Video of the day
This one isn't a funny video but its a video I found as a very powerful meditation that I've really enjoyed and thought I would share. It talks about breathing In what you want and breathing out what you don't want.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QJTB7o5MTr4 There is a downloadable version on his website for free!This can be a good supliment to the program.
THH
One thing you need to keep in mind is that no matter how negative it might seem, most people's advice to your struggles and problems is their attempt to help you out. They give the best they can but sometimes it can come off very negative and it can be based on irrational thoughts unfortunately. They give advice based on what they think works for themselves in that situation. Sometimes this advice can be behind a secondary gain itself! Like fear.
Thats a really good setup you have with your husband and it sounds very comfortable and i'm sure it could be very easy to just stay in that zone. You don't have to create a social life for yourself, at least not yet and so I could see the possibility for resistance there. What do you think of when you think about creating a social circle?
Well I realized the fear behind the actual job hunting. My main fear has to do with my sleep...yes again my sleep!!! I would become depressed if I continued to follow the same sleep issues while working at the same time so I made my sleep as my #2 Thing that I'm going to do that I have been avoiding. I'll talk more about that in the next post.
That guy was pretty rude and I felt good about standing up for myself and I deserve better than that. I am not desparate enough to spend my time with someone who is that condesending to me, he doesn't deserve my attention.
Don't those games get boring after awhile?
Forever young 06
Yes the website went through a change and has forced us to change as well as it is diffrent. Its great practice using this lesson's information.
I'm on Trazadone, it helps with sleeping too. I don't think it would be a good idea either if you are still concerned about your phobias, I know it would be bad if I went off of mine right now...I'm not there yet, I think after I've been using guided meditations for awhile and keep a constant sleep schedual then maybe i can get off of them.
cj20520
Positive self-talk can be difficult to do especially in the beginning. I think for the first year or 2 I had a hard time believing that the negative thoughts I was writing were the actual ones bothering me or if I was just making them up, it was quite annoying but turns out it really didn't matter because the objective itself was to replace thoughts and get good at them, didn't matter if they were true or not.
Ok so I have a few things to say about the positive self-talk.
#1 Don't try to replace a negative thought with a positive thought
I know this might sound strange but think about it this way, negative and positive thoughts can both be rational and irrational.
ie. say you have no money and you have rent to pay at the end of the month and your thinking "If I don't have the money by the end of the month then I'll be evicted" Well this is definately likely especially if you have already been warned in the past. This thought is rational and with rational negative thoughts you need to take action and thats where the behavioral part of CBT comes in.
Now lets do a positive irrational thought now. Say you are an alcoholic and you tell yourself "I'm going to have a beer and its going to make everything all better"...well the problem with this is that it might initially make you feel better but if your an alcoholic it also has the potential to make you more angry, ruin your relationships, get you fired from your job, cause you to get into a fatal accident if you are planning to drive, destroy your liver...etc.
So my suggestion is not to replace a negative thought with a positive one but to
Replace an irrational thought with a rational one And how do you know if it is rational or irrational...ask yourself if you can prove this thought to be 100% true without a shadow of a doubt and you will know.
#2 Don't try to catch and replace every single thought
This is likely to be impossible and not worth your time. It would take all of your attention and time to do this and then your life would become completely about this. I have spent hours and hours on end replacing thoughts and yes it did make me better at replacing the thoughts but it also stole me away from any fun activities. If you get caught up in the negative thoughts and don't realize it until your really far into it, thats ok. If you notice it at all thats great and it will come in time the more you replace the thoughts. People have asked how you are suppose to replace every thought and Carolyn from the tapes had suggested people to replace 5 a day...That seems to work for me and if you keep doing it for awhile, you'll get to the point where you don't even have to write it down as you'll be able to do it in your head or even automatically.
#3 Don't make it your goal to make yourself feel better when you replace the thoughts, Make it your goal to find the lie in the irrational thought
Make your brain see doubt in the thought and that itself will make you feel better. You can do this by questioning the thought, you can do it by seeing which cognitive distortion category the thought fits best in...actually there are many diffrent ways to do it, thats just a few. I think I posted more ways somewhere in one of the other "The Challenge..." threads.
#4 If you can't come up with a replacement then do what Ken from the tapes does and just say "thoughts only thoughts"
I'm glad those questions were an eye opener. I am still living the anxiety and depression as I kept resisting using the relaxation cd and working on my sleep and guess what...I'm working on my 7th year! I probabbly could have gotten over this condition alot sooner but I resisted it and I lost out on 7 more years however I didn't stay exactly where I was and I've learned and grown alot in that 7 years but i'm still really struggling financially, I'm still afraid of dating and I don't feel free or enjoying life to the best of my abilities. I am becoming more social now though and working on these goals instead of resisting them so hopefully I don't make it to that 10 year mark and keep in mind this is 7 years with the solutions I need in front of me to overcome this condition but its 16 years of having the condition itself.
Mike