Struggles, efforts and victories

@DireWolf62

hey D.

good evening from my place 😁

I hope you doing well 😊🌷

welcome here , glad to have you here

it's really wonderful thing how you support here

nice to meet you ....

Good afternoon, just, my friends.
I trust you are all doing as well as can be expected at this moment?

"What's up for today?" You might ask...

POSITIVE AFFIRMATIONS

"Affirmations are positive statements that help you deal with negative feelings, thoughts, and situations."
~ Old Dominion University

An "affirmation" is a something you recognise, or see, about yourself and give voice, or strong thought to.

One example might be, when you get up in the morning, sit, or stand, in front of a mirror, look directly into your own eyes, don't be distracted, don't look away, don't falter and simply say, "I AM A GOOD PERSON", I would suggest repeating it three times.

Depending on what YOU need to get through the day before you you might change this to become, "I AM A STRONG PERSON." "I AM AN INTELLIGENT PERSON." or "I AM AN EFFECTIVE PERSON."

This initial, positive, interaction with yourself will help you face, and get through the day ahead. It's something you can repeat as often as needed in your mind or in a private space, throughout the day.

These simple statements, when used on a regular basis, will, over time, become part of your automatic thought processes.

"Can positive affirmations help me overcome negative or unhelpful thoughts?"

Great question (even if I do say so myself) The answer, I have found, is YES, they can. Consider the following statements/thoughts that you might experience;

"I think I can...", "Maybe I can...", "What if I can't?", "I'm not sure that..." - Unconscious thought patterns that hold you back. What if you changed them to read;
"I CAN...", "I CAN...", "I CAN...", and "I AM SURE I CAN..."
The effect is not "magic", it's not "mumbo-jumbo" or "pop-psych b.s." It's you telling yourself, your brain, your thoughts what to be, it's you taking control back and strengthening yourself in the process.

Let's take another example, or two.

Your thoughts/mind tells you, "I am a worthless person", or "I am a dumb person", even "Nobody likes me."  - In the first place NONE of this true, you are a human being trying to make your way in the world while dealing with a bad personal situation.

I want you to try re-framing these thoughts. Re-framing is, again, a relatively simple thing but again, requires some practice and reinforcement. When you catch yourself thinking these negatives think about what THE OPPOSITE thought would be, such as,
"I am NOT a worthless person."
"I am NOT a dumb person."
"People don't understand me. It's NOT my fault."

I recommend you try this out, you may be surprised at the results.
I was!
Namaste,
D.

Note: Couple this with the suggested exercise from Page 1, post 7

I would like, if I may, to introduce a more esoteric topic today, namely; (Warning: This a real chunk of reading, I recommend you do not try and take it in all at once, break it down over two or three sessions)

“Mushin (無心; Japanese mushin; English translation “no mind”)

This is a mental state into which very highly trained martial artists are said to enter during combat.[1] They also practice this mental state during everyday activities. The term is shortened from mushin no shin (無心の心),a Zen expression meaning the mind without mind and is also referred to as the state of “no-mindness”. That is, a mind not fixed or occupied by thought or emotion and thus open to
everything.

Mushin is achieved when a person’s mind is free from thoughts of anger, fear, or ego during
combat or everyday life. There is an absence of discursive thought and judgment, so the person
is totally free to act and react towards an opponent without hesitation and without disturbance
from such thoughts. At this point, a person relies not on what they think should be the next
move, but what is their trained natural reaction or what is felt intuitively. It is not a state of
relaxed, near-sleepfulness, however. The mind could be said to be working at a very high
speed, but with no intention, plan or direction.

Some masters believe that mushin is the state where a person finally understands the
uselessness of techniques and becomes truly free to move. In fact, that person will no longer
even consider themselves as “fighters” but merely living beings moving through space.”
Ref: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mushin

Along with this concept are the seemingly less esoteric tenets of Mindfulness, Stress reduction,
Cognitive thinking and Emotion regulation.

Each tool that we gain the use of in these arenas will invariably help us to achieve a more
balanced perspective in our lives, and greater resistance to both leeches and parasites, both on
and off line.

Mindfulness, at its core, is itself derived from ancient Eastern practices and is a very simple
and stand-alone concept.
“Mindfulness means paying attention in a particular way: on purpose, in the present moment,
and non-judgmentally”.
Mindfulness is not competitive with any belief set or religion, it simply a particular way of looking
at things and the tools are just as simple, however, because Mindfulness is fundamentally so
much different to the way our minds are generally taught, and experienced, to behave in this
day and age it does take some practice to master it.

In essence it is a method of learned control of our focus of attention.
A great deal of the time we operate, cognitively, on ‘auto-pilot’, brushing our teeth, driving a car,
data entry at work. We are not fully focused on what we are doing and because of that we can
make mistakes, sometimes with grave consequences. Becoming more aware of our thoughts
and feelings in a particular moment gives us greater focus and thus we are capable of achieving
more than if we were ‘on autopilot’.

So, what’s a good way to find this ‘mindfulness thing’? 
In short there are many ways but probably the one that is most familiar to the majority is to do with controlled breathing. One good method is a breathing meditation developed by Kabat-Zinn in 1991. The exercise itself takes about fifteen minutes and is recommended, by the author, to be done once a day.
Process:
Assume a comfortable posture, whether it be sitting or lying down. If you are sitting let the
shoulders drop but keep the spine straight. (Closing your eyes is optional)
Focus your attention on your belly, feel it rise, or expand, gently on the in-breath and fall on the
out-breath. Keep your focus on the breathing, feeling the rise and fall, being ‘with’ on each full
duration in breath and each full duration out breath. A variant on this method is to breathe in for
the count of four and out on the count of four, then in for the count of six and out for the count of
six, then for the count of eight and so forth. The expelled breath carries away the things that
pollute your thinking. Imagine this during the process and gradually slow your breathing until
each one is steady, deep and even.
If your mind wanders away from focus on the breathing, bring it right on back. I use this as both
an aid to sleep and as a relaxation technique when embroiled in something taxing or
demanding. You can even do it standing in a bus shelter… waiting for that late bus.

You can use Mindfulness to cope with negative emotions/experiences in the moment.
Practicing the mindfulness on a daily basis, as with anything else, makes you good at it. So
good that you can call it up at a moment’s notice, in any given situation.
Let’s take a classic example and one we can, i think, all relate to. Someone pushes in line in
front of you at a supermarket or somewhere like that, what’s the best course of action? Get
angry? What do you do then? Speak sharply to them? Mutter about how some people shouldn’t
be allowed out in public alone under your breath? Reach up and b***h-slap them back behind
you (hence winding up with an assault arrest)…? What to do, what to do?

Me, I breathe… in for the count of four, out for the count of four, in for the count of six, out for
the count of six… and so forth. I remind myself that life is too short to get all riled up by them, I
feel sorry that they feel they need to be rude and aggressive. Learn to become an Observer
rather than a pawn of the game.

If you read a message posted in an online forum that really irritates or annoys you, same thing
applies. Breathe. Get relaxed then look at the words with fresh eyes. Is the person really
attacking you or are they just trying to get a rise out of somebody to satisfy some weird craving
they have for pushing buttons? Do the words materially alter your existence by being there? Do
the words make sense even? (That’s a big thing online)

In the words of Kabat-Zinn;
“You can’t stop the waves but you can learn to surf.”

Mindfulness is about being “in the moment”, here and now, present and accounted for and
learning to view events and circumstances as fleeting situations. If you can look at things
without old feelings, baggage, angers, hates, fears and what not then you really will find that
such “events” do not control you, rather YOU CONTROL them. In this way you can take
ownership of your thoughts and feelings and you can keep anyone from having access to your
“buttons”.

Mindfulness and Mushin, they come from the same places, the same train of thinking and they
can be powerful allies to you in times of stress. They can help you overcome worries and cares,
they can help you with inner balance and harmony.
A big part of stress relief, and a big part of being able to employ mindfulness, is learning to let
go of the things that are troubling you and the things that trouble us the most create strong
emotions within ourselves. They create negative emotions, emotional states that are unhealthy
and which drive many people to extremes of behavior or action. By learning to control, and
master, these negative emotions we can become calmer, less stressed and worried and more
easily capable of dealing with whatever situation we might be facing.

“Emotions are a complex state of feeling that results in physical and psychological changes that
influence our behavior. The physiology of emotion is closely linked to arousal of the nervous
system with various states and strengths of arousal relating, apparently, to particular emotions.
Emotion is also linked to behavioral tendency.”

Emotions are created by a great number of things, physiological, psychophysiological and
sociological amongst others and while we may need assistance, or intervention, to cope with
things such as biological levels of dopamine, serotonin, oxytocin etc. even when biological
influences are present cognition still plays a major role in emotional control.

“The process of regulating emotions is very complex and involves four stages:
Internal feeling states (i.e. the subjective experience of emotion)
Emotion-related cognitions (e.g. thought reactions to a situation)
Emotion-related physiological processes (e.g. heart rate, hormonal, or other physiological
reactions)
Emotion-related behavior (e.g. actions or facial expressions related to emotion).” 

For example, let’s say that you, dear reader, as a modern human living vampire, are confronted
by someone who insists on telling you that you are delusional, irrational, a ‘wannabe’ or a
‘RPGer’ what comes to mind? What’s the most common emotional response? Irritation?
Annoyance? Anger? – “How dare this miserable little creep tell me what I am and am not…”
I would suggest ‘anger’, either small or short lived or burning and livid, either way it is a
destructive emotion FOR YOU, not them. In essence by being a prize A-hole this person has
taken control of you, has pushed your buttons and has you reacting according to their whims
and prejudices. How do you feel afterwards, after the event? Deflated? Still angry? Weary? – All
negative states of being.

In the movie ‘Lawrence of Arabia’ T.E. Lawrence (Peter O’Toole) demonstrates a trick involving
a lit match in front of two NCO’s in a bar. One of the NCO’s, William Potter (Harry Fowler) tries
the trick and exclaims, “Oww, that bleedin’ well ‘urt…!” To which Lawrence responds, “Of course
it hurt, the trick, William Potter, is not minding that it hurt.”

Not minding that it hurt… hmmm
In the text "Skills Training Manual for Treating Borderline Personality Disorder", Marsha Linehan
sets out a table of points to employ when confronting emotions.
The first thing is to Observe the emotion, note it’s presence, step back from it, separate your
conscious thoughts from the emotion.

Allow yourself, once separated, to experience the emotion as a wave, coming and going. Don’t
force yourself to block it, don’t force yourself to suppress it, and don’t battle with it trying to get
rid of it or push it away. Don’t try to keep hold of it, hold on to it and don’t amplify it.
Remember this, she advises, “You are not your emotion.”
Don’t necessarily act on your emotion and let your conscious mind recall times when you have
felt different, better and more positive.
Practice ‘loving’ your emotion. Don’t judge it, practice the willingness to accept that the emotion
is not you and then accept that the emotion is happening.
Exercise conscious control over the emotion.
There are going to be times when negative emotions are going to seem overwhelming and
insurmountable and no matter what anyone says, uncontrollable. This is characterized as a
“crisis” and this is where we step into the realm of ‘Crisis Survival Strategies’

The Emotions –
There are 8 “primary” emotions, which are:
Anger, Sorrow, Joy, Fear, Disgust, Guilt/Shame, Interest/Curiosity and Surprise.
You are born with these emotions “wired” into the brain and all other emotions are comprised of
different combinations of these 8. Sometimes, for example, we experience secondary emotions,
or “emotional” reactions to emotions such as feeling shame when you get angry or out of control
angry, feeling fear when you get angry or, vice versa. When the secondary emotion occurs the
key to dealing with it is to determine what the primary emotion is and deal with the situation on
that level.
“Conditional emotional responses” (CERs) are learned emotional reactions like anxiety or
happiness that occur as a response to predictive cues. Most American psychologists use the -
ed form of the word, calling CERs “conditioned emotional responses.” [3]
There are certain steps that can be taken in order to regulate emotion and emotional responses
pointed out by Linehan (1993)

Treat PhysicaL illness – Balance Eating – Avoid mood altering drugs (illicit) – Balance Sleep –
Get Exercise – Build your MASTERy – Remembered by the phrase PLEASE MASTER.
That is to say, Take care of your body, don’t eat too much or too little, stay off non-prescribed
drugs, try to get the amount of sleep that helps you feel well, do some sort of exercise and try to
build up to 20 minutes of vigorous exercise per day and finally, “Master” – try to do one thing a
day that makes you feel “in control”.

Supporting study
In a study published in Psychological Science (a journal of the Association for Psychological
Science) Psychological scientist Susan Charles of the University of California, Irvine and
colleagues conducted inquiries in order to answer a long-standing question: Do daily emotional
experiences add up to make the straw that breaks the camel’s back, or do these experiences
make us stronger and provide an inoculation against later distress?
Using data from two national surveys, the researchers examined the relationship between daily
negative emotions and mental health outcomes ten years later. According to Charles and her
colleagues, “these findings show that mental health outcomes aren’t only affected by major life
events — they also bear the impact of seemingly minor emotional experiences.”

Learning to relax –
There are several simple methods that you can employ in building mastery over any given
emotion/ response situation, learning to relax can help you stay in control. You may have a
meditational practice that you can employ, if not here is a simple one.
Find a quiet place, sit or lie down after loosening any restrictive clothing. Close your eyes and
take slow, deep breaths – a good method can be found in the breathing exercise discussed
earlier.

Concentrate your thoughts on a single object, word or calming image/thought and if your
thoughts wander to something else guide them back to the relaxing thought you are focusing
on. Try this for ten to fifteen minutes until you feel relaxed and refreshed.
Another method, and one that I employ especially when it’s time to sleep, is Progressive
Muscle Relaxation. Again, loosening all restrictive clothing, sit or lie down comfortably. Tense
the muscles in your feet, hold that for about 5-10 seconds then relax them for 20 seconds.
Tense/relax the muscles in the neck for the same lengths of time, move on to the shoulders,
hands, arms, chest, stomach, belly, lower back, thighs, calves etc.

A third technique, and a pleasant one indeed, is visualization. Sitting or lying comfortably
again, imagine a pleasant and peaceful scene of your favourite place, or what would be your
ideal place to be, it may be in the mountains, a lush forest, a tropical beach, or wherever. Focus
on the scene feeling the sensations as if you were actually there. After about 10 – 15 minutes
gently let yourself drift back into the present and its surroundings.
Controlled relaxation can help you not to react, or over-react, to situations that promote stress
and/or negative (knee jerk) reactions to any given situation, it can help you feel calmer, more in
control and less ‘scattered’ – more up to the demanding task of coping with negative situations
or emotions.

Stress tolerance and management…
There’s an old saying about stress, “Stress is the physiological and psychological reaction that
occurs when a person is prevented from strangling the life out of someone who desperately
deserves it…!” (Do not try this at home, or anywhere else for that matter!)
Cute huh? Unfortunately that’s only one type of stress and the solution is neither practical nor
legal, so how do we cope with stress? What can we do to lessen its impact and, just as
importantly, its longer term cumulative effects?

What is stress?
“Stress is the way that we respond to changes in our lives. It is the way our bodies react
physically, emotionally, cognitively and behaviorally.”
Change can be both positive and negative that cause stress and even imagined changes can
cause stress. It is true, and accepted, that we need some stressors in our lives to keep us
stimulated and motivated.
The other thing that we need to be aware of is that stress, and reactions to it, are highly
individualized. No two people will experience, nor react to, the same stressor in the same way.

Chronic Stress
Our body’s hormonal system is important to help us cope with the demands of stress on a daily
basis, at a low level. If the stress hormones are repeatedly triggered, and are intense, then
disease will occur. YES – negative stress effects are recognized as a disease.

Below are a list of symptoms that we are adversely suffering from stress:
Physical: Tension, fatigue, insomnia, muscular aches, digestive upsets, radical appetite
changes, headaches and general restlessness.
Mental (cognitive): Forgetfulness, low productivity, confusion, impaired concentration, lethargy,
negativity, “busy” mind that is not able to be controlled and calmed.
Emotional: Anxiety, mood swings, irritability, depression, resentment, anger, impatience, worry,
feeling of being “pressured” even when you are not being pressured.
Social: Unreasonable outbursts, decreased sex drive, lack of intimacy and withdrawal into
isolation, intolerance, feelings of loneliness, avoidance of social events/ situations, increases in
alcohol, tobacco or recreational drug use.
Spiritual: Apathy, loss of direction, feeling “empty”, losing sight of goals, being unforgiving and
losing one’s sense of purpose.

The S.T.O.P. System
One of the quickest ways of tackling individual stress situations as they arise is known as The
S.T.O.P. System.
S: stop
Tell yourself, out loud if necessary, Stop..! Relax, I can handle my anger/stress.
T: think
Tell yourself, don’t take it personally, don’t jump to conclusions and don’t make mountains from
molehills.
O: others
Try to understand the other point/s of view and respect the rights of others while putting your
point of view across.
P: pick
The alternatives for expressing your anger/irritation in an acceptable manner. Examine the pros
and cons of expressing your anger. Make your “expressing” appropriate to the circumstances
and then, after the fact, analyse how well you handled the situation and your anger.

"What happens if stress reaches crisis point?"
The worst effects (symptoms) from our list above will kick in and you may well find yourself lost
in a dark, deep place with no idea of how to get out. IT IS TEMPORARY and the first thing to
remember is DON’T PANIC.

Draw back from the crisis, unless it is a matter of imminent injury or death – that’s when
adrenaline kicks in.
From a cognitive point of view there are several methods you can employ to lessen and manage
the “crisis”.
The primary method is to DISTRACT yourself with other activities. This could be as simple as
taking ten minutes to go outside, go for a short walk etc. This is a good example of the “walk
away” theory. Distraction, in its simplest terms, means to reduce contact with the emotional
stimuli that are causing the stress.

The A-C-C-E-P-T Method
A: You can distract yourself with activities, for example physical activity helps you to feel better
because when you engage in physical activity your body releases endorphins.
C: You can distract yourself by contributing, either to someone, some organization or some
other form of active contribution to somebody other than you.
C: You can distract, believe it or not, with comparisons. Watch a disaster movie, visit an E.R.
Waiting room, and compare yourself to people who are suffering greater stresses tan yourself.
E: You can distract by employing “opposing emotions”, for example, if you are sad watch a
movie that makes you laugh. If you are tense listen to music that makes you relax.
P: Push away; that is to say, separate yourself from the stressors. Walk away for a while, find
something else to do, meditate, clear your head and thoughts and just ignore the situation for a
short while Take a ‘ME’ time-out.
T: Thoughts can also help you distract, turn your mind away from the stressful thinking patterns,
imagine a serene place you would like to visit; remember times and places where you were
happy and had fun. Look out the window at a tree or some other object, study it, think about it.

Good evening friends,
Something a little shorter and less intensive today I think.

“Time they say is a great healer, but in this case, I am not sure that is true.”
― Emily Williams, Letters to Eloise

If you have a broken leg the Doctor will tell you, "Okay, we're going to cast it. The cast will remain in place for x weeks, then a couple of weeks physiotherapy and you'll be right as rain."

If you have appendicitis the doctor will remove your appendix, the operation site will heal, both internally and externally and it will, in a relatively short space of time, be as though it never happened.

Psychological conditions, of any sort, are not as simple as either of those examples and, in many cases, the conditions will be incurable but manageable. That is a daunting thought, believe me, I know. When I was first diagnosed my immediate reaction was, "How do we treat it, how do we fix it, when will it healed?"

I'm sure you can imagine how I felt when I was told, "There is no cure, it's going to take lifelong management."

The only value time has for us is that it allows us the opportunity to learn, and perfect, better skills for coping and managing the problem. The most critical time is the time of acceptance of what we are facing and the time of choosing how we respond to it. 

Time WILL bring us to those points, some sooner, some later but everyone arrives there eventually, providing they WANT to.

Only YOU can make the choice whether to give in, surrender, or fight your way back to something NEAR the you that you were before you became ill. Make no mistake, it is an illness... I have come to liken it to Diabetes, irreversible but manageable. Many, many thousands of diabetics lead full, happy and healthy lives because they take care to practice the proper steps to do so. YOU can too and this is where the exercises for the mind that I have brought to this "round table" come in handy. A selection of "Tools" if you will, for exerting CONTROL over what you have to deal with.

YOU ARE NOT LOST. YOU DO NOT NEED TO BE ASHAMED. YOU DO NOT NEED TO SURRENDER.

There are things you can do to lessen the impact of what you are dealing with.
It's a journey, no doubt about that. It takes patience, strength and courage, no doubt about it. You will stumble along the path, that's only human but there will come a day when YOU can stand and look the world in the eye and say, "Here I am, take it or leave it, I don't care." THAT is your choice and your power.

Good journey, be kind to yourself,
Namaste,
D.

Good evening friends,
When I stepped aboard this afternoon I found that, among my daily tasks, this item was set for review;

"Goal-setting is the process of consciously setting goals in a manner that allows goal completion and achievement. Goals are essential to one’s purpose, and pursuing our goals allows us to thrive in life.

Principles that allow goal-setting to be effective include commitment, clarity, challenge, complexity and feedback. The SMART goal setting framework fulfills these principles and hence is an effective model to set goals by.

The SMART goal setting framework has these components:

1. Specific: Define your goal and make sure it is specific.
2. Measurable: Define the way by which you will be measuring progress towards achievement of the goal.
3. Achievable: Make sure your goal is attainable.
4. Realistic: Make sure your goal is realistic and relates to your overall life purpose/ikigai.
5. Timely: Make sure you have a start and target end date for goal completion defined as well."
   
   There is no doubt that, at some point, this is an admirable, if not necessary, "Effort" BUT in my mind it is something which in your mind, heart and soul you NEED to ready for. When you are in the depths of crisis or the "depths of the pit" you NEED to remember that you do not need to put undue pressures on yourself and this is something that the above does not take into account. The ability to undertake this "goal setting" comes from deep inside and involves unhampered thought processes and clarity.
   When are at, what you perceive to be, the lowest point then I would suggest that the following is more appropriate and will lead to bigger and better things.
   Specific: For example "Get out of bed". "Eat healthy food today."
   Measurable: Achieving the simple goal IS the measure.
   Achievable: Make sure your goal is attainable. It is not without Effort that we succeed. Make your Efforts something that are within your scope of ability.
   Realistic: Don't over-extend yourself to begin, small steps are good steps.
   
   It's going to take time to reach the bigger things, be patient with yourself and be good/kind to yourself.
   
   Namaste,
   D. 

Hi D, hope you're doing well. Something I seem to constantly struggle with is health anxiety and a hyper awareness of bodily sensations. In the past, it's raned from fixating on my heartbeat, all the way to manifesting actual physical pain. I wondered if you've ever dealt with this sort of thing on your journey? It's a very hard cycle to break.

Just to reiterate: As you may know, if you have been following this thread, I AM NOT A HEALTHCARE PROFESSIONAL.

I am NOT a Doctor, Psychiatrist, Psychologist, Therapist or Counselor.

I AM an man who has been coping with, and managing, Bi-Polar Depression Type II with attendant Generalised Anxiety order since 2000. I have learned, in that time, many ways to cope with my "condition", to deal with the everyday stresses and demands that it places on my daily life. Everything I put here is NOT intended to replace proper medical/healthcare advice or treatment. What I put here is simply how I, one man, has learned to cope with my condition.

That being said, or rather repeated, I have one thing that I want to share that goes back to my post on meditation methods to re-discover the inner strengths/talents and abilities that YOU still have, even if they are out of sight at the moment.

Today I want to look at "Talismans" - "lucky rabbit's feet if you like"
Now having a rabbit's foot may seem lucky to a person - not much good for the rabbit, he/she wasn't so lucky!

In ancient times talismans were held to possess the power of "The Gods" or "Benevolent Spirits", that was in an unenlightened world. Today, I believe, talismans embody the spirit, strength and determination of the person that owns them, or can be made to.

Work with me here, if you will;
Do you have an item, any item, that will fit neatly in your pocket and is a favourite possession of yours?
I have a small Amethyst crystal. (There are various ways to prepare them for what you want from them that are readily available online) You can drop me a line here if you want my method.

Take that item and find yourself a quiet space where you can be alone with your thoughts. Take the object between your hands and imagine that you are pumping energy, from your body into that object from your hands.

Tell the object, silently in your calmed mind, what you want from it and repeat it three times. Only put positive thoughts into it. If you want to tell it "I want to be calmer all the time", "I want to be stronger all the time", "I want to be able to focus better all the time" or "I don't want to be anxious all the time".

What you just done, in effect, is you have programmed your "talisman" to remind you of that that. Yes, you can put multiple thoughts into it if you wish.

The talisman will work FOR YOU, it will NOT affect other people and that is NOT it's purpose. It is for you and for you alone.

Now, carry the talisman with you at all times, in an easily accessible pocket and when you feel things starting to spiral, slip out of control or sight, or you just need a "boost", reach into your pocket, take the talisman between your fingers and remind yourself what it is you asked from it. Feel its shape, its texture and, most of all, feel it repeating what you asked it for in your heart and mind.

It may seem to be a most simplistic trick but it is NO TRICK, it is a POSITIVE AFFIRMATION, an ancient practice, to affirm who you are and what YOU want.

Good luck and, as I said, if you have any questions please do not hesitate to drop me a line here. I check in every single day.
Namaste,
D.

Good afternoon,
I’d like to share a few wise words with you;
“When we listen we hear someone into existence” - Laurie Buchanan PhD

In other words we give validation to how that person is feeling and we provide an understanding and supportive recipient for them to talk to.

Be they friend, family or stranger half way around the world we CAN show them kindness, sensitivity and understanding and, very often, this is what they need more than anything in that moment. I have had the honour of conducting two “listening sessions” now and each one has concluded in a positive manner with the people I was chatting with feeling calmer and understood by someone far away from their immediate situation.

I will freely admit that it took me some time to get the courage up to “Listen” to someone, I was keenly aware of the fact that I am, to all intents and purposes, a broken unit, so to speak. I have my own struggles,my own efforts I need to make to stay on top of my condition. I found myself wondering how on earth could I possibly give support and comfort to others when I have enough trouble doing it for myself. However, one day I was contacted by another “Listener” who was experiencing some difficulty in giving a person what they needed. This “Listener” asked me to intervene, that was my first ever chat. It ended on a most positive note and, later, I found out that the person had reported that I was, “A good listener”. Never mind that I was somewhat terrifed the whole time.

This example is one of the things I have written of quite often here. I found, discovered or re-discovered the positive, altruistic strength and sense of purpose that I used to display BEFORE my troubles began. It took another person in need, at a crisis point, to bring that to the surface in me and that is how I know that YOU can do it too.

YOU have the strengths and abilities still within you, they just need to be re-discovered and the sense of accomplishment and achievement IS a victory indeed.

Namaste,
D.

Good afternoon,
An interesting "prompt thought" crossed the desk as I came in today (Monday)

"FINDING FORGIVENESS

Finding forgiveness begins with defining forgiveness - it has two important aspects:

1. Emotional forgiveness acknowledges that a wrong was done but chooses not to seek revenge or continue condemning the person who hurt you. It is the experience of forgiving because you experience different feelings toward the person.
2. Decisional forgiveness involves your pledge that your behavior will not be aimed at revenge against yourself and that you’ll try to treat yourself as a valued and valuable person, even though you see your flaws."

I will admit, quite freely, that I don't see the sort of "Forgiveness" we need to practice as something to be directed outwards. If someone "wrongs" us then that person simply becomes unworthy of further consideration. They don't deserve, or need, for us to be stressing about whether they should have our forgiveness or not. We certainly should not allow their actions, either intentional or not, to affect our equilibrium or balance. Instead we should look to ourselves and tend to ourselves to ensure that the "wrong" that was done does not negatively affect us in the long term.

In the short term feelings of betrayal, or even anger, are perfectly natural and valid but we should endeavour not to carry these feelings with us for more than an hour, or, at most, a day. Protect yourself, not them. 

"So" you ask, "what 'forgiveness' are you talking about then?"

I am talking about;
1) Emotional forgiveness: I, personally, do not see it as being directed outwardly. I suggest that the emotional forgiveness needs be directed toward yourself. If someone "wrongs" you you will probably feel angry, betrayed, bitter, disgusted, animosity or outright hatred, or any combination thereof. YOUR feelings, as with all feelings, are perfectly valid as I discussed in the post where I presented the excerpt from the book "Calming the Emotional Storm", and understandable but herein lies the difference in MY philosophy. FORGIVE YOURSELF, when you have experienced the emotions, for feeling these negative feelings. Don't carry them, let them fester or let them grow out of proportion and cause you emotional turmoil. YOU do not deserve to punish yourself because of some other person's thoughtlessness. BE KIND TO YOURSELF.

2) DECISIONAL FORGIVENESS: As noted above, "involves your pledge that your behavior will not be aimed at revenge against yourself and that you’ll try to treat yourself as a valued and valuable person, even though you see your flaws."
This I agree with wholeheartedly and it forms a big part of my concept of "Emotional Forgiveness".
The fact validly remains that YOU ARE a valuable and valued person, every human being deserves this basic respect and consideration and the fact that shallow, self-centred, self-important, narcissistic people around you do not consider this is NOT YOUR FAULT and you shouldn't punish yourself for their wholly selfish behaviour. 

By all means have and experience your feelings, let them come and wash over you then stand up and forgive yourself for giving them too much attention.

I hope this makes sense, and helps a little.
Namaste,
D.