I skimmed the DBT book today. It does not speak to me as much as CBT does. I copied a couple of exercises down - there was one about examining your own role in a distressing situation that seemed really good, reviewing what happened, what part you played, what part the other person played, what you could have done differently to reduce suffering.

Also, I am good at closing my eyes and guessing when a minute has passed.

I love this quote from Alive99: "If you have a bias towards being negative, that by definition is not fact based. A bias is used to select facts." So my problem is that I prefer to select negative facts and I want to change that. I want the positive facts to stand out at least as much as the negative thoughts. I don't want to focus on the negative facts or to feel like I am personally responsible for solving these (perceived) problems, communicating these problems, etc.

I will have to read more about valence, I am not familiar with that.

Both DBT and CBT suggest keeping logs of negative thoughts. I'm not sure that's great for me - I know they are there and I don't have the energy to argue with all of them. And maybe that is one place where CBT is a little weak for this particular problem - I'm familiar with the tools that deal with individual negative thoughts or situations, but is there anything that addresses chronic negativity/frustration/annoyance? Maybe I just need to reread some of those books and refresh my memory. I guess the DBT or mindfulness approach is letting these thoughts or emotions in and then letting them go... and maybe I can look up what techniques work to counteract discounting the positive.

One technique is to 'count the positives' and list everything good that's going on. Maybe I will try that.