Topic : Defining Your Authentic Self

I can look back 20 years ago and say I was better in most ways. I'm sorry, but that's the truth.

I think that we have to be careful in our quest for improvements.... 

 

First of all, we have to come to term with the fact that one life is not enough to completely understand ourselves in details.  We will work on something, get better, fell better and BOUM... Life throw us a curve ball and we see ourselves feeling and reacting to this hurdle in a way that we did not know we had inside...  And we try to understand again and on and on...

 

It is a continuous process that we will gracefully take us to our last breath.  Our duty is to try to get more and more at peace with ourselves as the minutes of our lives tic tac.....

 

I do not believe that you have not improved because if you have worked on yourself, you have understand some things about you, you have seen or analyzed some reactions of yours...

 

You have to find that one thing that is causing you to feel so down on yourself.  Because until you find that one thing, you will always feel like you have not achieved your goals.  For example, I have realized that mine was to be loved....  I need to feel loved all the time.

 

Therefore, I thought that if I had a great carreer, I would be loved.  If I had enough money to be independant, I would be loved.  If I became wiser and calmer with my emotions, I would be loved.  If I were more chearful and thankful towards life, I would be loved.  BUT....  None of this brought me love so I always gave up on those goals once I was realizing that I was not getting that "loved"...  And on top of that, I would be angry towards myself for failing... tell myself some nasty comments and feeling even more unloved....    Do you understand my pattern?

 

Once I realized this... I decided to spend some time loving myself unconditionnaly.  Not basing this on my financial success, weight, social accomplishments, etc...  JUST ON ME.... ME WHO WAS BORN 38 YEARS AGO...  A beautiful soul who every day breaths and live.  I don't have to count in details all the good things about myself...  They are there... It's me.  Everything I am... I meditate on and appreciate.  Wether you are atheist or a believer, there are something divine inside all of us...  LIFE.

 

THEN... once I will feel comfortable with the roots of my soul, with what makes me... I will improve slowly the little details of life...  I might improve my weights...  etc...  But this all not as a mean to get to the end....  As a sidedish...  to enjoy my main course a little more....

 

I know I wrote a lot...  but I hope that I managed to pass this message clearly because I understand what you are saying...  And what you are saying is not true.

 

Right now... you have the power to change everything.... or a small thing..... 

 

 They don't go into where the tapes came from too much. These are not doctors but two women who have lived very full lives and have some wisdom to pass on. As such, they have exercises where they encourage you to figure out the roots of the tapes but they don't guide you through the process like Dr Phil does. This is why it is a good companion to the chapter in Dr Phil's book, but should not take the place of it. It is valuable as another way of explaining and making clear the nature of your thought patterns.
Their focus is pointing out the destructive messages, categorizing them and naming them so that you will be able to recognize them when they pop up, and showing you alternatives to them. The alternatives have to do with exposing the faulty and destructive thought patterns to truth, in much the same way that Dr Phil has you give your thoughts the "Truth Test."
What I found valuable was the catagorizing they did, I can readily relate to the MONSTERS they describe. I have battled all 12 of them, and still struggle with some of them although I'm happy to say that some of them no longer reside permanently within me. Also what I found helpful was that the authors acknowledge that these monsters will rear their ugly heads from time to time, even though they have got very good at recognizing them and rooting them out. This is something I've found to be true in my case too.

 Why would you say "I'm sorry" to me? You don't know me from Adam, I'm just faceless words in cyberspace. 
Did you really mean to apologize to yourself? 
In all of your work and search for help, did you ever try any of Dr Phil's books, or anybody else who teaches cognitive behavior techniques?
Are you apologizing because you're giving up on yourself?
I don't believe that because you posted here.

http://www.cnn.com/2007/US/04/09/ebay.sale.ap/index.html

 Now that I've got over my ambivalence about being an empty nester and got behind downsizing, I'm discovering that alot of the accumulated stuff I've been hanging onto "just in case" isn't worth hauling to the next residence. (We're going to be in an apartment for awhile.)
The feeling of being "owned" by your stuff is a drag. Not only are you responsible for sheltering it, dusting or otherwise cleaning it, you have to insure it in case someone else takes a shine to it.
Right now hubby and I are in negotiations over renting a space to "store" stuff between houses. I'm busy convincing him that by the time you get it out of storage and add up the exorbitant rent on space for your junk, you could have bought all new junk. I think I'm winning the argument!

It IS liberating.

I so agree with you... I wonder why we hang on to stuff so much... As if our lives depend on it.  I moved in with my boyfriend last year and sold everything I had and only kept my books and a jewell from my grandma.  At first, I felt like an idiot because I kept thinking... what if we break up, I will be left on the street, etc...  But after a while, I realized that if things did not work out some day between him and I... I will be on the street but FREE to go anywhere I want...  If I want to move away to another country, it will be easy as I won't have much to move! :-) :-)

And even if I don't more very far away...  It will be then time for me to enter a new phase and what a great thing to start all new with new things! :-)

When we get rid of a lot of things... we then realize that we don't need that much to be happy in life... 

I tried to write down my namings and couldn't ... I posted them on the mirror with their definitions and when I journal and those tapes arise, I simply state what I'm feeling and acknowledge what I have to do to stop it.  Usually it's just me having to connect-the-dots ... hey, that's one of my namings!  and I just did one last week ... can't recall what it was .. it was done so quickly that I don't remember what was it that caused me to realized I had an old thing I had to bring closure to.

 

I'm glad that you have found this book.  I ordered it from the library along with Martha Beck's new book ...  it's about habits and I'm still working thru how I can simply just drop old non-working habits for me quicker.  She writes in pictures .. so I'm able to understand her.

 

When I get it, I'll let you know how it relates to what I was doing with me.  And I find that people who have done this journey like us, usually have some pretty good tools for us to use.  We connect to them at a much nicer way don't we?

I did it!

 

I know everything in my journal is for my eyes only but when I went to my doctor today I told her about three of my defining moments.

 

1. Trying suicide when I was 14.

 

2. Being molested at 16.

 

3. Trying suicide at 20.

 

Afterwords while walking with my wife I told her. I've been told for so long - over thirty years to keep these things quite - I feel so free!

I was so afraid of rejection. Quite the opposite was true. I'm so happy!

 

 

Sometimes these things just need to come out!  It can be very much like a weight being lifted.

I'm so happy for you. It always brings back the revelations I've lived, and the way it felt to shine a light on them.