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Originally Posted by hvert
I agree that it seems like there is a baseline mood that sets us up for seeing the good or the bad. It's kind of a chicken or an egg situation. Which came first? The negative bias or the depression or whatever? With CBT and DBT the theory is that if we can change our perception of negative/positive, we can change our mood. Sometimes I wonder. I started doing CBT over 20 years ago and still seem to see negatives more clearly than the positives. Can it really be because I haven't worked hard enough? Is there something chemical or hormonal going on that is not going to be rationalized away?
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Baseline mood...that's in part chemical/genetic/personality makeup too. Even newborn babies have their baseline temperaments. You can still learn to work with yours if it's a pessimistic one by default. It has its advantages too sometimes. Just it's like, keep it inside bounds so it doesn't stop working for you and become something that's too maladaptive. So it's still worth doing CBT or whatever other approaches work for you, and lifestyle changes if needed, normalising of relationships, changing or adjusting some views, etc.
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I do need to dust off those books, I guess. My life would have a lot less suffering if I stopped ruminating on things that are not really in my control. Most of it is just so dumb - like I've spent several hours today thinking about whether or not I want to quit that group that's not going well. I finally decided to ask to switch to a different group and was told no. What do I do now? Quit the group? Escalate my request? Live with the group I have? In the scheme of things, is this group really worth spending this much emotional energy on? Nope. Will I stop? Nope.
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It's not just books that will help.
It does sound maladaptive if you spent several hours on this topic.
As for the last part of your post. To make decisions, getting in touch with emotion always helps. Emotional reactions to all parts of the situation, and then seeing a big picture of those and organising and prioritising the reactions help make a decision.
Maybe give yourself time to feel all the reactions and preferences of yours, relax a bit about it, not think about it all and wait until it comes to you, where you can feel the reactions and are able to make a decision on what you really want.
I mean, if this is what your problem is.... it's just a tip from me.