What about our thoughts?
Hi, a little background on myself and some words about my thought life. First, I understand there is a therapy that teaches people about thought control or something along those lines. This is new to me but here is the link to the DS info on it. http://www.dailystrength.org/treatments/Dialectical_Behavioral_Therapy I was raised in a family where there was much negative thinking and I am sure undiagnosed Depression, Anxiety and Bi-polar 11 in some family members, also my dad was a rager with a quick temper and very loud which was scary to me as a child. He was physically abusive to my mom but never us kids but I know that I was very intimidated by him. There was an ugly divorce when I was a kid. He calmed down when he got older. I developed that temperament but it didn't get bad until I was 30 for some reason that I do not understand. My daughter, oh my gosh she thought I was always mad at her when she was young but I was stressed, anxious about not enough money for us and blew my stack too often. Sometimes brings tears to my eyes when I think back about my little girl and how she thought she was the problem. In fact every time I think about it like right now my eyes are welling up with tears. I can hear her plain as day with that sweet 4 year old little girl's voice saying, 'mommy, are you mad at me?'. I grabbed her up on my lap and said "no honey I'm never mad at you, I am so sorry I was talking so loud" and just held her while so upset with myself and wanting to cry. I had depression off and on from 13 to just over a year ago. Anytime I have gotten it in the last 4 years it is clearly situational and letting my thoughts go astray. Twice I had severe, major depression and once landed in a Crisis center for 4 days. I found a booklet by Norman Vincent Peale in my late twenties called, How to Survive Tough Times. I was depressed and read the booklet. He defined worry as the mind's spasmodic grip on a negative thought(s) and said to put one positive, hopeful thought into your mind's grip and it would replace the negative thought, he suggested something as simple as, "something will go my way today", so I did it and spoke it which makes it a belief after so long and I learned it was true that it all starts with a thought and goes from there. Thoughts-words-feelings-behavior. I added more thoughts to put in my mind and to speak such as, "Good things will happen today" and I began feeling different in a few days. So, I have tried to do this since I read the booklet and have read more of the same in other books. I put hopeful, thankful, good positive thoughts in my mind. If anyone will try this they will see a difference and feel a difference. It takes time. It's a long road out of despair and a long road to true change. There are other ways of doing this too such as reading the Psalms in the bible outloud and surrounding ourselves with positive people and avoiding the toxic ones. When a negative thought enters my mind I say, 'dismissed!' and replace it with a good thought. Whether the negative is about myself, other people or life and the world in general I try to remember to do this. I am not a natural positive thinker so it is continual work but worth it. Thought is supreme and I believe the most important factor to feeling well emotionally. Hope is like our life jacket to keep us from drowning in the dark, dead cesspool of despair. Forgiving others is something very important for us also to detox our hearts and minds from the poison of bitterness. This stuff takes self-discipline and a retraining of the mind. I do not do this as I mean to all the time but still working on it. It is very do-able if a person is willing. I hope this might be helpful to someone. : ) Sherry
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