So your recommendation is that I see a therapist re: negatives, blocks, etc?
Not really; the degree of “clue” to be had by therapists ranges from good to abysmal. If you do see one, look for a solutions-focused/”brief” therapist, not a “talk about your life history” one.
You’ll get almost as much benefit from talking to a friend, or journalling; the real benefit is in seeing your thoughts from the outside. You can do this mentally, too, it’s just not as easy, because you have to learn to split yourself in two—alternating between having thoughts, and observing them critically, without crossing the beams, so to speak.
Anyway, what I recommend is that you pick a technique—any technique—and practice its application in a scientific way. By which I mean, carefully observe/record what you do and what happens, without getting involved. If something doesn’t work, you observe that “I did X, Y happened—now I will try Z”—not, “this sucks, it doesn’t work, and I hate myself”. ;-)
Combine this with journalling or friend-conversation to identify what things you should be applying the technique to, because your first guesses as to what to use it on will be “inside the box”—i.e., things that won’t actually change your basic assumptions. The outside view provided by journalling (or better yet, another human being) will help you to see what those more-basic assumptions are, so you can apply the techniques to them instead.
(Applying the techniques to things that are “inside the box” is another common reason people get frustrated with self-help techniques… the technique may or may not work, but in that situation it doesn’t really help, since it’s not being applied to the assumptions or thinking processes that are creating the real problem.)
Or that I try to get this Chapter 7 that you and Kaj are talking about?
It does contain the easiest de-negativization technique to learn that I know of in the entire self-help universe, and the one that I always teach people first.
So your recommendation is that I see a therapist re: negatives, blocks, etc? Or that I try to get this Chapter 7 that you and Kaj are talking about?
Not really; the degree of “clue” to be had by therapists ranges from good to abysmal.
If you do see one, look for a solutions-focused/”brief” therapist, not a “talk about your life history” one.
You’ll get almost as much benefit from talking to a friend, or journalling; the real benefit is in seeing your thoughts from the outside. You can do this mentally, too, it’s just not as easy, because you have to learn to split yourself in two—alternating between having thoughts, and observing them critically, without crossing the beams, so to speak.
Anyway, what I recommend is that you pick a technique—any technique—and practice its application in a scientific way. By which I mean, carefully observe/record what you do and what happens, without getting involved. If something doesn’t work, you observe that “I did X, Y happened—now I will try Z”—not, “this sucks, it doesn’t work, and I hate myself”. ;-)
Combine this with journalling or friend-conversation to identify what things you should be applying the technique to, because your first guesses as to what to use it on will be “inside the box”—i.e., things that won’t actually change your basic assumptions. The outside view provided by journalling (or better yet, another human being) will help you to see what those more-basic assumptions are, so you can apply the techniques to them instead.
(Applying the techniques to things that are “inside the box” is another common reason people get frustrated with self-help techniques… the technique may or may not work, but in that situation it doesn’t really help, since it’s not being applied to the assumptions or thinking processes that are creating the real problem.)
It does contain the easiest de-negativization technique to learn that I know of in the entire self-help universe, and the one that I always teach people first.