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| "Hi, Billy Mays here with another fantastic product!" |
Yes, I know the old song "summertime and the living's easy", but seriously, who wants to be outside when it feels like this? I don't know what's causin' all this because I am no climatologist and I don't claim to be an expert at studying weather patterns long term. That's why you will get no preaching from me on climate change or anything like that, because the old saying goes better to remain silent and let people think you are a fool than to open your mouth and remove all doubt. I'll leave that question to experts.
So for now, I will just crusade that workplace dress codes change and let male workers have the right to wear shorts. Wearing long pants on hot and humid days is either a felony or it should be.
I haven't written here for a while, mainly because it made no difference in how I feel about things long term. My former therapist (more on that in a minute) always wanted me to write feelings out and journal them. It helped for a while, but in the long run it just gave me an echo chamber and when you have no therapist to use as a sounding board for your inner fears and anxieties, you end up just talking to yourself. What good is that if you talk to yourself all of the time? We all do that! We call it a conscience.
Anyway, I have just ended my close to three year connection with the therapist who I was seeing. Due to a change in venue and wanting to focus on her son graduating and preparing for college, she is not practicing for the time being. Our time together bore much good fruit and it helped me in a tremendous fashion. I wish her all the best in the future because she is a gem and a credit to the profession. This Monday, I will start seeing a new therapist who also has a degree in pastoral counseling and is involved in her church. I think seeing a therapist with a religious background will put a new spin on things and try and connect faith with mental healing.
Her main focus is on CBT (cognitive behavioral therapy) and Gestalt therapy. I don't know much about Gestalt, other than I think it means looking at the whole person (please correct me if I am mistaken). Yet, CBT seems very interesting to me and I wonder if it will have a chance to pierce the thick armor of pessimism that surrounds my psyche.
You see, usually when someone tries to use positive thinking voodoo hoodoo on me, I end up tuning them out real quick. It seems so corporate and contrived, like something you see on those posters in a doctors office or those memes that people post on social media. Stuff like "If you think you are a success, you are a success" and "believe to achieve" and other sayings seem so fake to me. Let us say that I am walking along and a man points a gun at me, demanding my wallet. He grows impatient and shoots me in the stomach. He runs away with my wallet and I am laying there on the sidewalk bleeding to death. If I was in that situation, I would start praying an act of contrition because I know my time is short and I want to at least make peace with God before I die. Yet, positive thinking says that you can survive this if you believe you can and you will it to happen. However, if my wound is too severe, even if I try to crawl to the nearest hospital for medical attention, chances are that I will bleed out before I get there. No amount of positive thinking can solve that situation. If the wound is too severe, you're dead.
I read a quote once that impacted me and my way of thinking. It said "Always expect the worst, then you can only be pleasantly surprised". Whether it be a healthy saying or an unhealthy one, it is true. When you expect the worst and something great happens, the euphoria you feel is beyond description, almost ecstasy. Yet, when you expect the worst and the worst happens, you are mentally prepared for it. You have rehearsed the long death march in your mind for a long time and you already know what to do. Negativity also seems more "real" to me. Look at the state of the world around us; protestors everywhere, we are governed by idiots and morons on both sides of the aisle, people suffering, newsmen and politicians preaching like street preachers that the end of the world is nigh (some idiot politicians think it is only 20 years away!), no one can have an opinion anymore without being blacklisted even if it is inoffensive in the so-called land of the free (I'm sorry, but even if your opinion is downright reprehensible and disgraceful, you have a right to say it in this country. Don't believe me? Read the 1st Amendment)...I'm sorry, but if you sound positive during even this crazy time in world history, you are either smoking the "hopium" or seeing the world through rose-colored glasses. It only makes sense and is more real and true to expect the worst.
Now, there have been long stretches of time where I will be very positive about many things. It truly does lead to a great state of mind, until something bad happens. Then, it knocks me for a loop and the fall is long and hard. It seems when you are already down, it hurts less because you do not have so far to fall.
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| Why do some therapists sound like Tony Robbins to me? |
Both therapists I have had in the past 8 years have tried to implant positive thinking in my head and have succeeded for short periods of time. Inevitably, a fall always happens and it ends up making me tune out the positive thinking process. This new one will have a real challenge on their hands, because my goal is to achieve a positive mindset and know what to do when something bad does happen. Neither therapist has been able to help me do that.
I am praying that this time, it will turn out to be different. Pessimism is a cancer that I would not like to have anymore. It leads to the devils' marionette strings which is anxiety and depression.
Stay tuned.
