[dragonphoto]

One thing I learned from CBT is you feel what you think. I have been really thinking that I can change the anger that I feel. So I started thinking about how I can visualize the whole picture, and then it came to me...The Wheel. As everyone knows a wheel is round and never has an end. So as I started thinking about my emotions and how they are all interconnected. I felt anxiety when I could not make people happy and then I felt anger because I felt like a failure and then I felt depression because I felt like people did not like me and then guilt because I am depressed and angry. I drew a picture of a wheel and put all my emotions on the outside. The spokes are the events that lead to these emotions. So I got to thinking if I can break one of these spokes (change my outlook on the event) the Wheel would start to roll in a different pattern. So I started to really think about all these events and how I can change my outlook on things. So I have changed the way I think about events (spokes) in the hopes that the emotions (The Wheel) will start rolling in the positive way. I hope that The Wheel has helped some people.

[(JD)]

While I do agree that changing the way you think will help you feel differently and hopefully better, I am concerned about the end product of visualization: a wheel that can't roll because all it's spokes are broken.

How about you replace a bad spoke instead? Find the broken thinking pattern/thought and then replace that thought with the correct one, with your analogy, then you won't have broken spokes at all, but fresh new ones!

Good wishes!

[dragonphoto]

lol I never thought of it that way but thank you very much,

[longnow]

A wheel, I found, is more than a metaphor. A long time
ago during a mediation retreat I started seeing a spinning
wheel in my head. I had a sense of what it was but was
surprised to see that the wheel was actually the logo
for the type of mediation I was doing. In other words
aside from the fact that it's a common image when
chakras open up there is also the sense that if you
follow certain steps such and such will follow...such
as the image of a spinning wheel. When you tell the
teacher he just says ignore it and continue. I take that
to mean that it is very common and of no particular
importance except that you are doing something right.

[dragonphoto]

But if it is of no importance then why do we see it? It is not there for no reason...much like the extra parts when putting together a child's bike...the extra parts are not there for no reason. Or are we told to ignore it because if we do not then it will cloud our reality by us looking at it in the wrong frame of mind?