An Exercise For Forgiveness

[sage]

Now on to the answers you DO have.

Care to bite?

ah, Jeannine .. You're not going to let me off easy, are you? But I don't WANNA DB...whined Sage.

OK...what do I know?

That my h loves and cares for me. He tells/shows me all the time.

That he is with me.

That our m. is better now than it ever has been.

That we are still working on honesty, intimacy, communication -- like everyone else!

That doing "what works", ahem, works...that means spending time together (hiking, eating out, snuggling, sitting in the same room, movies, sports, drinks, etc), REALLY listening, focusing on today (not yesterday or tomorrow), creating the positives...

That what "doesn't work" simply doesn't -- wallowing in the past, worrying about the future, making ASSumptions, spending time thinking of ow, blaming, anger, judgement, not having a beginner's mind, comparisons, attachment

That getting rid of my anger was the single best thing I have done for myself and my m.

That things go better when I am in a positive frame of mind.

That I can choose to DO NOTHING -- I don't need to solve **this** (whatever this is!) today.

pant, pant...is that enough????

Thanks for the reminder, friend.

Sage

[sage]

Well...I finished "Learned Optimism" and thought I'd post a few notes from it since it's heading back to the library...

Re. Rumination -- When trouble strikes many women think and many men act. When something bad happens to a woman, she tries to figure out why -- she broods and relives the events over and over. A man acts -- he distracts himself from thinking about it. He'll go and take the next step without bothering to think through what went wrong. "If depression is a disorder of thinking, pessimism and rumination stok it. the tendency to analyze feeds right into it; the tendency to act breaks it up."

Instructions on how to keep an ABCDE record (a log of bad events and your explanations of them):

A -- Adversity -- Record your description of what happened not your interpretation of it. (Example: the dishwasher stopped working...)

B -- Belief -- Record how you interpret the adversity. Be sure to separate your thoughts from your feelings (which will be recorded later). (Ex: The diswasher broke because I am an incompetent housekeeper)

C -- Consequences -- Record your feelings and what you did. Write down as many feelings and actions as you were aware of (ex. I felt sad, depressed and mad at myself. I kicked the dishwasher and then did it again...resulting in a very painful evening. I also spent the whole evening in a running dialogue internally about how I am a terrible housekeeper. I had trouble sleeping as a result and tossed and turned all night.)

D -- Disputation and Distraction -- Distraction can be about using thought stopping techniques to break out of the cycle...but disputation is a good next step -- Giving the negative thoughts an argument. Go on the attack. Dispute the beliefs that follow adversity. (Ex. I am blowing things out of proportion. The dishwashwer is 10 years old and has been flaky since the day we moved in. Maybe it's time for a new dishwasher, maybe the plumber can fix it. But either way, this situation isn't based on my ability to houseclean.) Important: Use evidence, alternatives, and decatastrophizing to dispute.

E -- Energization -- Kind of a summary and identifying steps forward (I felt less demoralized when I talked back to myself. The broken dishwashwer is not my fault. I did identify, though, that I'm still feeling pretty badly about the state of the house and that taking action in this area would be a big positive. Doing the flybaby routine for 15 minutes a day would go a long way towards helping that.)

The book suggests recording ABCDE situations daily for a week.

Emotions and actions do not usually follow adversity directly. Rather the follow from your beliefs. This means that if you change your mental responses to adversity, you'll cope better.

the main tool for changing your interpretations is disputation. Practice arguing with your automatic interpretations ALL THE TIME from now on. Anytime you find yourself down or anxious or angry, ask what you are saying to yourself. Sometimes, the belief will be accurate -- so focus on ways to alter the situation. But sometimes the negative beliefs are distortions. challenge them. don't let them run your emotional life.

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End of paraphrasing!
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Sage

[psluke]

Awesome Sage!!!

You know some of that is what you have already told me before to do!!

[sage]

Hey all,

Took the day off yesterday to hang with h so I didn't check in...back to work today (blah). Have my first class of the new semester tonight!

Positives:
1. h did AWESOME in his first semester of law school (yup, the grades are in!). He's mentioned a few times lately how my support has had a big impact on him.

2. we spent the day together yesterday -- went to see 2 movies , had breakfast and dinner out, etc. It was a fun, comfortable, loving, intimate, awesome day.

3. h and I have been dealing with a bit of a tense situation with my car...I've been worried about it...not just the sitch but also that h would see my reaction (tense, worried, etc) as "more of the same" -- I've been struggling with trying to let go of the worry but also just wanting things DONE...and trying not to piss h off in the process. Yesterday we were talking about it and I was doing the balancing act of being honest with my feelings w/o being controlling (trying at least!) and in the middle of the conversation h said "I do love you". There's a bit of positive reinforcement that I was doing good, I guess!

4. h asked me yesterday if I had been working on my resume (my job is sucking the life out of me!)....I said "no" and he said that we would work on it together this weekend.

5. h was talking about how we should each buy a fancy present for ourselves when we graduate from our respective degree programs...now that's a year + for me and 3 years+ for him...don't know why but it still gives me a thrill when he talks about the future

6. Halfway through posting these positives I realized that this does make a HUGE difference for me...TBH, I was feeling a bit scared this morning...one of those..."I love him so much I'm afraid" feelings...posting the positives helps me see that each day I have wonderful things going on for me and my h and our m and my life...I swear...I can feel the switch in my brain flipping to "positive" from "fear"!

Sage

[kml]

All sounds great, Sage
You warming up out there yet?
Ellie

[andrea]

Like always, excellent advices and news in your post Sage... Thanks for all
Andrea

[KutieKat]

6. Halfway through posting these positives I realized that this does make a HUGE difference for me...TBH, I was feeling a bit scared this morning...one of those..."I love him so much I'm afraid" feelings...posting the positives helps me see that each day I have wonderful things going on for me and my h and our m and my life...I swear...I can feel the switch in my brain flipping to "positive" from "fear"!

hehe, i swear sometimes we are twins! LOL - i did the same thing this morning. i have been feeling a bit bitter the last few days, stayed away from posting my positives and had every intent of coming on this morning and slamblasting some part of my relationship

i don't know what made me post my positives FIRST before my journaling, but i did and by the time i was finished, my bitterness had subsided, and i didn't want to rant anymore

lesson learned (at least for today!)

[sage]

All sounds great, Sage
You warming up out there yet?
Ellie

Well ... it was 18 this morning and it's 28 now...BALMY compared to the NEGATIVE numbers we were posting last week!

Sage

[sage]

i don't know what made me post my positives FIRST before my journaling, but i did and by the time i was finished, my bitterness had subsided, and i didn't want to rant anymore

KK - I SAW that on your thread and laughed! Wondered if something was in the water...I dunno...I could really feel the sadness and fear drain away while I was posting.

BIGTIME ADVANCE POSITIVE POSTING:
h and I just had a phone conversation...usual stuff...work, school, etc. We hung up, I left my office to go talk with someone and when I got back there was a keeper of a message...h had left an email saying that he had had a tremendous urge to just call me back to tell me that he loves me...he said that he was just filled with the warm feeling of needing to let me know that.

Sage

[imalright]

Sage,

LOL! I live in Illinois! And we're having a heat wave! LOL I'm about ready to get my bikini out !
But ohhh, it's going to be cold here tonight! Burrrr! 5 above down to maybe a -0 tonight!

Deb