The Challenge...Lesson 9

[THH]

Karen,
Its nice to hear your doing well.
I am excited to get this e cig. I have not gotten it yet. I'll let you know what I think about it.
My husband is a horseshoer. He goes to clients houses or stables and trims horses hooves. When needed or wanted he makes steel shoes to custom fit. I field his calls, and schedule appts. I keep track of inventory and run the show behind the scenes! We are sorta seasonal with high demands in the summer months and lower in the winter. The weather keeps riders out on the trails. This has been prime riding weather. It is showing signs of slowing down now that the holidays are coming.
We are going to my sisters for Thanksgiving. I make several things to take over.
I am having fun with my class with the dogs. It gets me out and it is kinda social time too. I do much better getting out and doing things.

Its nice your having everyone come to your house. Don't forget to take time to enjoy everyone being there. try not to get caught up in the perfect house, table ect... I have done that in the past. I now focus on being together who cares if its paper & plastic or china! lol... Or if they match? It does make the show run much calmer. This year could be so much better, after going though this program for all of us.
I do Christmas at my house.

I'm glad your keeping busy and feeling good! Do things for you not for your guest. Great job, Karen!

[Karen L]

I am on the road to recovery. There will be obstacles which I will overcome and learn from. I can not go over, under, or around a limitation. I must meet it head on. This may cause some discomfort but it will not hurt me.


THH

ohhh......do I have you confused with Lindalee as to work?? does she have a store or something with her husband?? I always get what you 2 do as far as business confused cuz I know you both enjoy horses....and both live in rural areas.....
I think I got it straight now though....you had the problem with the bales of hay when hubby was out of town right?? and the water problems right?? lol...oh my.....Im too young for Alzheimers lol......how is the donkey doing??

it's funny how we really dont live far from each other and have such different lives....I actually live in Cleveland and have never rode a horse....although I would love to try

Im actually not too caught up in the cleaning...its actually good for me.....I used to be almost anal about cleaning for years, then a year ago when everything happened with my ex and the domestic violence I started putting cleaning off.....so my house really does need a good cleaning.....so Im looking at this more as a motivation that I cant have excuses for lol.....I definitely will try to enjoy Thanksgiving instead of worrying...its just my parents, 2 sisters, their husbands, their kids, and all my kids...so its just immediate family and I know they dont care about my house being perfect Im just hoping I dont oversleep cuz an undercooked turkey is not good lol...
I love your carefree attitude will that be paper or china?? lol

I am actually feeling better as I concentrate on myself it is a very good feeling

[THH]

Karen,
Your right that Lindalee and I both have horses and live in the boondocks! She had the problem with her husband and the hay. I had the water problem. So your getting there! LOL... Thats alright, I have the same problem.LOL...
I have the donkey with the leg problem. Hes good, just not much better. He still could get better, we will just watch him closely.

I know, Cleveland is like 70 miles from us. They are different lives though. One day maybe you will go for a ride. I think there are stables in Cleveland where you can pay per hour. The Metro parks are beautiful groomed trails. If you like nature, trees, creeks , the best way to view it is on horse back!

Good for you not getting all caught up in cleaning! This is sorta new for me. I usually get all spun up weeks before washing floors to ceilings. I always get worried because we live on a farm. Most of my peeps are city folks. I would worry about the home inspection! So I would whip it in shape for inspection. My mom comes out and sees a hammer in the drawer by the silverware and starts in with me. " It looks like a hardware store in here!" LOL...

Who's turkey is ever done on time? LOL....

I'm glad your feeling well and getting excited about it! YAY!

[NinjaFrodo]

Karen L;

I'm glad that you are still pushing through those limitations. How many weeks has it been of pushing through them? How much time have you done them despite the fear? Definately something to be proud of! Good luck with the Thanksgiving.

Thank you, I think your right. It will help me to figure things out. There are so many times when I figure things out when I'm explaining things out to other people or when I write stuff out. One thing I've learned in my Tao Shiatsu classes was that to open that intuitive sense in order to find the best possible areas to treat someone, you focus on a wish. Ie. Wishing the best for everybody in the whole universe and this allows for the wisdom to make the best possible choice. When I started to write the book I was focused on how it was going to benefit the world and words started to flow effortlessly. This was when the emotions started to flood out and I was focusing on those people from the show as well as all the other people who might be suffering. I haven't had that since that day though.

I really do hope it leads to television appearances and maybe job offers and such. I think that would be really cool!


Mike

[a.marble1]

Mike,

Where can I find more details on that exercise you did with the "vertical arrow method" and such? It seems really helpful and similar to an exercise described by Sam Obitz in his book "Been there, done that? Do this!" If you guys haven't read it, its exercises are extremely helpful. It's written by Sam Obitz who went through a very hard and traumatic childhood and suffered depression and anxiety for almost all his life. He recovered by using written exercises from a univeristy research program on anxiety and panic. Its VERY short and helpful.
Thanks for reading!

[NinjaFrodo]

The wrong that I have done is not etched in stone, the pain that I have caused was not by choice. It is understandable for these people to feel upset and their opinions are valid. I tood was in pain which lead to the pain of others, we all affect each other's lives. There are opportunities to go back and to appologize when we're ready. If part of this condition right now is to be self-centered or self-absorbed then I'm going to do this and accept it for now and appologize for it later. I'll worry about it later.

Hey did you guys check out the humming bird video I posted?

Friday

I woke up and started to do the relaxation cd again. It was good to get back to it. I had been working on overcoming my issues with rushing and started to do the vertical arrow technique and the pro/con list with the beliefs and it made it easier to just relax and take my time. I still have alot to do on it but it's coming.

I went to my old clinic that I used to work in and I attended their open house. I went to say hi and well I had let my old boss know that I felt guilty that even though she tried so very hard and sent me many clients, I wasn't able to keep them and I felt bad about that. She told me that sometimes we try our best and it just doesn't workout and thats ok. She told me she never felt any bad feelings and so it was a relief. I also talked to her about how i've offered shiatsu to people and was not feeling too good about not getting anything in return for treating people. She gave me advice on this. Make sure there is some kind of exchange and well I think I can live with that if there is some exchange. She said she's done this with some people...it doesn't matter if its flowers or a pie (well i don't want the sugar myself) but ya. We also setup an exchange of services for December 2nd.

Today was really rough for me on the other forums (the one with the male sexual abuse survivors). I posted on my own thread and to another person's thread and then I posted my whole story and I think it took me 2-3 hours just to type everything down and I went right into detail. It was hard but it felt good and I think I will use what I typed in the book i'm writing.

I didn't spend as much time today drowning out life with my music (I usually listen to music especially if i'm walking). I spent some time just walking down the street and I had alot of racing thoughts but I felt more calmed without the music. It was good, I want to continue doing it that way.


Mike

[NinjaFrodo]

a.marble1

Hey what a plesant suprise. I never know who is reading these posts besides the people who post on regular basis. Its nice to see a new face or I guess name because I can't see your face.

Sam Obitz sounds familiar as does his book. I never did check that one out and I think I will after we are done with the challenge.

This Vertical Arrow Method is by David D Burns. You can find it in his "Feeling Good Handbook" I think it is in the regular feeling good yellow book too. It is part of the developing your personal belief system. There are a couple other methods that go with it but of course you can interchange them. Ie. Instead of doing the feared fantasy method (I did an example of that in my assertiveness practice thread), you could use one of Tony Robbins's. I don't know the name of alot of his methods but there is the sling shot method which is imagining the situation in your head and taking a sling shot and destroying the memory and it shattering. Or you could play the mental video in your head and then rewind it, go forward and add something humorous to it then rewind it then change someone else to it, change the colors of it and just distort it until you can't play back the memory the right way ever again. There are many methods you could use in conjunction. However it is important to at least figure out the beliefs and then write out the pros and cons of that belief...Tony Robbins calls this getting leverage and it is very important!


Mike

[a.marble1]

Hmm ty ty swift reply
Yeah I have been reading some of your threads for some time, but you guys were ahead of me in the program, you must have paused or slowed down a bit? I admire your commitment and drive. I am also rigorously going through the program, taking tons of notes and playing the tapes over and over. I've also read Shad Helmsetter's "What to say when you talk to yourself" and it explains a lot of the workings of the mind, the concscious, subconscious and how to reprogram your brain so that it helps you with what you want to do instead of hinder, which is what we've done on accident. So a lot of what your saying makes a lot of sense to me, its all based on the same principles. Tony RObbins is very good. I also have used Shad Helmsetter's instruction on how to make "self-talk tapes". And I listen to my self made tapes several times a day too. That book is a huge bestseller and has been around for a while, he shows you all the forms of self talk, including the one Lucinda uses in the program (yes there are more hehe ) and I think the book is even reccommended at the end of the the program program, from what I read on another thread. Anyway this has been quite helpful too. Thanks a lot for your tips I will look into that book by David Burns. Take care, keep up the great work!

[NinjaFrodo]

a.marble1

Ya i was up until 5am.

I'm flattered with your compliments. Yes we did slow down, that was my choice because I felt we were going way too fast and I had many things to add to compliment the lessons.

It was because of that book (What to say when you talk to yourself) that made me feel more connected with other people and to overcome this perfectionism idea. I actually posted most of the scripts I created here on the forums. I think I made too many though. I'd really like to share scripts with you. Oh and that is another thing you can do with the vertical arrow method. You can find the beliefs, replace them with something more helpful and realistic and then use those as part of scripts.

If i'm not mistaken the way Shad suggests to do the self-talk tapes is to say the affirmation 3 times on the tape and only make them up to 15-20 minutes long. He also suggests getting someone else to say them because it is easier to accept the words when they come from someone else. I made an audio clip of each script and well it was an hour long and I had only read the affirmation once for the clip. I think I went overboard. There is just soooo many things I want to change about myself. I think this conversation is going to inspire me to go back and remake my scripts to something a little more manageable because those scripts helped me out so much! I however didn't read the whole book I just jumped to certain sections because I was impatient and just wanted to get better ASAP.

Yeah I saw it in the book's section of the forums and someone mentioned there was a quick refrence cd which talked about other resources that would compliment the program.

You can't go wrong with David Burns's books! However the handbook is an easier read.


Mike

[NinjaFrodo]

Ok so I had 18 affirmation scripts and I have started to look through them. I have decided to merge them together and I'm shrinking it down to 8 scripts and I'm taking out alot of the affirmations, I may reword somethings and add a couple other things and then I will repost them later.


Mike