Thoughtful Thursday

Our society has a way of teaching us that we’re never good enough, or smart enough, or successful enough, or –whatever enough to be accepted. 

Part of our job is to learn how to accept and love ourselves, not because we believe we’re perfect, because none of us are, but because we recognize that we have good qualities and the potential to do good things for people.

 One way to start is by making a list of your own good qualities and then write some evidence from your life, that supports the fact that you exhibit these good qualities. If you are unable to list anything take that as a sign that you need a partner to do it and get a close friend or a cognitive therapist to help you.

If you’re working with a friend, you can make a similar list for them. If you feel uncertain at all about the qualities on your own list, then you can try visualizing yourself in front of one or more persons (the more, the better) telling them what’s on your list and why. You can try to imagine your voice as you say each word to them in a very convincing tone and repeat your list and the evidence for it until all doubts have been erased.

Tranquil Tuesday

When you’re under a lot of stress, it’s easy to lose perspective and think that “Nothing is worse than what’s happening to me,” but I found a simple experiment helped me regain my perspective:

I asked myself which situation could I handle for a longer time period, bearing my stressful problem or holding my breath. I quickly found the lack of oxygen infinitely more difficult to handle. I couldn’t hold my breath for more than a minute, but I had been bearing with my stressful problems for days. This little experiment, as silly as it sounds, caused a shift in my thinking that made it easier to with my personal life stressors.

Thoughtful Thursday

Does your mind know where you are? Behind on a deadline? Beside yourself? Over a barrel?  Unemployed? Underemployed? 

Is your mind asking questions like “What am I learning to make my life easier (or at least more bearable)? Is it coming up with answers or at least making a date with you for later that day to look for answers on the web, in libraries, and from people with more experience? 

Answers are out there. From Hi Tech: A wristwatch (google ‘personal management wristwatches’) that will download your schedule from your personal computer, display it on your watch, and help you manage your time with alarms, to Low Tech: Advice on innovative strategies for finding jobs by asking priests, ministers, or Rabbis, etc. There are more out there than you could ever use, so set your mind out after them!

Wellness Wednesday!

It’s Wednesday. Is your mind stuck on the uphill side of hump day? Economic uncertainty weighs so heavily on the minds of people with the news of the past weeks. And feeling that burden makes it easy to fall into the trap of thinking that it’s going to be too hard to complete the important jobs on your list for the week. That’s an example of a cognitive distortion called “Negative Predictions” which can hurt your motivation.

If you’re having a hard time with hump day engage your mind in a hard look at your job list for anything you tell yourself that only  you can do because you believe nobody else will do it the right way. That’s an example of Emotional Reasoning (making judgments based on emotions while ignoring the facts).  In so many cases we overburden ourselves this way, making the hump of hump day way too steep. Flatten it out a little bit. Use your engaged mind to give yourself permission to delegate one or more jobs to another member of your team at work or a family member at home; or take a job off of your list for this week and move it to next week, even if only to give you one more day. I’ve seen this prevent many a meltdown.