thanks to those who can empathize and thanks to those with ideas. i hadn't thought that maybe it's more my ruminating thoughts that are causing me to dwell on my feelings but that could very well be. i do use distraction techniques as that works and i did just recently give myself a deadline on my dwelling as it was driving me nuts. that worked too but i'm not sure about setting a really limited amount of time. my concern there is that i might just end up stuffing feelings that do need to be dealt with. i do know though when i'm spiraling bigtime that is necessary. i'll have to check out the carl rogers info. that sounds interesting.