Quote: oh don't get me wrong. i am not giving up - but there is always something in the back of my mind that says "this is not going to work"
I'll put my psychology hat on here and suggest, Kitti, that this feeling/thought has its roots in one or another "Mistaken Belief" that you may or may not even be aware of.
These are common precursers of both anxiety and depression problems. They are the "Parents" of the negative thoughts we hear so often.
So what might your Mistaken Belief be?
Here are some common ones:
The world is a dangerous place
No one can be trusted
I don't deserve happiness
I don't deserve love
I'm somehow fundamentally "broken" (thus what works for others will not work for me)
Nothing I do can change things
People never really change
If any of these strike a chord, or a variation of your own comes up the thing to do is CHALLENGE this belief.
Where is the SOLID evidence for it? IS it in fact immutable? List all possible evidence that REFUTES this belief.
And WHY, even if you can find some evidence to support it, SHOULD you keep nurturing it when it brings nothing but negativity?
As I posted to Pam earlier today: I tell my students this:
Your thoughts are just thoughts...you don't have to believe all of them!"
"Sleep well!
Shiny
ooooooh shiny you are too good!
but I must ask...what if you feel ALL of those things in some form or another? obviosly we learned them along the way somewhere for a reason of, well, probably self preservation...so how then can we get our adult brains to unlearn such deep rooted ways of looking at things?
I know, I know...by looking at them and seeing if they are in fact true...but will our brains allow us to see truth from our own created fiction? or will we always see some sense of manipulation in everything?
pitiful aint it. we really can be our own demise.
aw damn it kitti I don't know...wish we could all just take some happy pill, oh wait a min we could...but that's not what we want is it?
so then how to find a way to re-learn or un-learn all this garbage that has allowed us to be self distructive instead of productive?
