Anxiety Support Group
Anxiety is a physical condition marked by intense and persistent feelings of distress, fear, angst or dread. General anxiety caused by routine day-to-day stresses usually passes quickly and is experienced by almost everyone at one time or another. However, such feelings that linger over time and are very difficult to cope with, and which lack a clear cause, may indicate...
A radical acceptance I worked during my ACT (Acceptance and Commitment Therapy) is that old habits die hard. At 67, old, heavily theraputed habits from childhood still surface on a routine basis without an apparent care from rhyme or reason. Left unchecked, those old habits will take over my psyche and management of my here and now. With radical acceptance, it becomes possible for me to mindfully set them aside while I navigate my day. They are still there, but I can shift them to the proverbial back burner while I do what needs to be done.
This morning's read from "Courage to Change" was a timely reminder for me. Just sharing, gently edited to fit this forum format. . .
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During the entire process of psychotherapy, I felt a nagging suspicion that I wasn't doing it right. With my higher power's help, I finally realized that the problem wasn't that I had done it wrong; the fact was that I had the same sense of inadequacy about my whole life. Whatever I'm doing, I'm inclined to feel that I'm doint it wrong, that my best is not good enough. And that is simply not true. I am doing just fine.
The awareness that I have developed through psychotherapy puts my self-doubt into perspectiver. it's just an effect of years of living with mental illness. So when the feeling comes up, I recongnize it, share about it, accept that I feel it, and then set it aside. I no longer assume that it has any validity.
Today's Reminder
Psychotherapy offers me a chance to find some balance. It helps me to identify the things I've been telling myself about myself and to learn whether or not those things are true. Today I will take one of my assumptions about myself and hold it up to the light. I may find that it stems from habit rather than reality.
"Let me realize . . . that self-doubt and self-hate are defects of character that hinder my growth." ~The Dilemma of the Alcoholic Marriage"
end quote.
Open discussion. Thoughts, experience, expertice and opines welcome.
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I haven't written in my diary on my computer since May because I thought that my computer was dying. I got away from writing but my computer is hanging in there. I think that I will start writing in it again. It's so therapeutic.
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First, I hope everyone is doing well, and continuing to fight that good fight! Keep up the great work on yourselves; I'm rooting for all of you!So, I started doing therapy at the beginning of the year, when I was in my most depressed state, but with my therapist, I made big changes and steps in the right direction. But, over a month ago, she couldn't take my insurance anymore, and I had to stop...
While I don’t prescribe to self doubt and self hate being “defects of character,” I think of it more as a tape loop that plays in our head, learned thinking maybe but definitely a sort of habitual thinking.
Thanks for sharing.
By whatever theory, name or source, old habits die hard.
Once I had a few moments to just take in what happened, what I thought to myself about myself, I was able to reason with myself, geez, none of that is true. I had been feeling very frustrated and I have a lot on my mind these days and I just jumped to kicking the sh%^ out of myself. Totally an old habit that I’ve not defaulted to in a long while but yeah… old habits.
I've gotten better about it... That's not to say I still don't push myself harder than I probably should, or judge myself more harshly than I probably should, but I don't do it all the time. And, sometimes, when I still do, I'm able to see that gap between what I've done and what I "think" I should have done as room for growth.