Middle Ground

I woke up yesterday feeling pretty low.  I felt like a loser and a failure.  I felt as though I had fucked everything up.  I did not like the fact that I was out of work.  I value being able to contribute to our family.  I took Ollie for a walk and saw the town employees cutting and trimming grass.  A sense of sadness swept over me.  I should be out there.  I love cutting grass and take great pride in it.  But I felt as though I had let opportunities pass me by.  I had put myself in this position and I was going to have to find it within myself to get out of it.

Fortunately I did have my first one on one therapy session in years yesterday.  She was a very nice woman and made me feel comfortable.  I do not generally have an issue sharing so it did not take me long to start getting some feelings out.  She gave me a hand out.  It was The Ten Forms of Twisted Thinking.  The first one on the page that we discussed made me smile a little bit as I definitely could relate it to myself.  It was All or nothing thinking.  You see things in black or white categories.  If a situation falls short of perfect, you see it as a total failure.  As I read that and realized that is what I do to myself on a reoccurring basis.  If something does not work out perfectly,  I see it as a total failure and an indictment of me personally.  We came to the consensus that was one of the areas with me that we needed to work on, finding a middle ground.  Not constantly relating my life to basically a pass or fail system.

One of the other things we are going to work on is challenging my thoughts.  She asked if I had heard of cognitive behavior therapy and I said that I was familiar with the concept.  I had been part of a cognitive therapy group at Trellis.  I do not believe at the time I was in that group, that I was in a good place to really take it in.  So we will touch on that therapy in the next session.  Learning how I can challenge my initial thought and start to train my mind to break the cycle of negative thinking patterns.  Often times in my life, I set myself up for failure before I even attempt to do something. Already creating a negative outcome in my mind and therefore making it impossible for me to find success. This form of therapy will help me challenge a negative thought and show within my mind that many of the negative thoughts simply are not true.  And that I have had success and positive outcomes and various points in my life.  It will be a challenge for me as I am so used to negative thinking, always believing that ultimately I will fail.  I am looking forward to my next session.  Unfortunately it is not for a couple weeks but, I will try to practice some of what we discussed.

I am still not sure what I am going to do for work.  I feel kind of lost at this point.  I need to work and I need to stick with whatever I decide to do for the rest of the season.  It is not fair to Jodi to have this instability surrounding us.  I am scared of what is to come but, I have proven to myself in the past that I am capable of pushing through things.  I know I do have a lot of strengths and I need to remember that with whatever path I choose.  Believe in myself and show confidence.  I want more than anything to succeed and want to prove to myself that I can do it.  The paper comes out tomorrow so I will take a look and perhaps something will catch my eye.

Hope this finds you well.

Take care,  Shawn.

 “Separate yourself from those who hinder your vision. Make a choice to walk away from the trap set to ensnare you. Realize when someone is pulling you backwards every time you take a step forward. Separate from them and the result of your action will be a life of success.”
― Amaka Imani Nkosazana