Taking my own medicine

First let me say how much I appreciate my friends on DS, especially you two today who are my constant companions in my quest for recovery. I know I sound obsessive G, but I look at it as determined and committed. I meet with my 'shrink' both Saturday and next Thursday-a-week; I'll go over your concerns about my meds with him. I checked with my druggist and Cymbalta is more expensive than Effexor and the Effexor is also used for GAD, which, seems to be helping. Now, about today. The odd thing that occurred this morning is that after offering advice to others lately the light-bulb went on. Time to understand and apply my own teachings:       My negativity and fears are all by choice, I'm just not controlling my choices. I'm reacting to my environment instead of responding by abdicating my right to choose my feelings, thoughts, and by changing my beliefs. I have been a willing victim to my uncontrolled feelings. The reason may (or may not) go back to childhood where I was not taught how to regulate my feelings as proposed by Daniel Siegel in "The Developing Mind. I doesn't really matter now how I failed to learn to control my own feelings, the fact is I haven't. Now is the time to learn how to do that. I realize it will be trial and error for a while as I learn to change; and although I'd normally say it'll probably be mostly 'error' I won't this time, that would be negative thinking. Actually. I think I'll continue to learn fairly quickly.  This learning "detachment" is really beginning to help. It's not about what's going on outside, it's what's going on inside. Plus, I just realized why everything is happening a such an evolutionary pace; sleep. Sleep is used to reorganize the brain and all these new concepts for change require some repetition with emotional content to be meaningful. As I understand it now, emotions attach value and meaning to things that are learned and retained, like trauma. The strength of a traumatic event is what keeps it so strongly imbedded in memory. It also works for things that are loved, and bring strong feelings of calm and safety. Anyway, G, I'll stop obsessing about the problem and start obsessing about the solution. Okay? On a more peaceful note, even though it is really windy (although sunny) this morning there is a constant activity of the hummingbirds outside the screened-in porch, anywhere from four to six at any one time. Enjoy the world, love life, an monitor your feelings. Love, Rich