you. You might think that the answer is to shoot bullets back, that you have to kill the enemy before the battle will end. Unfortunately, that isn't how this is going to work. The enemy you are fighting does not die. As long as you live, your mind will be there to screw with you. When things get difficult, it will do exactly that.
What you need to do is to just put the weapon down and walk off the battlefield. Get out of your mind and into your life. Declare the war over.
It's a tough road Becky, be patient with yourself. It may take some time, but you'll get there. And you'll be a much stronger and wiser person for it.
Best wishes,
--ratobranco
Try this little experiment.
Next time you feel really frustrated about something, try to *not* feel that way. Try to make yourself feel compassion or enthusiasm for whatever it is that is frustrating you.
Does it work? In time, you will see that it doesn't. Eventually the feelings that you are packing deep down inside will just boil over.
Now try this. Next time you feel frustrated, sit back and let yourself be frustrated. Allow it. Let it in. Let the feelings happen. Open up to them.
Don't fuel the feelings by arguing with yourself or analyzing things or trying to think your way out of the problem. Just let go of all the mental straining and let whatever you are feeling naturally unfold in your mind and body, without trying to force or squelch it away.
In time, you will find that the feelings become a bit lighter, a bit easier to manage. Things calm down. You regain your center and can get back to what you were doing.
As has happened to almost all of us, you have become entangled in your own mind. The natural response is to start thinking and analyzing and fighting and squirming and ruminating and so on. But this just gets you more entangled. To get free, you have to drop the rope, rather than pull harder. Relax your mind, come back to the present moment, and just let things be as they are, including the fact that you are having unpleasant feelings.
As for the thoughts, your mind is going to produce all kinds of weird thoughts. This means absolutely nothing. It means that you're mind is working properly. It is thinking about the things that it is most afraid of--and that is exactly what it is designed to do.
Right now, the average joe on the street is not specifically scared of anxiety or depression. So he doesn't think about them, he just lives his life. As a result, his mind doesn't make noise about anxiety or depression. It makes noise about different things "Does she really like me?/What are we doing this weekend?/I need to get a haircut/Do we have milk/bla bla bla/etc."
But since you've experienced anxiety and depression first hand, you know how bad they can be, your mind is understandably scared of them. That is why the anxious thoughts and feelings happen so often.
It's not you that is causing them to happen. Your mind is causing them to happen because it doesn't want them to happen. That is the paradox of the mind. If you try to control the automatic thoughts and feelings that happen in your mind, you will get exactly the ones that you don't want. But if you accept your thoughts and feelings without judgment and let go of efforts to control them, they will dry up and blow away, only to be replaced by other thoughts and feelings, all in the continous cycle of mental life--arising and passing away.
You are not your mind. So you don't have to blame yourself or map your feelings onto your self-image. It's not you.
When the thoughts happen, let them happen. Look at them as thoughts, not as the realities that they claim to be. They tend to almost always be unrealistic, and the only reason we take them seriously is because they evoke feelings and mental images that scare us. But these are just feelings and mental images, not evidence of anything real. Look around you: everything is fine. It is the mind, with its unlimited power of irrational imagination, that makes it seem like there are catastrophes awaiting.
We may not be able to control the junk that our minds randomly conjure up, but we certainly don't have to get fooled by this junk or get caught up in it.
Look at the thoughts as a kind of internal chatter that just happens, nothing serious that you need to get wrapped up in. You're mind can think of literally anything, no matter how ridiculous or catastrophic it may be. The random junk that pops up inside it on a daily basis says absolutely nothing about you.
You probably hear negative messages from your mind on a daily basis. That little voice saying "You're worthless...", "You're a bad mother", "You bring this on yourself", bla bla bla bla bla bla wa wa wa waaaaa!!!!...
Its nothing new, you've heard it before. If you just kind of let it happen, and don't really take it too seriously, it will start to have less power over you. It won't mean as much. That is where you want to get to.
Seriously, what gives your mind the right to have an opinion about who is good and who is bad? Why are its judgments anything special? Whatever. We need to shake that stuff off and move on.
It's like a parrot that is always yapping about something. Sure.
If you take this approach, the thoughts will eventually start to happen less often. You won't be as scared of them. Then, lo and behold, they will stop coming to visit you.
It's like a child. If you kind of just let the child whine when it is in a bad mood, and don't give it too much serious attention or consideration, it gets bored, and it doesn't want to whine anymore. It wants to go to sleep or to eat or to do something else.
When you find yourself worrying about some catastrophe that might occur in your life, ask yourself "Is there anything prudent that I should be doing to prevent this catastrophe from happening?" If so, take action. Some worries are actually legitimate. For example, if you're worried about your health, look at your diet.. maybe you need to eat healthier. If so, make the necessary changes.
But if there's nothing you can do, just let go, release your grip. You've done your part. Let God or nature take care of the rest. You can't control everything. Trying to control everything is what makes life so difficult and complicated and entrenched for people like us.
A good lesson: control is usually the problem, not the solution. Remember that.
Now here is the most important thing I'm going to tell you. Suppose that God or the White Queen informs you right now that your anxiety and depression are hereby cured. Done. Gone. Forever.
What would you do with your life? I'm not talking about how you would feel (obviously happy), I'm talking about what you would do... with your hands and feet. In other words, what do you want your life to be about? What are your values, your goals, your priorities? You probably haven't thought much about these kinds of things, because you are stuck in a constant fight with anxiety.
But I would ask you to think about them.
Where do you really want to go with your life, in terms of actions, activities, hobbies, vitalizing stuff, the stuff that makes life worth living?
If you make a commitment to get into those things now, even though you don't currently feel very good, you will make progress. You will grow out of whatever low you might be in.
If you commit to actually doing the things that you want in your life regardless of the kinds of thoughts and feelings that you are *currently* experiencing, the issues in your mind will naturally resolve themselves. Things will start to fall into place on their own. You will start to not focus as much on how you are feeling, it will no longer be such a dominant concern, and as a consequence you will start feeling better.
So challenge yourself. Make a commitment to do something this week that you value even though you may not feel confident or self-assured or positive. Just put all the mind stuff past you, focus on what you can control--your hands and feet. Go to a party, a movie with your kids. Do something with your husband. Live now, don't wait for anxiety and depression to give you permission to live. They never will, believe me.
Prove to your mind that you are the one in control, and that regardless of the thoughts and feelings that you might be experiencing at any given moment, you are going to live on your terms, in the pursuit of what you care about. You will accept the inevitable moments of pain--and there will surely be some--in order to do what you are here on this earth to do: live a vital and meaningful life.
You may not be able to control your automatic thoughts and your feelings, but you can control your hands and feet. And that is all you really need to be able to control. If you put aside the internal mind stuff, and instead focus on the world that exists outside you, on your values, goals, priorities, dreams, what you want to accomplish in this life, rather than on what you are feeling at this moment or that moment or the next moment, your feelings will fall into place on their own. Trust me. You will have good ones and bad ones. That's just how life goes.
But right now, you're getting a raw deal. You're fighting as hard as you can to get the good ones and, as a result, you are only getting the bad ones.
You are in a war right now. What is happening is the enemy--your mind--is shooting bullets at you. You might think that the answer is to shoot bullets back, that you have to kill the enemy before the battle will end. Unfortunately, that isn't how this is going to work. The enemy you are fighting does not die. As long as you live, your mind will be there to screw with you. When things get difficult, it will do exactly that.
What you need to do is to just put the weapon down and walk off the battlefield. Get out of your mind and into your life. Declare the war over.
It's a tough road Becky, be patient with yourself. It may take some time, but you'll get there. And you'll be a much stronger and wiser person for it.
Best wishes,
--ratobranco
Last edited by Ratobranco on Sun Jul 20, 2008 10:20 pm, edited 1 time in total.
I'm in session 3 as well. I'm going to work on it for another week. For me, it's been so overwhelming that I've barely scratched the surface. Too much to process.
I feel like I'm getting worse this week. I keep telling myself that it's just more self-awareness making it SEEM worse.
I know how you feel. I too feel very frustrated and seem to yell at the kids and my husband more lately. I'm sure he'll attest to that!
I feel like I have all this anger inside and don't know what to do with it.
Writing down my negative thoughts and their alternate positive one has been quite an exercise! I never realized how many negative ones I've been having.
I wish I had an answer for you, Becky. But I don't. All I can say, is I'm right there with you in this one....except not as many kids!!
I feel like I'm getting worse this week. I keep telling myself that it's just more self-awareness making it SEEM worse.
I know how you feel. I too feel very frustrated and seem to yell at the kids and my husband more lately. I'm sure he'll attest to that!
I feel like I have all this anger inside and don't know what to do with it.
Writing down my negative thoughts and their alternate positive one has been quite an exercise! I never realized how many negative ones I've been having.
I wish I had an answer for you, Becky. But I don't. All I can say, is I'm right there with you in this one....except not as many kids!!