Its been quite a long time since I last went through the Combatting Stress and Depression Program program. I started back in 2004 which became the real beginning of my own transformation and understanding of who I was and how to navigate this life. I used the program and the cbt aspect of it as the very foundation to my own journey and it has been very fruitful (the kind where there was lots of benefits, not the kind where you have so much fruit that it starts to go rotten and you get stuck with a ton of fruit flies).
One thing that I had to learn outside of the program was about feeling....I had to allow myself to feel...and its kind of funny because, those tapes for the different lessons have been so in grained in my head over the years, going through them over and over and over and over again, I remember ALOT! There was a part I think maybe in lesson 2 about panic attacks (I could be wrong about which lesson it was), where the one lady was talking about calling Lucinda at 12o clock at night having a full on panic and she said well she couldn't just go and clean the closets to help use that anxious energy...Lucinda said to just pull the sheets up over her head and let herself have the panic attack and how that really helped teach her that she could do that and be ok.
Well I'm just realizing something right now....its not just about the anxiety that you can do that with and where it would be beneficial to do it...you can do that with any of the emotions...and I have been doing that....sadness, depression, loneliness, guilt, anger...of course the anxiety as well...and yeah, sometimes it takes a little while (depending on what the situation is and how intense the emotion is)...but it does actually go away. To be there with it, letting it be as it is can also feel very freeing as well. I've actually found it to be cathartic. It feels like i'm actually listening to myself and honoring myself when I do that (contrary to my absolute fear of letting it in and my avoidance of it for the better part of 24 years)....its also allowed me to calm myself down, even enough to do the thought replacement and then to see how distorted I had been seeing it...its helped to lessen the triggering in the future too.
Anyways I just wanted to share that with you guys. And ya, give it a try (maybe start off with a smaller emotion if you can). Just a suggestion
Mike aka Ninjafrodo
How to Negative Positively
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katieshrp@yahoo.com
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- Joined: Sat Apr 21, 2018 4:46 pm
Re: How to Negative Positively
How do you do that? I find when I have anger it is towards myself or anyone in the room and I don’t know how to tolerate the intensity of it. I just hate it and either beat a pillow for a long time and then feel despair or I am mean. Or I try to outrun it. I don’t feel good about my anger. It is almost worse than my fear and I do not know how to experience it without the despair that it brings me.