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 Post subject: Re: General update on Meeeeee!
PostPosted: Thu Sep 10, 2009 6:15 pm 
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Ash wrote:
That leads me to something else ... that the control itself has ALWAYS been there. You've always had the control, Sarah. There's nothing to fight for. Since you can only control yourself, you've always had that control. Refusing to take that control isn't someone else's fault and they haven't walked away with your control. You needn't chase after them, wrestle them to the ground and triumphantly grab the control back from them.


This strikes me as a very important insight.


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 Post subject: Re: General update on Meeeeee!
PostPosted: Fri Sep 11, 2009 9:54 am 
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EllenKMR wrote:
No, Ash, I wasn't suggesting that image resizing had anything to do with it, as you seem to think. I was suggesting that it's the number of boxes, as you put it. I said that pretty directly, I just used the words steps. And I personally see no reason to dismiss that idea.

I don't want to go off on a tangent about this because it's not germane to the focus of the larger conversation. I would only like to clarify that I said "since the arrows can be made different sizes" (small between Confidence & Love, larger between Anger & Depression) "then surely both circles could be made similar sizes, regardless of software defaults due to the number of steps" and that I mentioned resizing as an option I originally thought of (prior to any commentary on the subject by Ellen) because of the comments Sarah herself made about "Photobucket wants to sabotage my brilliance so I've had to create it in 2 sections."

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 Post subject: Re: General update on Meeeeee!
PostPosted: Fri Sep 11, 2009 12:29 pm 
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Well, Ash, you quoted me, said you'd thought along a similar line, and then mentioned photo resizing thing.

Apparently, if I understand right, you weren't referring to what you just quoted, there. I imagine you can see how that's confusing.

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 Post subject: Re: General update on Meeeeee!
PostPosted: Fri Sep 11, 2009 3:34 pm 
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Let me tell you what I think is confusing (or perhaps bemusing is a better word) - what all this focus on the way the bloody diagram has been drawn is about.

Yes Ash, tangential it most certainly is.

I'm a designer, it was drawn in Adobe Illustrator at 7am one morning in a rush before I went to work. I do consider these communication issues quite naturally as a part of my profession, and although I drew it in Adobe Illustrator where I have very few graphics-related restrictions, I do have the restriction of time and the prioritising thought of "I'd be better off getting some work done in this application right now". Because I'd already drawn the diagram in my journal and it made perfect sense to me. I drew it in Illustrator so I could communicate my findings to you, not so it was up for some kind of pre-press critique, but so you could follow my findings. Photobucket only restricted the size f the entire diagram (it reduced all of my images to about 400px high) and I was concerned that having had to split the image in 2 there'd be a gap between top and bottom, which turned out not to happen. My original IIlustrator drawing did, decidedly and deliberately, have 2 different sized circles.

Despite the fact that this quite peripheral discussion has somewhat flummoxed me, I'll endeavour to explain/justify my drawing. Abandonment is at the top bc it's the beginning (you may not be able to read the accompanying type "original cause" - Re: Photobucket placing size limitations upon me). This, for me probably happened when I was adopted and the cycle followed on from there. That was my beginning which i think is a very important part of this while process. Freud may well say "Sarah, it seems that with abandonment at the top you see it as the beginning" - and he'd be right. He also might say "with Empowerment at the bottom you see it as the very foundation of this concept for you" and he'd also be right. But God knows Freud may well be on some tangent reading all kinds of testicular or breast(-feeding) metaphors into the "two circles" before he even reached that point!

The top circle is larger simply bc there are (as I think Ellen pointed out) more steps - the abandonment circle is a more convoluted process whereas the empowerment circle is a much more simple, even elegant process. It shows how long the bows of fear are drawn towards abandonment, thus pointing out the energy consuming futility of it all. And the top circle is the one which is most important for me to understand, bc the cycles both generate their own momentum once they've begun. Realising how the steps in the top cycle connect is what I needed to understand. It highlighted where I can get off the cycle - between fear and control.

And also, from a designer POV I automatically reduced the area between steps to keep a balance in the density of content. I used green and orange (as opposed to red and blue, which is where I began) bc they are quite neutral colours and felt that red and blue were too loaded with good/bad symbolism. I wanted to remove judgment In my view of all of this.

So......there you go.

Can we please now quit the deconstruction of what has been an extremely beneficial piece of understanding for me? If you want to put this in a book or a thread for everyone else's benefit, feel welcome to redraw it as would be most appropriate - but your drawing would not be about me. Mine is though.

And...

I never said the control wasn't always there. In fact the very reason I chose the word "seize" (which has been perceived as aggressive) is because it's already there just waiting to be grasped....or...seized. Man, is Seizing the Day (ie: Carpe Diem) an aggressive man-handling of the day (rhetorical question only)?

Also....

I'm not asking if this process involves leaps of faith, I'm telling you that for me it doesn't. This diagram and the concepts it expresses show me a very logical, methodical process that makes so much sense to me because there are no blind leaps of faith. Because the step from fear to "seizing control" is a very rational step.

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I doubt very much that I'm totally different to all of mankind, but I'm getting the sense from some of the feedback that my respondents are uncomfortable with how my sense of logic, which is imperative to how I operate, rubs against their own little blanks in the process. Blanks that i'd have to fill but they/you don't. I'm disappointed in some of the responses (which i only have my expectations to blame for) bc this challenging of my findings strikes me as more about these respondents than my process.

Yep, I was looking for a big "well done" and although I got it from some, I didn't get it where people overlooked the powerful epiphany I had, and instead focused on what are flaws in this process only for them, but not for me. I'm telling my audience that I have arrived at a terminus here. Full stop. Expansion is welcome, but going back or on another route no longer is I'm afraid. I've not been giving any rationale to think otherwise either, with circle size analysis and the like.

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 Post subject: Re: General update on Meeeeee!
PostPosted: Fri Sep 11, 2009 5:24 pm 
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Sarah wrote:
I'm telling my audience that I have arrived at a terminus here. Full stop. Expansion is welcome, but going back or on another route no longer is I'm afraid.


I sincerely hope that your discovery helps you achieve your goals. Time will tell :)


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 Post subject: Re: General update on Meeeeee!
PostPosted: Fri Sep 11, 2009 5:42 pm 
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I finally have a chance to sit with this and try to understand what it is you've said with that diagram. I apologize most sincerely for posting partial thoughts without having a chance to do the full heartfelt response. I see the confusion and frustration I've caused and it's probably better for me to not say anything than to toss out little snippets here and there. (If I decide to pursue this course of action on a BPDR-wide scale, I fear that "Ash sightings" may diminish to non-existant so before I go full-speed in that direction, I plan to take some time with that concept first.)

First of all, I want to acknowledge that I indeed failed to acknowledge your own epiphanies and realiziations and insights. That did take tremendous introspection and effort. I was remiss in not putting that center-stage before I tossed anything onto the table. I did you a disservice by cutting right to what I wanted to talk about rather than stopping to first recognize & appreciate what you were talking about. For that, I am truly sorry, Sarah. You did amazing work and I'm proud of you for it.

I think one of the key components in your initial diagram post was that you mentioned "following very strict logic in its own illogical way." That - upon reflection - is what was niggling at me: the illogical aspects. I realize now that your diagram wasn't trying to emulate the Personal Accountability Model, per se - showing two methodologies in dealing with life situations at a criticial point in the process where the path can diverge into Accountability or Victim loops. While they look similar - your diagram and the PA Model - they are not the same thing at all.

Your diagram isn't necessarily a model of how you plan to approach life situations. It isn't mapping out methodologies at a critical point in the process where you choose to either Relinquish or Seize control, diverging into the Orange or Green loops. Your diagram is simply a visual representation of the realizations you've made. The orange loop is the summary visual presentation of your historical behaviour patterns as illustrated by emotions / thoughts / feelings and the associated processes those things bring up for you. The green loop is the visual presentation of the goal for your future behaviour patterns - of living a healthier, happier life.

I get it now. Until this realization of my own, I had been seeing your circles as attempting to mirror the PA Model and that "illogical-ness" was bothering me because it seemed as though you might have been congratulating yourself for reaching a conclusion that, based on twisted logic, was twisted itself.

As focused as I've been on the graphics (have we mentioned lately how talented you are with graphics?!) I hope you still have it in you to talk some more about the words with that diagram post.

If I understand what you said in that post ...

In order for your inner child to grow, she needs the tools to do so - not name-calling, not naming the problem - but an actual understanding and/or the tools to achieve that growth.

The inner child cannot control (something) which gets her frustrated which makes her angry which is making your adult life fairly miserable.

Your adult self and the inner child subconsciously (or sometimes consciously) do not assert* personal control out of fear of abandonment.

You want to address the cause rather than the symptoms and your current goal is to assert your personal control in situations where you would ordinarily default to subjugating your desires, thoughts or feelings (control) out of a fear of rejection or abandonment.


Which brings me back to the first part: does this series of realizations give your inner child the tools she needs to overcome the fear of rejection/abandonment to allow the adult you the ability to assert your control to carve out that healthy, happy life you want?

*I think another apology is also in order from me because I was so distracted by the diagram and trying to translate that to the PA Model, getting caught up in the colors, sizes and words, that I got caught on "seize control" in the "shiny" graphic that I glossed over where you said "I have no control bc if I assert control" -- we were on the same track there and I understand your Carpe Diem approach.

I wasn't trying to tell you, Sarah, that you were WRONG or BAD for using the word seize. I made an observation - it seemed aggressive to ME - and I thought-about-it-out-loud-on-the-screen ... that it's not wrong to use the term, even if it was intended warrior-like rather than carpe-diem-like as you used it. Again, I apologize for throwing only half-formed thoughts into the mix.

Now that I've had a chance to "spend some more time looking at the model you created along with the words you've shared," I see that we were on the same page: the control is always there (as I made a point of saying, prematurely) and that giving your inner child the right to assert that control is your goal (which you included in the diagram-post.)

Sarah, I'm really very sorry that I butted-in with only half-formed thoughts and a cursory glance over the words and diagram that you obviously dug out from the depths of yourself.

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 Post subject: Re: General update on Meeeeee!
PostPosted: Sat Sep 12, 2009 4:37 pm 
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Ash, thank you, for your apologies, for explaining where you'd come from in your last few posts, and for taking the time to think more about what I'd written (and drawn). I really appreciate this level of care.

I was frustrated because the thread seemed to get out of my control to somewhere altogether off track IMO.

Sarah wrote:
the psyche has proven repeatedly to follow very strict logic in it's illogical way.


I didn't explain this very well really. Perhaps better to have said that the psyche follows very strict logic in it's irrational way. Psychotherapy shows us how we make sense, and helps us to see how others do too, by following the logic of irrationality. That we hurt and the ways that these hurts manifest may at first glance contradict the pain going on inside, and with protective mechanisms etc we can thwart the very things we need and desire. Anyway, this is tangential.

Ash wrote:
If I understand what you said in that post ...

In order for your inner child to grow, she needs the tools to do so - not name-calling, not naming the problem - but an actual understanding and/or the tools to achieve that growth.

The inner child cannot control (something) which gets her frustrated which makes her angry which is making your adult life fairly miserable.

Your adult self and the inner child subconsciously (or sometimes consciously) do not assert* personal control out of fear of abandonment.

You want to address the cause rather than the symptoms and your current goal is to assert your personal control in situations where you would ordinarily default to subjugating your desires, thoughts or feelings (control) out of a fear of rejection or abandonment.


Yep, pretty spot on. Re: the last point, the "cause" in this context I see as being the cause of the frustration and residual anger and depression and all that pushing people away. The cause of it being a poor grasp on the control I've had in my life, always giving in to fear.

Ash wrote:
Which brings me back to the first part: does this series of realizations give your inner child the tools she needs to overcome the fear of rejection/abandonment to allow the adult you the ability to assert your control to carve out that healthy, happy life you want?


Yes! That's what the essence of this realisation has been for me. A key to the "how" of defusing this anger and thus all it's residual consequences.

It embraces the existential paradox that Harmonium so appropriately raised earlier. Being responsible for myself means taking control of my life. My realisation is mostly about seeing just how damaging it is to compromise myself bc it feeds into a whole cycle of unsatisfying outcomes and produces more situations where I'll default to that relinquishment of control.

You know all this time I've been desperately avoiding being alone. Feeling I need people and making compromises about who I associate with and how based on a fear of that aloneness, bc my inner child equates aloneness to abandonment. I allowed that whole "group" of "friends" to move out of my life a few years ago now, and since then have felt nothing but abandonment for it, despite the fact that I recognise that they weren't good for me. It's kept me stuck in a grief cycle, a victim cycle, but not through any petulant foot stomping "I want I want I want" impetus. Just a basic misunderstanding of how the dots really connect.

In the mere week that has passed since joining these dots together I've practised it. There's been a friend on my life who is uncomfortably close and this relationship has bred no end of frustration and anger. It's complex and a lot of it has to do with her being in such a different place to me - essentially nowhere near the realisation I myself have had this week, and I mean nowhere in sight.

So she invited me away this weekend and I'd already said yes, thinking I really should get out and meet people, but meeting people with her isn't fun bc I simply feel endlessly frustrated with how unsatisfying my friendship with her is to me. The alternatives to her are so few, and the answer is clear, that I need to make more friends who DO satisfy me and I need to learn how to find my own company satisfying. I have about 7 friends who I do find very satisfying, but with the busy preoccupied lives of people in their mid 30s, with their families and careers, I do spend a lot of time alone and alone has equated to abandonment which is therefore something totally avoidable to my inner child.

Anyway, come Wednesday last week I was becoming quite anxious about going away with this friend, for a variety of reasons. So I canceled, knowing I'd be spending a significant part of my weekend alone. I let her down, I know she was depending on me, but hell, it's just not that important! She wanted to go away to chase some guy who has made it abundantly clear he is not interested in her (ohhhh YUCK!). It's NOT my problem, and I already had a problem - I wasn't doing what I wanted to do.

I've spent a lot of my weekend alone and it's fine. I've been doing this more and more lately, spending time alone but doing stuff, like reading a novel, visiting the art gallery, cleaning my house, playing tennis, swimming, getting back into my music, drawing, catching up on work. It's actually pretty easy to fill an entire weekend without seeing anyone. And it feels surprisingly good; fulfilling. Empowering.

If this friendship crashes and burns bc of the boundaries I need to assert then I'm ok with that. I'll survive and it's just been pissing the hell out of me anyway. The distance I need from this woman is space that is there to be filled with the stuff I do need - self-fulfillment and relationship fulfillment through more satisfying friendships than this one can currently offer me.

So yeah, I think the proof of this realisation is already being seen in the pudding - time is telling, already.

...which leads me to:

auspicious wrote:
Sarah wrote:
I'm telling my audience that I have arrived at a terminus here. Full stop. Expansion is welcome, but going back or on another route no longer is I'm afraid.


I sincerely hope that your discovery helps you achieve your goals. Time will tell :)


Auspicious, I'll be honest and say that I'm not totally convinced that this post is sincere, mainly bc the words "time will tell", to me, indicate a subtext of "time will tell that you discounting my ideas is a mistake". I'm not sure. I'd like to take you for face value but maybe just don't know you well enough to trust you.

So I'm sorry if I'm wrong, and if so, thank you.

You've provided me with some great pearls of wisdom that have helped me get to where I have, which I'm just soooo pleased with. I am very grateful for this. Thank you for helping me, and for just trying to at all.

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 Post subject: Re: General update on Meeeeee!
PostPosted: Sat Sep 12, 2009 5:13 pm 
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I've just read through the last 10 or so posts again and I see I didn't directly address what Downinit was saying, which i do have a bit to say about it.

DownInIt wrote:
I agree with what Ash has said in her last post. I feel that you need to add Radical Acceptance as part of your means of overcoming Fear in that you must accept that Control only applies to what YOU think, feel and do. You will never have control over situations, only yourself, and by doing so you will have greater influence over situations.


I sincerely do not intend to knock down the CBT basis of the recovery tools BPDR provides. ALL of the tools I've explored and just think they're great - helpful, wonderful recovery tools. Well, except for one - Radical Acceptance. In some ways I get it, like just accept that I cannot know what others are really thinking, accept that it may not be negative, accept that I cannot control others etc. But the way that Downinit phrased it above, this is what I mean about the leaps of faith; radical Acceptance is "Radical" bc it does involve a leap pf faith. I appreciate that a radical acceptance can produce results that in retrospect provide reasons why that acceptance perhaps wasn't so radical afterall, which i'd call "rational acceptance". But as I was trying to explain previously (not terribly articulately I admit), unless those reasons do become quite clear, thus turning the radical into the rational, I really have found it doesn't work for me.

Recently I had a turning point, involving my therapy, where I just decided to, basically, Radically Accept that my T's advice would work and so stop resisting bc I didn't understand it, and just do it. He was right, his advice does work, and in practising that advice, in retrospect, I understand why it works. So the radical became the rational.

I'm a stubborn little mofo, and maybe what I'm beginning to see, just in the last day or so, is that sometimes I must have faith and trust that later the reason behind the cure will reveal itself as the cure does it's work.

Its so self-defeating to be the way I have been - "I'll ONLY try something if you prove to me that it works before I try it", bc learning happens in the doing as much as it happens in the theorising. I've inhibited myself so much by refusing to try in preference for finding a solid reason to try. I guess the reason could be "try because learning happens through practice as well as theory". Damn, I know that from all that design study I did. But applying it to my personal struggles has been somehow different - different bc of fear I suppose. What if it doesn't work and I waste my energy on a failure? What if? Well, the answer is I've learned it doesn't work so strike that one off the list and move on. But with that comes all this fucking fear - what if NOTHING works? What if I'm uncurable? What does that say about me? That I'm a terminal case of genetically fucked up unlovabile evil? That's what i've feared I think. Trying only to prove to myself I am utterly unworthy. Oh how did our species ever get this far with self-destructive defense machanisms like this?

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 Post subject: Re: General update on Meeeeee!
PostPosted: Sat Sep 12, 2009 8:00 pm 
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I've been following this thread pretty carefully. I really like seeing the conclusions you are getting and why-- really great work Sarah.

I hope you won't mind some observations by me at this point?
Quote:
Its so self-defeating to be the way I have been - "I'll ONLY try something if you prove to me that it works before I try it", bc learning happens in the doing as much as it happens in the theorising. I've inhibited myself so much by refusing to try in preference for finding a solid reason
to try. I guess the reason could be "try because learning happens through practice as well as theory". Damn, I know that from all that design study I did. But applying it to my personal struggles has been somehow different - different bc of fear I suppose. What if it doesn't work and I waste my energy on a failure? What if? Well, the answer is I've learned it doesn't work so strike that one off the list and move on. But with that comes all this fucking fear - what if NOTHING works? What if I'm uncurable? What does that say about me? That I'm a terminal case of genetically fucked up unlovabile evil? That's what i've feared I think. Trying only to prove to myself I am utterly unworthy. Oh how did our species ever get this far with self-destructive defense machanisms like this?

It sounds to me from all of this that what you are saying you fear the most is not taking control and thus risking abandonment (great fear yes) but rather it is taking that leap of faith to trust in yourself (maybe even trusting in yourself that you can take control?) that you are making the best decisions for a happy, healthy life even when (maybe especially when) the outcome is uncontrollable or unseen. So......from your diagram, it seems that maybe in order to actually take control and overcome fear, it might be wise for you to first leap. To trust yourself even when you can't see the ending. It is only by relinquishing and trusting that I overcome fear and thus wind up in control in the end. Does that make any sense to you?

A basic (core) issue that you are stating seems to be that you don't believe yourself to be 'worthy'. As I came to the same conclusions about myself, I can only offer that 'proving' to myself through my own actions (self-love, challenging my own assumptions, acting in accordance with my Authentic Self) was the way to find out for myself if I was really evil. I discovered that I wasn't but my idea of who I was (rather than who I actually am) certainly was. In changing how I looked at myself I could change how I felt, with time and through action and experience. I finally had to realize that I was no longer that scared child, but an adult who can and does choose who she is everyday. I show her to the world by my actions and my voice, but in order for that picture to be representative of who I really am on the inside I must choose to act in a way that honers my Authentic Self. In seeing myself in the present, I wasn't all that bad and in seeing that it was only logical that my impression of who I am must also change with the new information. I had to 'flow' like I enjoy saying-- to let go and trust that I could indeed swim in this uncertain river that is life and change my pace (self-perception in this case) to meet the tides.

I might also add that I have found that just by being able to ask the question (am I worthy, lovable, good)-- it lets me know that's what I want to be, who I am. If you didn't wonder I'd worry. It seems logical to me that somewhere deep is a voice that says to you that you are indeed lovable (hence the injustice at not being loved?) so maybe staying true to that inner core (your individual authentic self, that voice inside your head) would help you to achieve your goals?

Just some thoughts. Take what you like and leave the rest. :biggrin

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 Post subject: Re: General update on Meeeeee!
PostPosted: Sat Sep 12, 2009 8:26 pm 
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Sarah wrote:
Auspicious, I'll be honest and say that I'm not totally convinced that this post is sincere, mainly bc the words "time will tell", to me, indicate a subtext of "time will tell that you discounting my ideas is a mistake". I'm not sure. I'd like to take you for face value but maybe just don't know you well enough to trust you.


That's understandable - don't blame you :)


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 Post subject: Re: General update on Meeeeee!
PostPosted: Tue Sep 15, 2009 2:00 pm 
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Hi Harmonium,

Yes I can see connections in self-worth, although I tend to think the poor self-worth results from my abandonment cycle more than it propels it. I think that this stuff about a leap of faith into believing in myself has merit, bc sustaining the behaviour that gets me into the empowerment cycle is hard - I revert back to old habits and have trouble believing that the newer ways are the best option.

I have to say in writing this that seeing my T on Monday has effected my attitude towards this thread. When I talked to him about all of this, although he said that the analysis is very positive and insightful, he said I'm intellectualising more than putting it into action. We've talked about this before and it does seem to be a big reason why my therapy/recovery has dragged on so long. Intellectually I'm capable of getting it, but putting it into action is where my recovery fails. I just can't help thinking about that right here as I'm replying to you with more analysis. Self worth is something I've explored over and over again, albeit not with you.

On Sunday night I broke a few of my recovery commitments, getting me on that "abandonment cycle" and I feel disappointed in myself. I'm not beating myself up, and I think analysing it happens automatically now after all those years of therapy, I just have to stop this shit; follow all of these thoughts with actions. BPDR is steered towards exploring thoughts. The actions mostly happen offline and there's nothing anyone can do to change that. I have all kinds of avoidant aspects to my social behaviour which tie into the diagram and this whole discussion (it's all a big web), but I'm beyond learning the social skills and attributes I need here - I need them in 3d, person to person land.

Sorry Harmonium, you've got the rough end of the deal now twice in this thread. But I feel quite deflated discussing this. What my T said flattened me a bit. My actions on Sunday night did too.

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 Post subject: Re: General update on Meeeeee!
PostPosted: Tue Sep 15, 2009 2:41 pm 
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Hi Sarah,

I'm sorry you're feeling so deflated. :comfort I do agree that the stff about taking a leap of faith is important.

Sarah wrote:
Recently I had a turning point, involving my therapy, where I just decided to, basically, Radically Accept that my T's advice would work and so stop resisting bc I didn't understand it, and just do it. He was right, his advice does work, and in practising that advice, in retrospect, I understand why it works. So the radical became the rational.

I'm a stubborn little mofo, and maybe what I'm beginning to see, just in the last day or so, is that sometimes I must have faith and trust that later the reason behind the cure will reveal itself as the cure does it's work.

I've found that my own recovery is something of an experiment. There are a lot of great tools and advice out there and for the most part, I've really been helped by them. But there have been times when I was doing everything "right", following good advice, and it just didn't work for me. There have also been times when I did something I thought was f***ed up and turning my back on recovery but it turned out to be a wonderful decision. Like you, in retrospect I've been able to understand why things worked or didn't work for me but I couldn't understand at the time. I do think a lot of recovery is just trying things, being honest with yourself about how well they're working and learning from that.

If you know you tend to intellectualise things too much without putting them into action, that's where taking a leap of faith can really work, because you don't have that luxury. If you can't intellectualise something, you just have to get on with it (unless you decide to ignore it altogether). Then you can look forward to analysing it afterwards, when it does make sense and you're benefiting from it. It's so exciting when the pieces fall into place and things are working and you realise why - much more so than when you're just understanding it on an intellectual level, I think. ;)

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 Post subject: Re: General update on Meeeeee!
PostPosted: Tue Sep 15, 2009 6:02 pm 
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Sarah wrote:
Recently I had a turning point, involving my therapy, where I just decided to, basically, Radically Accept that my T's advice would work and so stop resisting bc I didn't understand it, and just do it. He was right, his advice does work, and in practising that advice, in retrospect, I understand why it works. So the radical became the rational.


I too think this is a good insight :)

When we're stuck somewhere ... well, if we already knew the whole answer of what to do, we'd do it, you know?

I think there has to be at least a partial leap of faith - a sort of dynamic of both being willing to accept help, and willing to do the work ourselves. Not just one or the other ... both :)


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