EvolutionHealth.care

Home
Members List
Member View
Posts created by loves trees

Advanced Search Form

Members List
Moderation Team
Member View
Posts created by loves trees

13 years ago 0 +0 / -0 356

Negative Core Beliefs - Part II

Hi Red,

Thanks for the encouragement. Yes, after a terrible weekend i am feeling better today and I like what you said that i need to rest between exposures. i agree. I am one of those people who try to do things all the time instead of rest. Resting is harder for me than going into doing mode.

Monday I was still so upset, a lot of pain came up over the weekend. Past and present things making me upset. But today I have perspective again. and i have a new insight. Anger and sadness are separate. this is important because feeling angry has been something I've gone into panic about. If that makes sense. Staying with the anger, as so many books will direct, feels hard. But letting the anger go and remaining sad feels better. Sad is ok. It is possible I may always be a little sad about certain things in my life that didn't go well. Like my childhood. But the anger has got to go. It takes up space, so to speak, where my contentment could be sitting instead.

Thanks.

13 years ago 0 +0 / -0 356

Driving over a bridge exposure

Sunny,

Since I am back to feeling better today, I do see my positives and I have much to be thankful for in my life.

I have struggled to be understood by people around me. I've known for a while that its never going to work to try to become more like them - we even hear that as children that we should be ourselves. But the desire to have friends persists. Sometimes I feel like it is so hard to find other people who don't follow patterns - i.e. who are creative and analytical like I am.

I think now that I am older, I am ok with not being surrounded by like minded people, like you say, if everyone was the same that would be boring. But I do want to be appreciated for who I actually am. Most people I meet want to follow a pattern when they craft. That's cool. I don't mind that anymore. I've gotten over my childish need for people to be the same as me. But when people who are not like me put me down, or tell me to change in some way, I am no longer interested in that. We have to appreciate each other for who we are - pattern users or not-, that is definitely a core value of mine.

13 years ago 0 +0 / -0 356

remembering the past

Hi Mickeylover,

Your post touched me. I do not believe that grieving should be done all alone. Reach out, keep reaching out and expressing how you feel at this time. It takes time to grieve. It really does. My anxiety ramped up after losses of important people too. It is hard to go through this but you are not alone. Google 'grief' or 'grieving process' and you will find many pages to read and hopefully find some comfort like I have via that avenue.

13 years ago 0 +0 / -0 356

Challenging thoughts of being crazy

Hi Dawuad,

I'm going to just share what popped into my head when i read your recent post - the part where you say you want instant results even though you know it takes time.

A week or so ago, I was asking on the forum here about making friends. Ashley posted and challenged me to think about becoming my own best friend. I admit, this was not something I enjoyed reading at the time. But because I really want to get better, I have committed to taking in all the advice given here and give it fair consideration before throwing any of it out, no matter what it is or how I react when I first read it.

So Ashley suggested I befriend myself and I've been thinking about that since then.And then I read your post, and the word "instant" popped out at me.

Click.

Can you become instant best friends with someone? Not really.

And what I have come to realize this week is that addressing my anxiety involves befriending myself - getting to know a part of me in the same way you get to know any person better the more time you spend with them. Does this make sense?

The "cure" is more of a befriending or re-befriending. Finding out things about yourself (things you may not want to find out but in the end , underneath anything that is pain, you will discover you are loveable, this I know is true). It takes time to become your own best friend and by this I mean, someone who fully understands what you've been through, what you need and want, and the struggles you face. The program seems designed to put someone on a path to know what they did not know about themselves in order to become their own best friend, their own comfort and person that knows them best and can help themselves (sometimes by knowing when to ask for others) during times of need.

I do not write this from a hokey or new agey perspective. This program is about addressing the root causes of the anxiety. I love thinking about pulling out a weed from its roots. It means more than just hoping to grow flowers over a weed patch. But i can tell you, my negative roots are deep and feel unmoveable at times but this program helps to root the weeds.

When I feel impatient, I will try to remind myself that there are things I need to learn about myself in the coming days and months that cannot be rushed anymore than any other relationship can be rushed.

Even parents of a newborn say it takes a bit of time to truly fall in love with the newborn. Yes you love them upon birth but you get to know them over time. Then you fall in love with them a bit more each moment you spend getting to know them. The same thing holds true for ourselves. We have to get to know ourselves better whether we are up against anxiety or not, but especially when we have anxiety.

The tools for the job are here on this site.

13 years ago 0 +0 / -0 356

Negative Core Beliefs - Part II

Hi Davit,

That is a good reminder.

13 years ago 0 +0 / -0 356

Driving over a bridge exposure

Hi Sunny,

I'm starting to think of my trying to befriend people by being too likeable as a bad habit. So right now I"m taking a break from going out to meet new people until I stay with myself a bit longer and get to know myself a bit better. But I agree, there are people out there to make friends with. RIght now my desire to make friends overshadows my ability to be myself a lot of the time in social situations.

I'm also feeling sort of rejected because two people I thought were my friends are no longer interested in going out with me and of course I do'nt know the real reason but it might be because I am becoming more confident being myself around them because I've known the mboth for years now but a lot of the time, I was a caretaker around them and now I've hoped for more of a friendship than a parenting role with them and they are not interested. I've been having the same exchange with several different people in my life lately. I have stopped trying ot take care of them so much, and I stop hearing from them once that happens.

I'll learn how to spot people who are interested in more than being taken care of. :)

I tell myself that there is no magic to making friends, you have eto be yourself and like who you are and people who like who they are will like being with you. But on my bad days I have lots of negative thoughts about this still.

13 years ago 0 +0 / -0 356

More on Worrying

Hi Ashley,

Worry is a topic I started thinking about several months ago so this is interesting to me.

I have been a worrier as long as I can remember.

As part of my personal memory work / digging up negative core beliefs / anger release work I have recalled a couple specific scenarios from my childhood where my worry was not alleviate and I should have been helped by someone older than me. I was often made fun of for worrying. Teasing is ok but I don't remember ever being helped in actually addressing my worry which was constant sometimes as a 12 year old and onwards. By the time I was a pre-teen I distinctly remember feeling better if I had something to worry about. It was always something I couldn't control, and fixating it helped me to feel better.

Now as and adult I know that worrying in order to feel centered is not good for me. The first 3 weeks of the program here are really important because in tracking negative thoughts, I found I tracked how often I worried about the future and can see how much energy is going into worrying. I don't want that energy to go into worrying, so now I find myself asking myself more and more automatically "do I have to worry about this right now?" and usually the answer is no. Most all of the time really.

Just this AM I woke up and was worrying and saying "what if" to myself and creating scenarios in my head to worry about. If they came to pass, they would be unpleasant but not insurmountable. So I made myself look around and say "do I need to worry about this today". And the answer is no. The thing I am worried about does have a legitimate concern attached to it and it may lead to a disagreement when I bring it up with the person it involves, but in the past I would often try to address it with the person right away to alleviate my worry. I do'nt do that anymore. Or at least I try really hard not to let my worry about the future direct my day to day so much.

To give my perspective on why some people worry more than others, and that worry is related to uncertainty I believe that

there is also more uncertainty today than there was 30 years ago. People are finding it harder to retire because they worry they may not havve enough money to live on, for example. I know human beings have never been able to predict the future so knowing what will come to pass in retirement or any other time is impossible. But today there are fewer supports and services for people - families are smaller so social supports are fewer and health care is less available than it used to be. I think that we are told everyday to worry when we read the newspaper - either to worry about crime or losing our job or losing our savings from stock market crashes, etc.. University students worry about not finding jobs and not being able to pay off their loans. People 1 generation older than me tell me stories of how it took them 2 years to pay off an entire student loan (as if that was a lot of time). today students take 5 or 10 years or more to pay off college debt. So I am sympathetic that this sort of living causes a certain amount of worry.

I actually don't read the newspaper much because I don't believe we can live our lives worrying about all the things we are told to worry about. It works for me.

13 years ago 0 +0 / -0 356

today's top discussions:

This Month’s Leaders:

Most Supportive

Most Active

Most Loved