Just remember, those old thoughts and behavoirs are learned over a long period of time...and time is what it will take to replace those old tapes with new ones. Nothing worth it ever comes easy right? :) I find myself struggling with the pace of things too,,,then i realize the little things i have changed and it makes it all fit into perspective.

Anyone remember that old TV show.. about the spy that listened to instruction tapes that disintegrated after listening? I think they turned it into a movie with Tom Cruise. Yes, sure would be nice if they just disintegrated instead of packing them around for a lifetime, stuck on automatic rewind, replay. You're so right, it takes time to change... slow and steady... :)

That movie was so aptly titled Mission Impossible and yes alas it takes a very long time to change. I sometimes think my tapes are in shuffle mode as I sometimes end up doing things again and again even though I know better
You will get there maryn you will get there

The only thing that comes automatic to me are those old survival behaviors and thoughts. And I still slide right back into them. My body tensing, heart rate accelerating, sweaty hands, general sense of dread, old messages that pop up in my mind - they are all a reaction to what goes on rather than a response.

You said it so nicely "I do not automatically realize that I have choices now. That I am an adult and have choices over what I will accept or not accept in my life as it relates to anything and everything."

I am grateful to have that awareness, that I can see how I am still using coping techniques from the past that no longer serve me well today. Awareness is the starting point for change.

I attend a spiritual growth group and a few weeks ago the speaker made a statement that I wrote down because of its simplistic truth. "Any feeling and reaction is preceded by thought." The point she was trying to get across was that here is where I can be empowered. I am able to retrain my mind, to reshape how I perceive each moment as it happens. I am the one who attaches meaning to everything and everyone in my life. I can learn to reframe the information and sensations I take in and give them a new interpretation. For example, As a child I was abandoned. Now that I am an adult, people still come and go from my life for one reason or another. They can leave, but they cannot abandon me. I am an adult. That's a big difference to me.

It's such a slow process, this reprogramming of the mind, but it's well worth it. One of the most helpful books I have read on this topic is David Richo's "How to be an Adult." Time for me to refresh that information. Thank you so much for your sharing. And yes - slow and steady. Baby steps.

Oh I so relate and I can so get frustrated with myself. It is comforting to know others struggle with these things too. I am really hard on myself sometimes. I can belittle myself because taking my behaviours as a child into adulthood.. That is unhelpful and so unfair to myself.
Like I have often said - at least we all here are trying to change !!!! That in itself is something wonderful !
(((HUGS)))
karen xx

oh yea, this message is right up my alley---the old bs the itty bitty shitty committee says to me over and over and over again---and like dave said it is not yet auto that i have a choice----like stuff happening over which i have no control--the fear, the fear of being helpless AGAIN in my life and the having to just bend over and let that rubber boot go up my gabonza---then i rage to feel like i got some control----same ole same ole----i do get over it faster and then wen anger is discharged, i can focus on solution and sometimes that solution is walking away---just tossing it off me

I read this a few times and the responses and I think to my own tapes and the messages that can appear at the oddest times.

To this day, when those tapes come on, the first thing I do is hide. I run to the comfort of my home and sit paralyzed for awhile until I can get the "new" tapes playing and realize that the past is the past and I do have the ability to erase those messages and start a new.

I thought for a long time that those old messages were gone... but what I have learned since my bachelorhood is that those real old messages were replayed in my marriage and I am having to once again reprogram the CD player in my mind...