The Challenge...Lesson 15

[THH]

cj,
Keep checking in. I don't know what ever happened to Mike! LOL... Maybe he is off having a good time!
P.S. I have not chatted in a chat room. Maybe I will check it out one day?


Mike,
We miss you, time to check in! LOL...

This morning I woke up with thinking some negative thoughts. I thought how strange is this. ( I have done so much better lately) When I remembered what Ken said about "thoughts only thoughts" and how we can really sabotage a day.
So I pictured a telescopic looking though it to magnify all the scary things I was thinking about and turned it around to look at it as far away and make those things smaller. My ability's are so much better, I'm not going to let these things scare me as in reality they are not true! False alarms!!! As the day went on I felt better and better, and turned out to be a pretty good day

[NinjaFrodo]

THH & ALL
Well in order to make it fun, we would talk about the good things in life instead of the problems. We would be focusing on the good things around us, the things that are working in our life and the things that are helping us become who we want to become. I want to encourage positivity, joy and excitement. I'd like to tone the negative stuff down and increase the positive stuff. So my vision is where people would be sharing really cute things they saw that made them happy. Funny jokes, inspiring music videos, goals and dreams they have, things they would love to have in their lives. I would like to see that if someone has a particular issue or problem they would very briefly talk about it without going into too much detail and then talk alot more about where they would like to go instead.

It has just been really stressful to actually come onto the forums because I start to think that i'm coming online to read a bunch of problems for a couple hours. I dunno about you but its very overwhelming for me. If you noticed in the beginning it was more about accomplishments and the excitement people had gotten from doing the activities...this is what I want to have for the entire run through. I want it to be fun and exciting, and very light feeling and joyous.

And if the person is feeling really really negative and needs to vent, I think we can make another thread specifically for that. This would be more of a place to ask questions to really listen to the other person, for those that are strong enough to listen.

Yes I am still here.

By the way THH thats a really good visual with the telescope thing. Thats exactly how its like too. We have a lense it is either focused on the negative or positive depending on our thoughts. Do you not wake up having negative thoughts and feelings?



I've gotten sick a couple times in the last 3 weeks, its been aweful but I have learned many things. One thing being to have variety. One thing that kept happening is that I would get obsessive about something (self-help, videogame..ect) and in the beginning I would feel so amazing while doing it but then it was the only thing I'd do and after a short while I would start to lose that excitement and start to feel bad again and I'd push myself more and I would become frustrated, overwhelmed and I'd still push myself and then I'd get resentful of myself and then eventually get to despair. The 2nd time I got sick I realized this and I started to plan out how to add more variety into my life. I freed up an entire drawer in my dresser and put things that I was intrested in looking at, listening to, playing with and enjoying and have been switching things up a bit. It feels really good to do that. I may play a videogame 2 days in a row and then switch to another videogame or I watching tv shows online and i switch them up too. I started back with drawing again and am starting to read about how other people do it (I was too arrogant to listen to how other people did it and drawing got too frustrating because like everything else I obsessively did it). I also switch it up with some of the self-help stuff. I likely will mix in some singing in there as well. Its such a relief. Before I would just get so frustrated and feel so empty but adding variety has made me really enjoy myself!

I'm not sure when we'll restart the program yet, I need more time. I do want to bump up the challenge posts that correspond to the lesson we will be on though. I want to compare the things being said, the accomplishments and happiness.


MIke

[mcshope]

Hi everybody,

I have been thinking about how much progress we have made. We probably feel very proud about it. I know, for myself, that I have been doing much better. However I know that I still have a long way to go.
I recognize that having the challenge helped me a lot. So I have been thinking, I want to go thru the program again, and I will be posting my progress. I think we can focus on our progress and on the positive things that we learn along the way.
The most important thing for me is to have friends to share the experience with.
Let me know if you are interested.

Mike, you are more than welcome to participate, I understand the pressure of reading every post and you also did a great job in keepeing us motivated. I would like to take the responsability of starting the new thread every week. Everybody can contribute with their experiences and progress. That way we don't loos the progress we have made and it gives you a time to rest.

Hope

[NinjaFrodo]

Mschope
Very suprised and happy that you would like to take the responsibility of starting the lesson threads each week. That would be really awesome! So I then propose that we work together. If its alright for you, I'd like to start off the first lesson talking about the objectives and the game plan as well as giving it a name. (The challenge for instance was a negative name which i didn't really realize when i made it but if it was given a more positive name then we could attract more people who are at the place in their lives to really work on the stuff, we could potentially attract many more positive people and then we can pick and choose who to respond to). Would that work for you? Maybe THH could post the cards for the lessons, someone could post the action assignments for the lessons, we could have someone else moderate and keep people in check and well we can figure the rest as we go. Delegation!


Mike

[THH]

Mike,
I think that sounds good with the run though again and keeping it positive. Light and airy. I will contribute to it!!!

I usually do not wake up with negative thoughts or feelings. On occasion it will happen, but as a normal it does not, especially sense I have been working so hard on changing them. I hope that I did not post too negatively that helped keep you feeling overwhelm. I still have a problem at times with negative thinking. Sometimes I can't tell if its a positive or a negative? Like I did not pick up that calling this the challenge was negative?


Hope,
Sounds good! I will follow along! I know I have made alot of progress as well. I do think this forum really was helpful as well. And it was really nice to have such good people encouraging me on the way! You or Mike lead the way....

[Paisleegreen]

I'm with you guys. Hope, where are you going to start, here or back on Lesson 1?

[mcshope]

COOL!!!!!
Sounds great. We just have to decide when are we goin to start... any ideas?

Mike, I love your idea, this is something that we all can contribute to.... Do you have any ideas for the name????....
I think at the begining of each thread we can have a little explanation of our purpose and an invitation for people to participate.

THH and Paislee, I think we all have experiences to share and we have become very good in supporting each other.

Happy, happy Hope

[THH]

Hope,
Ready when you are!

[NinjaFrodo]

THH
I usually wake up with negative thoughts myself. good you got past that.

We all had our really negative moments, its ok. I do not want to discourage people from the negative stuff because in some cases its important to talk about it but I think it would be better to keep that in a separate thread which will be optional for people to go through instead of being in the main threads where people wouldn't have much of a choice but to see it.

I didn't pick up that it was negative until later on. Challenge can mean struggle, stress, overwhelm, resistance, pressure, pain even and problems.

Mschope
Well maybe "The Life and Perception Enhancing project" or "The Love and Laughter creator" or "Becoming the person you always wanted to be" or "Creating the life you want to live" or "The building a better life project" What do you think? I think I like the last one better myself.

I like your idea of having the explaination at each thread, that is good to keep people on track and to stick to the goals and to keep in mind the purpose while we do it. Great idea! And my idea was actually our idea because without you offering to start off the lessons, I wouldn't have come up with the idea of delegating and having everybody take charge of certain aspects.

By the way I'd suggest we start on lesson 1 this time. We skipped it in the challenge but I think its important for people to know all the symptoms and such. I'd also like to create a thread where people can go and vent out and talk about some of the serious and stressful things going on in their lives because it can be very important to voice those things and we can keep those separate and people can have the option to go there and listen and ask questions and such. It can also be a great place to practice communication skills as well. Listening, Asking questions and empathizing but not so much about trying to solve the problems for the other people or giving advice unless asked for. What do you think?


Mike

[THH]

Mike,
I think your right about having a different thread to discuss issues. It can be hard reading though all the post and sometimes ya just don't have time to think about it and reply. Also if you are having a bad day, its hard to read others bad days too. I like the idea!
Now that I too think about it and see the definition there it really is a negative. I too liked your last one best and thought of one myself. " Dream releases"or "Good days" just a couple that came to me.

I will check in to see where and when? Just post the new link.

Have a good day all.