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14 years ago 0 +0 / -0 356

Yes. thank you.

the support here is making a huge difference for me.

14 years ago 0 +0 / -0 6252

Loves trees

Am I mistaken or do I see a smile on your face. I certainly have one on mine reading your post.

Thank you for improving my day.

Here for you

Davit.

14 years ago 0 +0 / -0 356

I cannot remember a time when I didn't believe deep down that life can be more than just round after round of negativity game playing. I htink as a child I figured out the game and didn't want "in". I suffered a lot for this, argued unecessarily, wasted hours of time arguing with apples about it i guess you could say, and weathered dissapointment after dissapointment.

i am going to cultivate more assertiveness with myself. i was not crazy for believing in a positive outlook, i was just surrounded by sad people.

as i write this, someone in my life is emailing me and trying to get me to play the "we'll pretend we don't have issues to sort out" game. i'm not interested in playing. not at all. i don't know what to tell her but i believe (!) I will find the words, and that regardless of what i do or say, i will be intact afterwards. i have an inner compass and she or anyone else can't tell me i don't anymore.

i have liked getting older. the game seems more childish the older i get. :)

14 years ago 0 +0 / -0 6252

Loves trees

I used to treat the second hand negativity my brother dumped on me and that I picked up in restaurants the same way, because I didn't want it, it would turn into panic trying to get out. I too had some "tend to negativity" core beliefs. I have some very positive friends and acquaintances now who have made it possible to deal with the negative ones. You can not change the negative people but you can change what you do with it. You can be assertive with yourself. It is so hard not to mimic when the negative saturation is so heavy. Oranges and apples some times you have to be an apple to deal with the apples, you just have to be able to go back to being an orange when you leave them. I do it by smiling and saying "that was funny" even if it really wasn't.

Two key words in your post that will help when you have a positive core belief and a negative competing, "I believe" You mention it a couple of times. "Believe". If you believe hard enough you can do this. You can do anything.

I'm going to throw this to the group. How do the rest of us deal with the game playing.

Here for you

Davit

14 years ago 0 +0 / -0 356

What you posted here is really going to stick with me I think. I've wondered why part of me seems so optimistic and part of me seems so pessimistic. your post helps to answer this.

I have a connection to my belief that life can be good, people can be happy. all the negativity i've witnessed has not obliviated it, though it has been shaken and bruised deeply and often.

I believe people can be happy, things can be good. 2nd hand negativity is what i was born into. Someone saying glass half empty every day of my childhood left its mark.

but i have a lot of living left and i refuse to believe the glass is half empty. a part of me never believed it and this program is feeding that part of me. nourishing it.

finally.

i've had some good tears of joy the last 2 weeks in meeting everyone here. thank you everyone. thank you.

we were born to nourish each other. that is what i believe.

14 years ago 0 +0 / -0 356

Davit,

Thanks for this description. its like 2nd hand smoke, you breathe it in even if you don't wnat to, because you're in the same room with them.

and hey, one year at a family gathering i put my foot down and said, could you smoke outside so we don't have to breathe that in? and the next family gatherhing they had, i didn't get invited. no apology, no explanation, nothing.. so that behaviour tells me what they thought about my assetiveness. but hey i am glad i did and i would do it agian. thanks for reminding me of this!

i am not just co-dependent, i don't like labels but i do like having a way to understand something so its a double edged sword.

i like to say i have co-dependent tendancies. sometimmes i am assertive. sometimes i am not. since starting the program i've been assertive a bit more than before and see that continuing. i feel great about this. this site has been life changing.

because i wan'st busy being anxious or upset and ruminating after the negativity talk on monday i had time / space to think about it from a non anxious angle for once. why did that happen? i was in a room of about 10 adults and we had been conversing together all afternoon but as soon as i expressed there was something i was struggling with, they pounced on me and the room was a flurry of negative statements all of a sudden. all directed at me. no wonder i used to go home nad have panic attacks when i thought about these afterwards.

i have been trying to purge the negativity i've absorbed the only way i knew how - through panic..

then i thought about it. no one else had admitted to having a problem with anyting that day. the game we were playing was "we're all perfect and life is perfect all of the time". no one else said "ugh, i've had such a bad week at work" or whatever. the rest of the day was mostly people talking about tv shows etc. just impersonal stuff.

so then, me not knowing the game we were playing, i said something authentic. i have a problem, so what? everyone has problems. thats life. but i got pounced on. because "i struggle with things" isn't part of the game with that particular group of people.

which is only played by people who are projecting their false self. we all struggle with things form time to time. its part of being alive.

so instead of ruminating and feeling upset that they didn't understand me, i was able to have these insights. and conclude that i didn't do anything wrong. i admitted i was human. how dare i! :)

thanks for your replies. they were really helpful. i'll be more mindful of the second hand anxiety and second hand smoke!

the idea of people in social settings playing games is not mine. i read it somewhere. ican find the reference if people are interested. it was a fascinating article by a pyschologist or sociologist talking about social relations and there being rules to the games in conversations and penalties for not playing properly.

14 years ago 0 +0 / -0 6252

Loves trees

In part of your post you have described second hand anxiety. It is sneaky because we often are so used to it being there we do not notice it controlling our lives. What is it? It is any thing negative that is not directly related to our thinking that is passed on to us and becomes ours.

Eg. Some one so negative in there conversation that you absorb it and it sticks in you mind even though you do not want it, with it affecting your thought or actions even though we would normally look at the situation positive we now look at it negative because of the saturation. If you look at any given day you will find one or more of these situations unless you are assertive enough to not accept them.

Good post good subject.

Here for you

Davit

14 years ago 0 +0 / -0 356

I like this perspective.

personally, i know i have to mourn the loss of what i was not given between birth and age 7, almost seperately from anything after that which is substantive, but that stuff from birth to age 7 seems more hurtful. i suppose because we knew / know we needed protection, loyalty, love, loving boundaries as you say, and loving discipline.

Yesterday i was reading about a completely different topic of human nature, but the concept of pleasure was part of the author's analysis. she was talking about how in certain cultures, pleasure has been put to the side, we don't learn enough about pleasure or joy or spend ennough time having joyful moments even as children. that resonated with me too. anxiety has sometimes taken over during events when i wish i were having fun like others around me. managing my anxiety is going ot help me recover some of that ability to en-joy things again, or for the first time.

emotions of course exist from the moment we are born but ages 4-6 seem to be a time when a child asks "what do i do with these (scary) emotions? and they need adults around who can answer that, and ideally not just talk about it but model it. if everyone around them is negative, or deals with emotions dysfunctionally (i.e. alcohol) that child is going to adopt a negative orientation towards the world. yes i am describing myself. i see this more clearly every day. these negative thoughts are automatic, they are deeply ingrained habitual ways of "making sense" of the world around me. they don't have to dictate my destiny. growing up means not having to be that child ever again. depedent on sommeone else for protection, guidance, care of our basic needs.

yesterday i was with a group of adults and shared a concern i have just something i am trying to problem solve. and the "advice" was so negative. and self righteous. and without empathy.

now this is by no means my first interaction where this happened. this happens all the time to me and i suspect to other people who know negative thinking people. but usually the day after such a conversation, i would come home and have my own negative thought spiral about how i am mad at them for not listening, upset that they didn't seem to really care about my problem, and so on. today because of being in this program i can challenge those negative thoughts. some of their comments were thoughtless yes, but some were well intentioned perhaps, and in general it really didn't mean much to them, and i shouldn't spend so much time thinking negative thoughts about the negativity around me. easier said than done though without a CBT to guide through this change.

i think i have mixed up a few topics here in this post, sorry. i'll do better to stay on topic.

14 years ago 0 +0 / -0 6252

loves trees

I spent a bit of time with my therapist and she confirms that those years between birth and seven do have a major influence. Five to seven is when we first get our major interaction with our peers not just family and start to question our beliefs. A child 5-7 needs to fit in. These are the first school years and I think this is when we establish our pecking order. Do you become a leader or a follower? Those sort of things. Do your teachers influence you or ignore you? You have not quite established who you are. And yes I think it is when you need to be loved so you can learn to love also. This is your first step into the world you will be living in and how you see it is going to influence how you function in it. Loving boundaries and loving discipline? Is this not what your teachers are supposed to be teaching you. Interaction. These are the years when you build survival skills you will carry with you probably for ever unless you change them. If you can say "this is what I need to be now" you can change those survival skills that you built because you needed them then to protect you or someone else. You can say "that danger no longer exists, I do not have to be on guard, I can love with out being hurt".

Of course if these core beliefs have been with you from childhood you can imagine how well established they are. Especially if they have not been modified like the ones you build after seven. This is how I see it and would love your ideas on it along with everyone else's.

Your friend

Davit

14 years ago 0 +0 / -0 356

Ashley,

How did i get into meditation:

I took a free class on meditation over 10 years ago. I learned the basic idea behind it and was introduced to deep breathing, etc.. It was good. I got to hear from other people who had been meditating longer had different approaches, some used music for example. That was neat to learn. It was a totally new concept to me. I was raised to pray not meditate. They are different.

Was it difficult?

I have not meditated much in terms of achieving the clear mind. Maybe a half dozen times I've gone deep enough to say I meditated. I guess right now the act of lying there and breathing and relaxing in a focused way gives me something even if it is not full on meditation.

It is calming. My interactions with people right now are rarely calming. Sometimes I find myself telling myself, at least i have tomorrow to rest and meditate to get back to my centre after this social event is over.

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