... and each time it has been a life changing experience.
I’ve been feeling in a rut for quite a while. Since the beginning of this year I’ve been trying to climb out. I’ve made a lot of headway but it takes so long. The main obstacles for me are:
1) Lack of time.
2) Inertia instead of a drive to action.
The second of these is the result of the first. Once upon a time when I had lots & lots of time (ie: when I wasn’t working) I immersed myself in each of the things that needed to be done & I’d get them finished quickly. Occasionally there were things I’d not want to do & I’d put them off and off for weeks or sometimes a couple of months. Big deal – now so much of my time is eaten up by work & other essential tasks that they get put off for years. Furthermore, living with the ongoing frustration over nearly a decade of having to block my drive to action because of time commitments has turned that original, energetic drive into inertia. Where I once felt an urge to Do The Stuff I now feel I can’t be bothered. Meanwhile things are crying out to be done – property, car, body, and other things.
It gets to me psychologically. I need to keep at peace with myself through all this struggle. That’s something I’m reasonably good at. Working on my mind is something I’ve done for my whole life, sometimes more intensely than other times but always to positive, usually powerful effect. When I don’t work on myself in this way I can become very negative in my thinking, feeling, self-perception. My vision of my future does mostly stay positive though.
Reframing is one of the most positive psychotherapeutic tools I’ve worked on. All three of the approaches I’ve listed in the title of this goal include this (though they use different names for it). As I write this I’m realising that it is reframing more than anything else that I’m feeling the need to bring powerfully back into my mental life.
