Merry Christmas Eve!

One thing I want to say this morning is that I noticed that I get up every morning to check in with DS and my friends. It's my current connection (contact) with the outside world where I can feel comfortable talking about things that I enjoy talking about, with like-minded souls. I share a common interest here which is not as easy to find in 'real' life. I can say it is my hobby, and I guess I can say co-dependency and psychology and counseling are my main hobbies; human behavior and motivation; where is it dysfunctional and how do you "fix it". So thank YOU, FRIENDS. Another thing I'm thankful for is our weather-predicting system. I'm amazed at how accurate these people are at telling me when something is going to happen and what can be expected, expecially major abrupt changes. I can't imagine the discomfort 100 years ago when people would be caught in a freeze, hurricane, flood, etc. without any warning. Especially the freeze. (Being prepared is a constant theme with me. Which is an interesting admission considering it's the second reference to it this morning. I may have to look into the feelings behind that, soon. It has something to do with avoiding embarassment.) I am currently re-reading a book I recently finished, but only the underlined parts that I thought were key the first time. This helps me actually understand the new concepts and decide which ones are most important. It seems I arrange them in a heirarchal order of importance. One thing that really caught my attention was the sentence about "DESCRIBE feelings and not EXPLAIN them", which is the opposite of what I do. (This is something that Gwen pointed out once again and I have come to the conclusion that I may have to send her a wig soon for all the hair she has pulled out trying to get me to wake up from my pessimistic-ego-coma. And I thank her for her efforts. I really appreciate her sticking with me all this time.) The next thing is the actual "describing" of feelings, the thought of which brought every feeling to a grinding HALT, suddenly. I'm not sure I'm willing to do that here (yet). The "Prime Directive" for me, and many DS people (I suppose, I don't actually know) is to AVOID feelings, not FEEL them! So I have to examine that feeling alone. It's something I never do, it's NEW, and I don't know how to do it; same ol', same ol'. It's so unusual I don't know where to start, so I'll probably avoid it for a while. For some reason I want to organize my thoughts about it, which is telling as a behavior. I'm still used to explaining (making excuses) which I feel is helping to become aware of who I am. I think explaining is descriptive, which is what I need. I'm learning who I really am. AND, I'm not in the mood to apologize for being who I am right now. I start with "I am a Pessimist"; it's who I am, or have become. I'm not going to apologize any more than someone who gets cancer needs to apologize, or someone who gets the flu needs to apologize. The first thing is to admit I have the flu (if I have it) and not deny it; it's the first step in change. Which brings up the "Paradoxical Principle of Change (Beisser 1970) which asserts that human change will not occur unless or until the person fully faces what-is, until he comes to a detailed and vivid grasp of how he actually lives and typically behaves in his current circumstances." VIVID and DETAILED are the key words for me here. This is where I'm going, to get a real description of who I am and how I am acting that is so detrimental to my happiness. And maybe, the next step is to describe my feelings. In any case, that's MY situation, and this is how (in my DS journal) I am working my way through to finding out who I am. Merry Christmas to all, and to all a Codependent-free Day!