Posted by finelinebob on May 9, 2004, at 16:26:19
In reply to Re: Finally something positive from me -- kinda, posted by Racer on May 9, 2004, at 15:29:38
> I posted to you over on Psychology in response to your post about Rationality. I hope some of it gets through to Rod -- why do I always feel he's stirring the pot?
He is. I think he's thought and struggled with these issues for a long time and he's realizing it is well worth the effort, so he wants to get those of us accepting things at face value unquestioningly to start questioning. Good on him!
>I wish I felt any confidence in myself in being able to communicate with the therapist tomorrow. (You know, it seems as if there's something fundamentally wrong with the process if I say things like that, doesn't it?)
Hmm. Maybe. It depends how psychodynamic your therapist is. Mine would call b*llsh*t on it and say yes, there is something wrong, if it was happening between her and one of her patients. This woman I was dating in a past life who also happened to be a slave to the Gospel of Freud (something Freud certainly wasn't guilty of ... most of the time), well, she'd say that you're projecting, you're supposed to be projecting, and she's supposed to goad you on until you come to grips with it.
You may understand why I eventually RAN away from THAT relationship!
Try this. It's what I call my "Blow Sunshine Up Your Butt" method. During a particularly frustrating portion of my grad studies, I discovered that repeating a certain mystical mantra over and over simply made it so. The mantra? "I have a cheerful and sunny disposition!" Whenever my advisor would pull yet another boneheaded stunt, I would just chant to myself "I have a cheerful and sunny disposition!" five or six or, er, twenty times, and eventually a smile would appear on my face! My disposition truly became cheerful and sunny!
Now, I'm not saying that you need the same mantra. Hmm ... where's Stuart Smalley when you need him? ... "I know how I feel better than anybody, including my therapist!" Try that one out. Repeat it with a smile on your face ... you DO know that exercising those smile muscles releases happy hormones, right? If not, I think the "I have a cheerful and sunny disposition!" mantra is applicable to just about any situation, so keep it as a backup.
flb
PS. Sit quietly for five minutes, silently chanting "I have a cheerful and sunny disposition!" Having done so, I think you'll find that there are few things you can do in your life that qualify as "ridiculous" in comparison. =^)
poster:finelinebob
thread:345065
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/2000/20040501/msgs/345130.html