Does anyone find that distracting yourself from your negative thoughts is a lot of work? I have been doing that for the past week. I've been trying really hard to be positive and to not think of my usual thoughts and I feel like I am swimming up stream. I told my therapist this and you know what his advice was? Don't try to not think of my negative thoughts, just let them be and float with it. Just say, Oh theres a negative thought, whatever its just a thought and it wont hurt me. I give my negative thoughts all this power because I am trying so hard to not think of them THAT in turn I do think of them because I know I shouldn't. Make sense? Well, during my therapy session I had a series of negative thoughts because yesterday was a bad bad day for me. I told him how I want to take an Ativan to just calm down and he said I should because sometimes you just need a break.( Iam very hard on myself when it comes to taking meds) So I took one and my mind started to calm and thats when I could think clearly. I thought about what my therapist said and it was like BAM!! It hit me! I need to stop trying to stop these thoughts and let them just be. I shouldn't fight them because it gives them more power. My therapist said its like a panic attack. The more you fight the longer it lasts and the more scared you are of them. If I just float with them and just let them come and say "Its just a thought and yes it may make me feel uncomfortable but they're thoughts and not the truth." I tried this yesterday and this morning and you have no idea how much relief I feel. I don't have to wake up and FIGHT with myself. I can just wake up and let them be. He said the more I just let it be the less power they have and they wont bother me as much. So I guess what i am saying, instead of distracting myself like crazy from my negative thoughts I will just let them come in and let them come out as they please and try to not let them get to me. Maybe now that I don't want to fight with them they wont want to come back as much because they'll get bored with me. I sure hope so!!!! Does anyone agree with this? Because honestly I am fed up fighting with my negative thoughts. The more I do it, it seems like the more they affect me and the more i think about negative thoughts.

ps-sorry this is not in paragraph form. lol.

Hi:

I just went through a very bad experience last night and the negative got me and took me back to a very dark place and I let them. I know about floating with them, but I alway forget to do that. I know if I would have floated last night i would have felt much better and not reacted the way I did, which gave someone else all my power. anyway...thanks for your post and reminding me to float...float...float. I really do appreciate this more than you know.
Peace
Cris

Oh (((cris)))) HUGS!!
I feel your pain. SERIOUSLY! Thats how I've been feeling too. It kind of just hit me. I just need to float and the more I do this the more hope I will have instead of letting them get to me and feel like this will never go away!!! Thats how I was feeling. I was so low. It took everything out of me to just take a shower and go to my therapy yesterday. I am so glad that you got something out of this post. I was hoping for that. It's hard but we need to practice this in order for it to just be automatic ya know? Let me know how youre doing with this. I hope you have a great great day!

Holly,

Absolutely!

I was just like Lucinda where, when in the midst of a panic attack at home at night, my heart pounding so hard I thought that it was going to register on a seismic device, my mind would be racing about all kinds of what if scenarios.

One night, I awoke and my concern was how would the medics get into our room to get me in an ambulance?

I mean, c'mon.

But that was how my mind would race and go to all kinds of places.

And what fueled that stuff was 100% without a doubt my worry and my fight against having the feelings in the first place that would exascerbate the problem.

Believe me, I'm a in the boat with ya on this one!

The thing that helped me most was learning that the panic attacks were my friend and not my enemy. Panic attacks are telling us that we are suppressing/repressing feelings/thoughts that we have not dealt with. If we only become afraid of the panic attacks and try to stop them, they only get worse.. The key is to deal, accept and acknowledge these repressed thoughts/feelings. Most of the time they are overexaggerated, perfectionistic or totally untrue. For me to learn that Panic attacks were just trying to protect me, to help me I stopped being so afraid of them..it kind of toned it down. Also I was taught to find something in my troubles that I was grateful for. Mark Pasay from the Ease out of Fear program relayed a story to me on how when he had a horrible neck injury and he should have been paralyzed but wasnt. He felt grateful for the pain, not matter how excruciating, because had he been paralyzed he would not have felt anything..he felt, In the gratitude and thankfulness his anxiety lessened, if not went away. I think this is a big factor in recovery.

I myself have started to not only try to dispell my perfectionistic self talk but at the end I always write 5 things I am grateful for..
Yes, I write..' I love my panic attacks because.." They have virtually disappeared now because I see and understand them differently and I am no longer fighting them.

Another thing is patience. We want to be rid of this NOW. We need to say to our panic that it can hang around as long as it wants to. This will help to dissolve it and if you keep in this direction you will find yourself out of the tunnel...but just don't tell it so ( ;

I hope this helps some, but these extra things
made the difference for me.
.......................................
Also, if you have perfectionistic tendencies and some people don't even know that there are all kinds of perfectionism...there is a good book out there you can get out of the library called "Never Good enough: Freeing Yourself from the Chains of Perfectionism" by Monica Ramirez.

p.s. There is something 'magical' about looking in the mirror at yourself and saying "I love and value myself" everyday. Look into your eyes when you do it. Throughout the day repeat that outloud 50 times if you can. Eventually you will see great change in your self respect and esteem (Joyce Meyer talks about this healthy type of love). When we do this we will not be quite so drawn to dysfunctional thoughts/feelings. I think that is self explanatory. I dare you to try it !

sorry for my run on sentences !

Regards, Peace 1

Hi guys,
That is so hard for me. I think this entire program is difficult because I have a hard time with ANGER, guilt, and positive self talk. I need to get some tips from you to "float" with negative thoughts. I SIMPLY, DON'T KNOW HOW TO DO THAT. I try to. I too feel more comfortable when I have taken my xanax, I can think more clearly, but I want to get off my meds. What has helped you? I am on my 9th session.

I can understand completely as well. I have just started the program and find myself spending so much energy on just getting through the day. Trying to relax, float, etc. but, man it is hard. Every new symptom I get I get parnoid that something really this time is wrong with me? I am trying to embrace those thoughts and at times I am better than others. I am still in amazement about how I have allowed this anxiety thing to take me by storm. I know I must get better at accepting. This is the first step and I am still having a hard time with that.....Thanks for all of you that post. Being new, it helps to read others....and to not feel so alone.

Hey Holly i'm very happy that you understood what the therapist mentioned...It is kinda like that study they did (i don't know all the little details) when they gave everybody a bell and said to ring the bell if you think of a pink elephant and told everybody to not think of one....everybody in the room started to think of them.

The only real way you can stop thinking of them is to accept them (You've been thinking similar thoughts for awhile...you're stuck in a negative cycle so of course you are thinking this way) and to reassure yourself that you are taking the steps to get better.

As for the distracting part...yes i have found it really difficult to distract myself to however...one thing that i picked up in the program is that just simply counting as you breath in and breath out is a distraction...even if it is a partial one...it still helps and with anything the more you practice the better you'll get at it.

Lesson 3 is great for this. Make sure you do the assignment about making Tick Marks everytime you stop a negative thought. This seems to make it alot easier in the same way as you were describing how you felt when you allowed yourself to float through the thoughts. I did the tick mark assignment yestaurday and it helped me out soooooo much. I enjoyed my day sooooo much more and i was picturing how good my life could be if i did this and did that and the things i'm going to accomplish. You'll really like that one.

Anyways again i'm glad that you're seeing improvement...keep working at it and you'll get to where you want to be

Mike

I love this post!.. I have been dealing with negative unwanted thoughts for a while. I have learned that floating with them and letting them be there, actually does help! Pretty soon you will just look at the thought and it wont even bother you. These thoughts are not who we are they do not tell us the truth.. Love yourself and be very very patient with yourself believe that it will pass and I do believe that it will..There are times when the thoughts come and I forget to let them float but I have alot of notes about anxiety and I just refer to them and start using the information that i have to move me through them.

Holly you always make sense You really are starting to catch on! Just remember though, when it seems like it's coming back it never really left, you just learned how to manage your thoughts (you never got rid of them). So if you get discouraged again REMEMBER how you did it before and just do it again
David

wow David thank you for that post because oddly enough I was beginning to feel bad again and was letting the negative thoughts get to me again. See, whenever i feel inspired or positive or happy or content my negative thoughts automatically flush those feelings down the toilet. Its hard for me to stay focused on this because I'll feel down again and than whwn i feel down im like well, thats it i am a hopeless case. which is how i feel right now. bleh. my new what if obsessive thought is what if nothing helps me or can ever help me and that mu mind is so powerful that I will only use it to be negative because whenever i am positive the negativity hits it big time. Its a lot doff than my usual what if obsessive thoughts such a what if i stop breathing or stop swallowing or what if i kill myself. . . It deals with myself healing and recovering from this and i am what ifing that i will be a hopeless case and that no one understands this new what if i am dealing with. It just feels so different and worse than any what if i ever had. I dont know why i can feel ok for a second and than BAM i feel depressed the nexy )-: I fear this will never go away. . and that is my scariest fear of all. Can anyone relate at all? I feel like I am literally all alone with this.

Holly,

You are trying so hard and doing so well!! It shows in all your posts!

This up and down and around again is SOOO normal girl. It happens to all of us. If you look at it as though there are several steps to recovery, then you will see why.

There are the "light bulb" moments, where you get one of the concepts and BOOM feeling great...then you go through the old patterns again. You never LOST the concept, you are now just working it out into who you are and how you think. First you get knowledge..then over time you apply the knowledge...then you see changes...then you are changed. Don't feel bad because you got the concept but haven't totally mastered it yet. Change takes time...the good news is you have the TOOLS/concepts to bring about that change.
I would dare to say that this is how it works for most of us girl, you are not alone and are on the right track!

FrancesL you have no idea how much your reply comforted me. WOW thank you so much!!!! Please write me anytime. See, it's like i have to hear stuff from other people because i dont know. . ya know? I was beating myself up for not applying what i realized. But this is because i am extremely analytical and a negative thinker. I doubt and question EVERYTHING AND ANYTHING . Especially anything that is positive. I make positive moments negative. it sucks!!! Its like I cant let myself feel good ya know? so this is normal to feel good and than feel bad again????

That was beautiful PEACE1, David, and FrancesL.

For me the hardest thing about this is the isolation, or feeling that you are the only one dealing with this. When I come to the post, and see comments like yours, it breaks me out of myself and I can see the problem for what it really is and get perspective.

We are not alone!

And PEACE1, I have slowly through process begun to come to the thinking that what if panic attacks were just like you said...a message, a warning light demanding attention for thing(s) to be dealt with.

I know for a fact, that I don't deal with things. I push them away and get through them, but emotionally I don't deal.

I don't know where that came from, but I can agree with you that it is perhaps the buildup of emotional garbage in me that has led to anxiety and ultimately panic attacks.

This might sound odd, but does anyone know how to better deal with things when they happen, and to stop burying emotions for a later time?