The Challenge...Lesson 12

[NinjaFrodo]

Funny Video of the day;
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qSB-5Nnw9rU
Be weave hair salon
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Yay lesson 12, this is a very good lesson and I really hope everybody uses the action assignments, listens to the cd and reads the information in the workbook, it is very very useful!

On top of this there are several topics I want to talk about in this lesson or ask questions about rather which I feel would be very beneficial for anybody who is working on this program. These will be the following;
Doubt/Disempowering behavior, Judgement, Worth and Using the skills. I don't want to overload everybody so I'll do one of these a day.

This lesson usually helps give me the courage to face my limitations and not care so much about the symptoms. For me its main message is just get out there and do it, you have what you need already.


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So for the first topic which is doubt/disempowering behavior I'm going to write down the pain-pleasure for this one and then I will give you the questions in order for you to follow along. I do recommend using these 4 things on a daily basis or at least the ones you are having problems with. Write down all the following questions and go through them on a daily basis and experience the pain and experience the pleasure.

How does Discouraging and Disempowering myself affect my life?
Telling myself I can't, I'm not confident enough, I'm too anxious, i'm too tired, it's too draining, I don't have what it takes or any other discouraging and disempowering thought makes me constantly worry, feel discouraged, feel worthless inferior and hopeless. It makes me associate pain constantly to what I'm doing and it takes me from feeling good to feeling like crap. When I am planning to do things it creates mental videos in which I am constantly failing and things turn out worse then they normally would and so I can't enjoy what I do because of the anticipatory anxiety, I also reduce the access to the resources I need to do well. It causes me to become easily overwhelmed and floods me with scary or anger producing obsessive thoughts which I can't seem to shake. It drains the energy I need for the task and for the rest of the day, it makes me have a less desireable outcome. It makes me get colds more often, it keeps me from appreciating what I do have and what I have accomplished. It has made it so I almost had to live on the street several time, it has made me feel constantly discouraged and associate pain to activities that were actually helping me out and so I stopped. It kept me from enjoying things the best I can and robbed me of my joy if I couldn't seem to get 1 specific thing right in what I was doing. It has kept me from trying things and not trusting myself and lead to a life of mental/emotional imprisonment.

1)How does discouraging/disempowering myself affect my health?
It make me feel stressed all the time which makes me more susceptible to illness and in the past it has caused me to get sick on a bi-weekly basis, it has caused severe anxiety and overwhelm at my last job to the point of drinking, it lead to being too tired to have a life, I constantly dreaded work, I got fired from my last job, I had to quit the shiatsu because of the suicidal thoughts caused by my discouraging and disempowering thoughts and made me feel worthless, ashamed, guilty, depressed and hopeless.

2)How does discouraging/disempowering myself affect me long term?
It will lead to a darker future as it makes everything much much harder to do and alot more stressful and overwhelming. If it continues I could develop a serious health problem in which my dreams or even taking care of myself could become impossible and it'll keep me sabbotaging my efforts with any skill, hobby, or activity and so I'll continue to make efforts on self-help, stop, feel like even more of a failure then make more efforts, stop and do it again and i'll let life pass me by and i'll be miserable.

3)How does it affect me cognitively to discourage and disempower myself?
It shuts down the resources of my mind which makes it harder to come up with answers, harder to figure out solutions, harder to recall information stored in my memory, harder to focus on what I'm doing and what's being said or whats happening around me, I make more mistakes, I'm more vulnerable to attack, my mind becomes very cloudy and I can't get ahold of my thoughts.

4)How does discouraging and disempowering myself affect my relationships and my ability to feel love?
It makes me focus on what I don't have, all my failures and it feeds insecurities and my sense of worthlessness. It takes away my potential to feel love and replaces it with hopelessness and misery and then I don't have energy to put towards my relationships and so I avoid people and they drift away.

5)How does it affect my goals and becoming who I want to be if I discourage and disempower myself?
It goes against every goal I have for myself. It keeps me from feeling good about what I do, it keeps me feeling miserable instead of feeling good. It sabotages my efforts and keeps me feeling down and keeps me feeling depressed and controlled by my emotions and anxiety. It stops me from ever achieving my dreams, it makes me doubt my skills so I'm more vulnerable to harsh criticisms and judgements, it will keep me from being who I want to be, what I want to feel and what I want to accomplish.

6)How does it affect my confidence, courageousness and determination?
It suffocates them as the doubt takes away from my self-esteem creating lasting feelings of worthlessness and hopelessness and this constantly happens if I constantly say these things to myself and so I become too afraid to even try.

7)How does it affect my cheerfulness?
It steals my ability to feel cheerful away from me as it makes me dwell on my lacking and short comings and thus I don't feel good and instead I feel down even if its a fun thing i'm doing.

8)How does it affect my ability to contribute and make a diffrence if i'm discouraging and disempowering myself?
It makes me selfish and saps my mental and physical resources and so I have to take more time to replenish them and take care of myself and so I have no energy for anybody or anything else.

9)How will it affect my success if i'm discouraging and disempowering myself?
It will severely hinder and limit success and even if i'm successful or even partially successful I won't get to feel it. I'll be alot more prone to creating failure and to feeling faiulre and disappointment.

10)What will my life be like in 5 years if I continue to discourage and disempower myself to the degree I am now?
I'll still be distracting myself from life, I'll have given up the opportunities for romantic relationships as I would feel too worthless and undeserving. I'd let most friends drift away and have given up on many fun and exciting things as I would have associated alot of pain. I'd continue to jump from 1 job to another and I'd constantly feel lethargic and miserable.

11)How would my life be like 10 years from now if I continued with the same discouraging and disempowering thoughts?
I'd get a very serious illness and not be able to work or take care of myself. I'd have no friends, my future would be bleak and I would have to give up my dreams and the idea of positive feelings and a relationship.

12)20 years from now what would my life be life if I continued to carry the same discouraging and disempowering behavior?
I'd be dead and people would've forgotten me a very long time ago.

13)How has it affected me in my life already to be discouraging and disempowering to myself?
I had to give up shiatsu, I got fired from my last job, I pushed people away, I sabottaged many self-help things I was doing, I almost ended up on the street in facet was considering living outside in a tent. I wa lethargic and struggled to get through most days for 15 years, it took the fun out of sex, it kept me from feeling refreshed from sleep, it heavily reduced my experiences with the relaxation cd, it has made me link alot of pain to the things I need to do in order to make my life work out and so I was constantly stressed out. It has made easy tasks very difficult and overwhelming, it took away my ability to feel positive feelings.

New Habit;
Encourage myself in everything I do. Tell myself that everything I need to make it work is inside of me, tell myself there is always a way and if I'm committed then I'll make it happen, tell myself if I learn from a situation then I succeeded and if I don't get it the way I want to this time I will eventually get it because I always have the ability to grow and improve. I will also focus on my goals and the outcome I desire and give myself positive reinforcement and rewards for what I have done right.

You can use the same questions for this too. I skipped out on the past and future for this one however

1)How will encouraging myself affect my health?
It will increase my mental health as it'll increase my self-esteem and my confidence in my skills and abilities and increase the potential to feel good which give me more energy and helps my immune system function better. It gives me more endurance and I can tolerate stress much much better and my self-esteem becomes even more effective, my relaxation and sleep become more effective.

2)How will encouraging myself affect me long term?
It will give me what I need in order to take action and in order to want to take action and improve my life and make the future better not only for myself but for others as well.

3)How will encouraging myself affect me cognitively?
It helps me remember more, recall things, it helps me access more resources of my brain to help with any task as well as give me the motivation and energy to do things that'll increase my knowledge through reading and personal experience and it'll help me observe more and make clearer and better decisions and come up with better quality answers.

4)How will encouraging myself affect my relationships and ability to feel love?
It will increase the depth of my positive feelings and give me the energy and positivity to put towards all my relationships and it helps me more with advice. I look more attractive to the people I want to attract into my life and it helps me to deal with conflict and helps me let things go and helps me avoid being taken advantage of.

5)How will it affect my goals and my ability to become who I want to be?
It'll help with every goal I will ever have. It'll help me come up with answers quicker and better quality answers. It'll give me what I need to solve problems and handle obsticals, it'll support me in my health and stamina and give me emotional power and energy. It'll help me become who I want to be and will keep me motived so I'll achieve my goals and dreams.

6)How will encouraging myself affect my courageousness and confidence?
It will create more hope, I'll trust in my skills and abilities. I'll feel better for what I do so it'll increase my self-esteem which will create more confidence and courageousness.

7)How will it affect my cheerfulness?
It'll make taskts I haven't enjoyed in the past, very enjoyable as well as the ones I do enjoy. It'll associate joy and pleasure to many tasks even ones that others would fine painful. It could even potentially make conflict and criticism from others pleasureabel to deal with.

8)How does it affect my ability to contribute and make a diffrence?
It gives me alot more energy, motivationa nd resources of my mind in order to give my best and enjoy it while I'm doing it. It also reduces stress so I can handle alot more and come up with better ideas and solutions and I can also get things done quicker and I can remember better.

9)How will encouraging myself affect my successes?
It'll create alot of successful actions, motivation to do things and the rewards of feeling success. It isn't guaranteed that I would always be successful and get the outcome I want but it would make me more likely to get it or another satisfying outcome.

This will also help increase the effectiveness of relaxation, guided meditation, meditation, chanting and sleep. It'll make my sexual experience alot more satisfying, I'll give out better energy which will attract better healing with my shiatsu treatments and I'll be able to be very successful in that line of work. I'll be more inspiring to others as well. It'll make my workout experience alot more satisfying and I'd get everything done that I needed to get done.



Mike

[THH]

Mike,

Good post!!!
I too am eager to pick over lesson 12. Resisting Change! I'm also glad that you are here to help as many things in this chapter I did not understand. For me, Justifying rings a bell, as well as Procrastination, over-analyzing, intellectualizing, Morals & Insecure behavior ( although I'm doing better at this one)
What did you put down or can you give some examples of what is in our book.
1. What are some of the resistances to change you find you use now or have used in the past?
2. Which of these resistances do you feel you might have used or you are now using to resist getting over this condition?
3.What concerns you most about changing?

I put stuff down but I don't think I REALLY understand this.?

Do you have the card for this lesson. I'll post it as I know a few do not, here goes...

The Courage To Change
* I am capable of change.
* I am no longer a victim
* I will breathe through my discomfort.
* Practice makes proficiency.
* I have all the time I need.
* I am setting new goals.
"What if" changing leads to happiness?!!
" If you always do what you've done, you'll always get what you've always gotten."

Side 2
Recognize Resistance:
FEAR OF CHANGE - Change is a part of life.
"THAT;S THE WAY I AM "- I have new skills.
PROCRASTINATION - What can I do today!
"ANALYSIS - PARALYSIS" - Plan for the positive.
"LET'S THINK ABOUT IT - FOREVER!!!- Action today.
VICTIM - THINKING- I am now responsible.
What is the gain? Is it worth the price?
" There is comfort even in discomfort."[/color]

[NinjaFrodo]

THH and Everybody else reading

Very good post. This is more of what I'd like to see going foward in the challenge. In the past we have mostly talked about how life is going and I've talked about other things outside of the program (which by the way has been a resistance behavior, I was resisting taking action) and we have lost the true goal to the challenge itself which is to work through the action assignments and our experiences with the skills and limitations. I'd like to do more of this from now on!

So yes I have just finished the bookwork for this lesson. This one was actually one I got right away but I'm finding that I did not notice all my resistances. I understood the written work and I did understand some of the secondary gains but I didn't keep that in mind while I was avoiding doing things. I feel like I did understand it a bit more this time and I am happy to post the answers to those questions you have asked THH.

1)What are some of the resistances to change you find you use now or have used in the past?
Nobody really understands me
->I kept saying this and because I said this I believed what others suggested as well as some of the stuff in the program didn't apply to me and so I wouldn't do it and I would feel hopeless. It was my way of not listening to the things I needed to do and not doing it. I wouldn't really believe in what the other person said.

Insecure behavior
->What-if people make fun of me or I am expected to handle more responsibilities and be confied to a schedual? What-if I get sick and have to call in and say I'm sick and I dissapoint someone else? What-if I have to deal with conflict and I get overwhelmed and people walk all over me? What-if I say whats on my mind and I do what I want to do how I want to do it and people make fun of me and criticize and harass me and then I feel embarassed, ashamed and worthless. This behavior keeps me from failing, it keeps me away from uncomfortable conflict with others and getting into situations that might cause stress and cause me to lose respect from others and be looked down upon.

Overanalyzing
->I would overanalyze getting a job, the interview, how it would work, relationships, finding music, little tasks like phoing and placing an order for food, talking to someone at the gym about my membership, overanalyzing what I want to say and how I want to say it. This kept me from finding a job, committing to a relationship, looking for music, doing tasks that are easy, talking about how I can't afford my membership and getting something done about it, anything that I didn't want to do or caused extra stress really. I would get really overwhelmed and have obsessive thoughts which burnt me out and made me want to avoid those things.

Procrastination
->Same as overanalyzing. I know I have to do the things but then I would avoid them because I waasn't feeling calm enough, was too anxious, too tired...etc. Likely I stayed up too late so I'm having those excuses not to do those things I needed to get done.

Justifying
->Finding ways as to why I'm anxious or too anxious to do anything. Ie. I can't handle getting a job because I don't think clearly or remember things or because my sleep has been too off. So I wouldn't try at all, I wouldn't risk things failing.

Negative skeptical attitude to change
Its not going to work, I can't visualize well enough, I haven't practiced enough, it doesn't feel good when I do it or as good...ect. I've started many things like self-help, working out, jobs..ect and I would feel good initially but then I would start to feel less positive than I would before and these thoughts would arise and sabottage me as I feared I would fail and then I'd stop before I could fail and would jump to somehting else. It kept me from committing to something and finishing it as well as from confrontations I might get into because of it.


2)Which of these resistances do I feel I have used or am now using to resist getting over this condition?
->I would have to say all of them but the main ones would be Negative skeptical attitude and Insecurity

3)What concerns me most about changing?
->I woudl do what I want to do and be made fun of and feel embarassed or someone gets hurt and becomes very anxious and depressed because of how I respond or if i'm assertive and need to take care of myslef and that puts someone in a difficult position. I'm afraid of being vulnerable and people taking advantage of this vulnerability, walk all over me and treat me poorly and look down on me and humiliate me in front of everybody. I'm afraid that if I change then I'll put myself into situations I can't handle and cause even more stress. what-if it doens't last.

After writing that out on paper and typing it out I'd have to say I'm most afraid of being taken advantage of emotionally and feeling bad about myself in some way and being stuck in those emotions and getting my life back on track only to slip back into the anxiety and depression again.

I hope that helps.

What was it that you put down for your answers?

Oh and the card for this lesson as not changed from when I got my program and when you guys got your program.


Mike

[Karen L]

I dont know what happened.....I could not get into any of the previous forums.....Im not getting any notifications......I just happened to find the forum.....the whole site looks different....is this just me??

[THH]

I just typed a long post and clicked post, and it is gone!!!!
I'll try again tomorrow!

Yes Karen, it is all new!!! Glad you found everything. I'm still working on it!

[NinjaFrodo]

After you have finished typing your whole post...always right click and select all then right click again and click copy to avoid losing your posts. It can tend to do that if it takes you awhile to post and yes this is a new layout Karen.

[Karen L]

too much going on with this new layout or something.......feels like I cant just concentrate on what Im reading........

[mcshope]

Hi everybody,
Everything is going good here. I have had a little more anxiety, but it is understandable because of the new job.
I hope everybody is doing good.
How about the snow?.... We got 15".... good exercise clearing the driveway.
Talk to you soon.
Hope

[Paisleegreen]

Hi Everybody! Thanks Ninja for the great posting. I'll reread it more carefully later.

THH-Thanks for posting what is on the card. But good news, I have my sister's cards for awhile. I found them while we were helping her and she wanted me to read them to her while I was there. She is not using them at this time. I'm afraid she will lose them while she is living in chaos and will return them to her when she is ready to use them or is settled down in a new place.

Karen L--I know this new forum outline is disturbing to many of us. I'm hoping it will get better or I will at least get use to it. I know it has to do with holding space of the server. My Geek, DS explained it to me about how the spacing of words and what not and emoticons, etc. affect what the server can handle. I could be wrong, but that is what I recall from a discussion with my son a while back. I don't like the font size, just a wee bit small that I can't read the words comfortably, but not enough to wear readers!

[Paisleegreen]

Hi everybody,
Everything is going good here. I have had a little more anxiety, but it is understandable because of the new job.
I hope everybody is doing good.
How about the snow?.... We got 15".... good exercise clearing the driveway.
Talk to you soon.
Hope

You have a new job, Yippee! Glad to hear you got some exercise, even though you probably would prefer a different way to get it. Stay warm! Paislee