Life, One Chapter at a Time

[sage]

Pam -- Morning

Actually I STILL have not done my homework! I told her so tonight when I went in for my session. She said you mean you can't just sit there and tell me one thing you like about yourself? I said no, but when I'm in the right mood I am sure I can come up with something. She said that is sad and must be difficult to live that way. I said well, it does make it hard to accept that people genuinuely like you if you don't like yourself and I'm sure it didn't help D and I's relationship any either.

So, it's not too late to right now sit down with a pen and paper and come up with some stuff!

I still leave my sessions feeling I was all over the place and yet didn't cover any ground either! I am not sure how to improve that for next time. The sessions are 45 minutes and I talk too much I guess I need to write out what I want to cover before I ever get there and then stick to it. But sometimes when we digress I discover something I had no idea of. So what do I do?

Well, you could start by doing your homework (I'm really just kidding on that...sort of).

I think the "all over the place" feeling is common -- you've only just started going, right? And, as you point out, the talk,talk,talk can lead to thoughts, ideas, etc that you hadn't thought of before. Maybe letting yourself brainstorm with her for a bit longer you'll come up with some ideas of areas you want to focus on.

You could also write stuff down (as you proposed). Sometimes it's good to go in there with a couple of topics you want to be sure to cover even if you're just throwing them out there for future reference.

One way to maximize the time is to focus on YOU and not D or J, right?

Do you feel like she's solution based? Could you start with figuring out what's different about the times when you do feel positively about yourself? Also, have you ever looked into "feeling good" by Burns? It's a book that might be interesting for you to check out.

also, I keep forgetting to respond to you about the "embers" story. No, I didn't come up with that on my own. It's from "Your Buddha Nature" by Jack Kornfield which is an awesome, awesome tape series that I would recommend to anyone.

Sage