[healed84]

This is what T keeps on telling me....I need to accept that this is the place that I am in, it doesn't mean I have to stay here, but I need to stop beating myself up about it. Like I SHOULD be better right now. I was talking to T on the phone today.. Not in a good place and I just said I am sick of being in this place, a place where I have to call him in between sessions, the place where I have to be fit in for an appointment when I wasn't scheduled b/c I am not in a good place. So, as we were going through what he wanted me to do to get through the weekend.. He said most importantly.. I need to work on accepting where I am, not feeling guilty, and take the help.

How the heck do I do this?? It seems so easy, when talking about it. However, I don't know how... anybody know how to do this? Any suggestions??

[tooski]

Maybe because it takes so much energy to beat yourself up and feel guilty. Energy that could be used elsewhere, like moving forward. Absolutely nothing is accomplished by all that guilt ............ it's just emotion. My suggestion would be to try to concentrate on the issues you're working on and don't waste time & energy. I know, I know, easier said than done. But maybe if you make an effort in that direction it will help. Good luck! (I HATE feeling guilty ...geez, it's such a waste of time)

[faith1983]

Sorry to hear you'r enot in a good place right now... Hope you'll get better soon and make it through the week-end safe.

I'm a little bit where you are now, but in a different way. I'm trying to sit with the feelings... Easier said than done! And it's even worse when you don't even know what it really means. But I'm trying and tonight, I feel like I'm going to make it, not now but someday, I will...

So I'm not 100% sure but I guess it means something similar... There's not much you can change about the past and what have been done so the energy spent thinking about what you could have done better or beating yourself up as you say could be use in a more constructive way... But still easier said than done! I don't think it can be done in a short period of time; one needs time and some healing and some introspection to be able to finally just accept a situation or a feeling.

Anyway, week end goes fast so you can meet your t again and maybe begin to make sense of this!

take care
faith

[retro_chic]

My T has been telling me the same thing and I just can't do it. Feeling like I can't do it obviously makes me feel worse which just makes the whole thing all the more difficult. It is a never ending cycle. I can't offer any advice but I do know how you feel.

[roads]

The more I can keep myself grounded in the here & now, the more I'm able to accept where I am. That means if I catch myself re-running something dumb I said this morning, I have to stop that tape & throw it out. I'm a visual person (& I'm old)--so I use tapes instead of CDs because tapes can be destroyed so dramatically!

I imagine unwinding the tape behind me as I speed off at 90 mph in my Jag. There, guilt! Begone! (I don't have a Jag, except in in my grounding exercises. Hey, why not?)

The future is just as dangerous, with all those projections of dire disasters that "might" strike because of stupid things that useless me will probably do--STOP!!

Can't go there ... That's against the rules, too. Destroy that tape! Unwind it into a trash barrel, set it on fire, and toast marshmallows over the flames.

Get the idea?

This is serious stuff, but it's okay to make a kind of game out of it if it makes you remember it better. The point is, these are all just old messages that we hang onto from long ago. Time to clean out the closets.

That's what I do anyway. And I take a lot of deep breaths, too.

Roadie

[elliemay]

Originally Posted by healed84

This is what T keeps on telling me....I need to accept that this is the place that I am in, it doesn't mean I have to stay here, but I need to stop beating myself up about it. Like I SHOULD be better right now. I was talking to T on the phone today.. Not in a good place and I just said I am sick of being in this place, a place where I have to call him in between sessions, the place where I have to be fit in for an appointment when I wasn't scheduled b/c I am not in a good place. So, as we were going through what he wanted me to do to get through the weekend.. He said most importantly.. I need to work on accepting where I am, not feeling guilty, and take the help.

How the heck do I do this?? It seems so easy, when talking about it. However, I don't know how... anybody know how to do this? Any suggestions??

It's really hard to stop wanting something, anything, especially when you want something to be different.

You may want the entire kit and kaboodle to be different, but, well, unless you study with the Dalai Lama and all of a sudden attain enlightenment, that may be a little difficult.

My best suggestion? Pick little things that are okay to accept and feel differently about. What if it was more okay to accept additional sessions for instance? Just ask yourself that one little question. What if it was more okay?

I work a lot with people who experience profound chronic pain. You know what? The docs want the patients to come in and work toward a solution. It's one of my jobs to help convince people of that fact.

None of the patients want to be in pain, and it's okay to see the docs as there to help get rid of it.

Another suggestion is to consider that we simply aren't going to feel like sunshine and rainbows all the time. It's not possible and indicative of some lie that we have been fed about our lives being happy.

Nope, in my opinion about 80% of life is total crap. So, I shoot for 20% good, that's 12 minutes out of every hour. I say give yourself at least that 12 minutes.

[Dreamy01]

Acceptance meaning not fighting it, being aware of yourself wherever you are. It doesn't mean you have to like it.

It is also called mindfulness...

Once I accepted that I was completely stuck between wanting to see my T and work through childhood pain and wanting to move on, I felt freer inside. I had accepted my conflict and thus was able to distance myself a bit from it. I accepted exactly where I was without feeling bad about it. It didn't mean I enjoyed being stuck.

[Sannah]

I so totally agree with this. You can't move forward from a place that you haven't accepted. Marsha Linehan believes in this strongly (DBT), she calls it radical acceptance and she feels that people increase their suffering by not accepting where they are at.

If you accept where you are at then you can base yourself in the reality and really take inventory on where you are and what you need to do. I'm sure that you have come across people who are in denial? This is sort of the same thing. When you are in denial you are ignoring what is going on with you.

My mom was a big denial queen and it drove me so crazy that it led me to have no other choice then live solidly in reality. I so despised her denial.

People don't accept where they are at because it is painful. Allowing that pain to come, however, and working through it will put you on a better path to recovery and healing. Keeping that pain on the side and ignoring it certainly isn't doing you any favors. It really is just prolonging your agony.

Also, accepting where you are at and forgiving yourself for it makes your journey easier. Having compassion for yourself is just nice.

Do you think that maybe you are hearing someone's negative voice from the past when you don't measure up?

[Perna]

I try to make things as simple and easy for myself to understand as I can. Adding in and focusing on not being where I "should" be in no way helps me solve the problem of where I am and how to get out of it? I sort of put it to one side to argue with myself later, after I get out of where I actually am?

You called your T to ask for help and he's working with you to help you through this weekend, yes? That's all there is to the immediate problem. When you get through this weekend, you can then worry about how you would like to not need to call T to ask for help. It's two problems and sticking them together just makes things twice as complicated and confusing as it needs to be right at this moment.

[northgirl]

Originally Posted by Sannah

I so totally agree with this. You can't move forward from a place that you haven't accepted. Marsha Linehan believes in this strongly (DBT), she calls it radical acceptance and she feels that people increase their suffering by not accepting where they are at.

If you accept where you are at then you can base yourself in the reality and really take inventory on where you are and what you need to do. I'm sure that you have come across people who are in denial? This is sort of the same thing. When you are in denial you are ignoring what is going on with you.

My mom was a big denial queen and it drove me so crazy that it led me to have no other choice then live solidly in reality. I so despised her denial.

People don't accept where they are at because it is painful. Allowing that pain to come, however, and working through it will put you on a better path to recovery and healing. Keeping that pain on the side and ignoring it certainly isn't doing you any favors. It really is just prolonging your agony.

Also, accepting where you are at and forgiving yourself for it makes your journey easier. Having compassion for yourself is just nice.

Do you think that maybe you are hearing someone's negative voice from the past when you don't measure up?

Thank you so much for this Sannah. The whole post put into words everything I've realized most recently in my therapy and I am going to copy this in my journal to remind me why I am going through all this. I too have realized that even though this might the worst time in my life, it will make me come out a stronger person who is more at peace with what I have gone through.

[SoupDragon]

The situation is as it is - it is our response / reaction to the situation that we can learn to observe and maybe work on changing it if causes us pain or other difficulties.