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13 years ago 0 +0 / -0 356

exposure to distressing thoughts - discuss Nov. Ask the expert question

Hi to everyone who has posted here. It took me a while to read through everything here. What a rich discussion this has become!

What Davit writes really resonates with me; Tiana and dizzy your thoughts are really helpful as well.

I agree with Davit that one can end up sidetracked into analyzing where the core beliefs came from instead of working to cure them. I think for me there has had to be a balance. When I try to solve problems without knowing anything about their origins, I tend to feel a bit groundless. However, that is my own stuff, and another layer of the onion I am peeling is about the fact that groundlessness is a reality anyways, that even when we think we "know"why something happened, we do not always know 100% anyways. My point here is that for people reading this thread, investigating, analyzing and understanding where some core beliefs came from can be helpful to some people. Most of the time in my experience it tends to lead to insights abouot what we didn't get in childhood, which can lead to insights into what we learned and didn't learn, etc...which of course ends up being related to core beliefs. It can sometimes help with the emotions towards the people who were around us (i.e. parents) because we can consider that these may have been their negative core beliefs as well.

13 years ago 0 +0 / -0 356

Rebuilding Your Self-Esteem

Hi Tiana,

I don't know if it is just me but it is pretty challenging for me to surround myself with positive people. Despite my great desire to do so.

Davit's writings in other threads (most recently the thread I started to discuss the Nov. Ask the Expert question) help me to realize things all the time, and a recent realization I'll share here as it relates to your suggestion to surround ourselves with positive people.

Positive people come by this in one of two ways in my experience.They either are positive because that is how they have been their whole lives or they are positive because they have worked through what they needed to work through in order to become positive.

I will only have the option of being the latter which is fine ,it is better than the 3rd option which is to be a negative person. I am finding it harder and harder to be around negative people lately as I go through this program and work on myself. I am ok with people who are also working on going from negative to positive, but negative people who don't want to do anything to address the negativity honestly make me feel nervous as I work through this program.

In the past we have discussed the fact that saying "negative people" is labeling (which it is). I use it here with the understanding that you used the term "positive people" to identify the importance of positivity (i.e. happiness) within people and not as an attempt to label people because of course in reality from day to day people can have negative and positive moods /feelings / beliefs. But I am assuming what you mean by "positive people" are people who are, on the whole, positive more than half the time.

Anyone else struggling to find "positive people" to socialize with?

13 years ago 0 +0 / -0 356

exposure to distressing thoughts - discuss Nov. Ask the expert question

Hi!

Dizzy it is true that it is hard to make good friends but I am also realizing it is probably hard for anyone to make new good friends as an adult. partly because our lives are busy, but also due to other factors. when we are very young, anyone who likes to play the same thing as us is a potential friend. but even by age 4, our personalities fit with some people more so than others. I have been on a quest for "good friends" for a while. I am going to try to add a little bit more here about why I think that might be.

I disagree though that eventually you have to tell people everything about you including any health struggles. I used to think that was true but i am starting to believe that if people become friends and accept each other for who they are , they may never need to know the details of each others past. Caring deeply for someone doesn't necessitate knowing everything they have ever struggled with. It does require some compassion though and just basic understanding that we all struggle at times and there is no shame in that. Everyone struggles with something. or at least most people do. and if we live long enough everyone faces something they struggle with. its just that culturally we want people to pretend they don't struggle. This makes me think about how Davit discussed in another thread here recently how many people on this site struggle with how they were told they "should" be.

Being told what we should and shouldn't do is part of growing up however if our parents look to us to fulfill their basic needs, what we are going to be told we should and shouldn't do may be based on what our parent needs not what we need. this I believe can form the basis for co dependence and is pretty much the definition of it - someone else depended on you to give them what they needed when you were young and you oriented your compass towards the world so that you understand other peoples needs better than you understand your own. You become adept at taking care of others and neglecting self. I learned a lot of that from books and from this site but it sure matches up with my experiences when I was young.

I started this reply in regards to the issue of making friends, and ended with some observations and learnings I've had about people being told they "should" do this or that. The connection that I'll try to make is to say that even though I am working on living authentically (not just doing what i think i should do) doesn't mean others in my life are doing this same work. Which makes it hard to be closer friends to some of the people I know. I would like to be closer with them but they are busy doing what they think they should do. Its up to each of them individually to step out of that cycle of 'should' just like it was up to me personally to work to get out of it.

I like this site a lot because here are a group of people working hard to step out of the "should" which I am doing too so I feel some community. It is very good having this site to come to.

Davit - yes, I have come to believe that the negative core beliefs I have were passed down through generations. that is not an excuse but it is a helpful explanation. There are specific events in my family tree that indicate these beliefs run (ran) deep. If I stop believing them, I cut off the lineage so to speak. Which is very motivating. But isolating for me. I've cut off contact with the people who refuse to challenge these negative beliefs. Its as if the beliefs themselves are our heritage and no one else in my family wants to give them up yet. Oh well. That is why I come here.

13 years ago 0 +0 / -0 356

Rebuilding Your Self-Esteem

Hi Davit,

Thanks for this post.

My anxiety isn't being met with any kindness and that is really challenging. Once I get anxious or angry (which are still entangled as anger is what the anxiety ends up coming out as) there are no adult minds in the house anymore. meaning i am childlike - needing consolation, understanding, support, but the person i live with is angry with me or angry about my anxiety. My anxiety is often met with anger. No one else in my life knows I struggle with anxiety. I have tried to tell a few people I am struggling but I was not met with any comforting words or sympathy so I didn't go any further with that.

Today I went into my mind and tried to recall the last time my anxiety was met with kindness without any anger attached. It was a very long time ago, more than 10 years ago, but it did happen. Today I am focusing on the fact that this was my experience of kindness.

You can read about kindness in books etc.. but to experience someone's comfort during an anxiety attack is what I have been wanting and needing for a long time.

My process will be to become the friend, the comforting caregiver to myself that I have been trying to find in others. I am not there today, but that is a good goal for myself I think. Today I am going to remind myself of that person's kindness so many years ago to use that memory to water the positive belief that kindness does and can be given, and that I can do for myself what that person did for me so many years ago - met my anxiety with kindness instead of anger.

I thought I would share that. Does it make sense to you? I want to water a positive thought seed in hopes it will eventually bloom. I want to believe I can care for myself regardless of the actions of others around me. It is a hard process. From being on this forum I know I am not the only one working hard to take good care of themselves when anxiety persists. I thought maybe my thoughts might help someone else here too.

13 years ago 0 +0 / -0 356

Set backs and thinking of being completely "cured"

To chime in and respond to Ashley's question about setbacks I would have to say that having to deal with other people's needs while in recovery / healing ends up setting me back. I am a caregiver for a couple of people and taking a full time out to focus on getting fully cured isn't an option or at least, would require a lot of upheaval. Some days it does seem necessary because when I encounter panic, I end up having to deal with the other people's reactions to my panic. I end up having to choose who to help, myself or them. I am getting better at choosing me. But its hard. definitely. I really want the people in my life to cut me some slack while I work on this program but its not happening and I have to accept this is just a more challenging situation, but not insurmountable.

13 years ago 0 +0 / -0 356

Rebuilding Your Self-Esteem

Sunny, Davit and Ashley,

Thank you all so much for responding here. Your time taken to respond does mean a lot to me. I have taken more responsibility for my anxiety - possibly as a result of realizing no one was going to cradle / coddle me through it no matter how much I asked. anyways, it doesn't really matter how I got to this point, the good news is that I believe (!) my anxiety is my responsibility.

It is not easy to feel anxious so often as I do some days / weeks. I really have wanted someone, somewhere to hold my hand through this but I have started a new habit of discerning between the ideal and the real. We all have ideals for each day, holiday, weekend, moment and event in our life. Sometimes our ideal is met. Sometimes it is even exceeded - i.e. we were happier than we expected to be. I had to realize I do not have an ideal situation, but then the next rational thought for that one is - who does? truly. No one really has what they envision as "ideal" if the conditions we consider ideal are all external. Peace / calm resides in the mind. therefore looking to external conditions to improve first had me caught in an impossible cycle of agitated mind seeking relief through external conditions (better job, better friends, better this and that).

so that thought process brought me to a much better place than I was at when I posted here a few days ago. It was important to realize my anxiety was being met with anger. For one thing, it changes the way I think I should be when I get anxious.

this program brought me to my edge in pretty much every way possible. The edge of where I felt comfortable, the edge of how much sadness I thought I could bear, the edge of desperation to find someone else (besides me) to take on my anxiety.I read about the edge from a self help book. When you are standing at your edge, at least for me, it actually did feel pretty much the same as standing at the edge of a cliff would feel - upsetting, terrifying. I was confronted by suppressed feelings. It wasn't easy. It wasn't quick either. Getting to the point of really believing that some of the things I was angry about were blessings in disguise. That took time. But I am glad it has happened finally.

No, I have not experienced a lot of kindness from relatives but i have been the recipient of kindness from non family members - including people here such as yourselves. I have chosen this week to focus on those experiences, and to really take on thought awareness in earnest so that what I focus on in my mind grows and the thoughts that do not help me to believe in kindness, i breathe and tell them they are not useful to me.

I recently heard on a podcast that we have thousands of thoughts a day. That seems true to me. And we may , in the beginning, have to start attending to each of our thoughts in order to get a real handle on our minds, in order to find real peace of mind. that struck me. I have to attend to all these thoughts, all the time. The good ones need fertilizer and the bad ones need weeding out. There is no other way except to do this daily if one wants to have some calm in the mind. Which i really do. I believe I deserve that more than anything for myself.

Sunny I have started being my own best friend and it is good. I have some room to grow it of course but I would say that lately I have not had any days where I do not take care of myself which is a huge improvement over where I was last year at this time. Thanks so much for the encouragement. It means a lot to me to read your thoughts and experiences.

Davit thanks for sharing your experience with your family members. it has been hard for me to accept that my family members are too angry to really 'see' me. But I have to accept that as a fact. It is not my fault. I see that for myself now. I have better beliefs about myself. that is what matters most. my beliefs about them need more work as I aim to feel compassion for them devoid of anger but that is what I am working on as a process. Not so I can engage with them, but so I can have more peace of mind myself. It is definitely a process. None of this happens over night.
I really appreciate all your posts here. I contemplate your words often throughout the day.

Ashley,I think I have answered your questions indirectly here. Sorry for the long post! Taking care of my own anxiety will relieve the part of me that still believes I can't do it. That part is getting smaller each day but is still there. I know because I have weathered about 50% of anxious moments with mindfulness and the others I have not been able to manage yet.

Thank you everyone. Looking forward to more good posts on the forum and looking forward to someday considering myself one of the cured (I feel I am closer than ever before).

13 years ago 0 +0 / -0 356

Invasive Thoughts

Hi Spartan,

Wow. when I read your post here I could really relate. And I really feel for you. I started the program in August and there were entire weeks in Sept. and October that I couldn't stop emoting - crying, upset, invaded (to use your word) by my thoughts. I do'nt recall reading any warning on this site about that happening but then it might be discussed somewhere that I didn't read since I jumped around when i went through reading all the toolbox items.

My reply to you is simply to stay with yourself as much as possible which is not to say, let the thoughts pull you down.

I have come to realize that deciding to address my anxiety brought me to my edge, or got me in touch with the depth of my anxiety to put it another way. It was not comfortable. It was not easy. It was not easy for anyone around me to understand what I had unearthed. It seemed like there was a lot of panic, and some days, nothing but intrusive thoughts.

My message is that this phase does not last forever. It is a phase. It was an important part of my progress. Davit and others here have lots of wisdom about how to balance your day to day so you are not overwhelmed by your thoughts. i am thinking specifically about the advice around coping skills and stress management techniques - knowing what makes you feel good and doing some of that each day to balance out with the discomfort that the invasive thoughts are causing.

My view of this program is that it gets you in touch with your thoughts and then one of the first things that might happen is that you might realize how many distressing thoughts you actually have and THAT can end up being distressing (to realize how deep the anxiety is rooted). Like I say, about 2 months for me were spent feeling around for this - with little to no support outside of this website. And I got through it. I am in touch with my thoughts now as a habit. and I know what to do with the distressing ones. But they ran the show for quite some time to put it mildly.

Hang in there and post often. I dont know all the answers of course but I can tell you that you are not alone in what you are experiencing. I remember others going through this when I was and the cured folks here were very good at reminding everyone tht taking a break (using meds or not) is not giving up on yourself. Its just taking a break. Which we might need. And that is perfectly OK.

The breathing exercises helped a lot and I was slow to commit to doing them. Do they help you? I also googled "breathing" to learn more about proper deep breathing techniques which helped a lot.

13 years ago 0 +0 / -0 356

Holiday pressure

What I notice when I look around at people preparing for the holidays is that people really really want the holiday (an external event) to bring them a sense of profound happiness inside. This stance of sort of demanding that the holiday bring us a sense of joy seems wrong minded to me. Is it really possible to look to the holiday time and say "I hope it makese me happy" without also thinking (even subconsciously) "what if it doesn't". I wonder about that for myself and for others.

Underneath all the activity - the gift buying etc....- during the holidays, I see a need in people to experience some happiness, some joy. There is nothing wrong with that, its just that these methods seem a bit wrong for me personally. My happiness during the holidays is coming from staying with myself, staying with my thoughts, nurturing my positive ones about the people I am spending the holidays with, and taking good care of myself. I will practice my relaxation techniques throughotu the holidays even on dec. 25. Not because I am rigid but because it centers me for the day to do the deep breathing each AM and ground myself by determining which positive thoughts I'm going to turn to that day if anxiety starts to flare up.

Just my input into this importnat topic. I tihnk inner peace can be felt during the holidays but no more or less than during any other time of year that we commit to taking good care of ourselves and our loved ones. :)

13 years ago 0 +0 / -0 356

Session 1 - How do you differentiate between emotion and thought?

Hi ~m,

Samantha asked members to share how we worked with the program so I will share a little bit of my experience. Rest assured, you are not the only one who feels the way you do about how to start the program.

I struggled to distinguish thoughts from feelings and I also struggled to identify different feelings at the start of the program often too. All of that does get easier as you work through the program. Some sessions were easier than others. I struggled with the exposure concept for quite a while myself. (that is later on in session 6 I think). It took me a few months to figure out how exposure related to me personally. My point is that every person is going to go through the program differently.

Identifying when you are having negative thoughts and negative feelings (anger, sad, fear) is a step. Don't give up! You can do this. Keep posting here with any questions you have.

13 years ago 0 +0 / -0 356

Rebuilding Self Esteem 2

For me this relates directly to the other forum regarding self esteem - specifically choosing who you socialize with. If I am surrounded by people who are harsh critics, I find it hard to be around them very long these days. I don't know if it is just me but I know a lot of negative harsh people. If they are the only people I see each week, I have to work harder to keep my inner voice positive about myself.

I agree with Davit, self esteem comes from shifting our perspective to "see" all the accomplishments, all the ways in which we are doing what we need to do for ourselves, and we are already whole. Low self esteem seems to come from wishing we were better than we already are. I do perceive a difference now between working with one's self to improve (i.e. wanting to become more flexible doing yoga without berating oneself for not already being more flexible).

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