Something easy you can do to help yourself

[Falcon]

Whenever you have a negative thought, reframe it positively. It's so easy and it works great in improving your confidence and outlook on life.

If you need help reframing a thought, post it here, and I or someone else will try to help you (though I will be out of town for 5 days).

 

[pitkreet]

ok, try this one for me please...

i'm boring

 

[Rainman]

i'm boring

Not everybody is bored by me; sometimes people find me interesting.

 

[Falcon]

i'm boring

Sometimes I'm dissatisfied with my ability to be entertaining. However, there are things I'm passionate about, and I can discuss them at great length.

 

[pitkreet]

ok, these are both acceptable replies, so thanks for that.....but......

....if I were to add to that, women, in particular, find me boring and unpleasant (because the only subject I can talk about at length and have any interesting comment about is sport, of which they have little interest).....

 

[newshyguy]

1

im boring

you should see me after a few drinks , im a party animal

 

[Falcon]

Part of the value of the exercise is in coming up with your own positive thoughts. But here's another try.

ok, these are both acceptable replies, so thanks for that.....but......

....if I were to add to that, women, in particular, find me boring and unpleasant (because the only subject I can talk about at length and have any interesting comment about is sport, of which they have little interest).....

Most women I meet don't find me interesting, but that's okay, because I would probably find them dull as well once I got to know them. Sometimes people are just incompatible. I'm sure there are women out there who would find me interesting, and also, fortunately, being interesting is a quality one can easily learn.

 

[Falcon]

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I don't like some aspects of my looks, but that's ok, because I fix what I don't like, and I emphasize what I do like, such as my awesome smile. Next week I'll start working out, and I'll ask a stylist to help me pick a cool new haircut. This is all for me, though, because looks aren't even all that important. More important is personality, and mine is great.

 

[Falcon]

jinxed, re-read your post. Several words jump out at me: "can't", "don't", "helpless", "ruins", "fault", "unfortunately"...these are all negative words. In order to make progress on your SA - if you really WANT to make progress (not all truly do) -- you have to abandon negative words like that entirely.

I understand you don't believe that looks aren't important. That's irrelevant - just tell yourself that you do. Eventually, you will start believing it, and your confidence will skyrocket.

What's your best attribute or quality? Let's say you're good at drawing, and you know it. Imagine sitting in a room where someone just continually berates your ability to draw. That's going to get you down, right? Even though you don't truly believe that you suck at drawing?

Now what's something about yourself you feel badly about? Let's say looks. Now imagine you're in a room where someone is ooh'ing and aah'ing about how great you look, your cool your hair is, what an awesome smile you have, etc. It's going to feel great, right? You're going to walk out of that room feeling much better, even if you don't truly believe what they're saying.

The idea behind spinning negative thoughts into positive thoughts is similar. If you don't allow yourself to think negatively, your mood and confidence will genuinely improve. You'll be calmer, less frustrated, looser. You don't have to truly believe what you're saying, at first. As your confidence grows, you WILL believe what you're saying, because you will find some element of true positivity in every situation.

You could come up with all sorts of objections to this. But I urge you to try it, because it works, and what do you have to lose?

 

[pitkreet]

Jinxed,

One thing I would add to what Falcon has said, and this is undoutedly true, if you keep focusing on negative things, you will feel low.

I'm no looker either, but whilst it will be hard to ever make myself believe that I'm visually attractive, I can choose to not dwell upon it. The less you think about negative things, the less time you worry, think to death, allow to permeate your mind, those negative things, the less important they become. Think about them all day and they will become the biggest thing in your life. You can put a stop to that!

Falcon's idea is to find a positive angle on things. If you find it too hard to tell find a positive to say about your looks, then just think of something else positive about yourself. Most important, don't dwell on the negative, but still practise trying to find positives to directly replace negatives.

It takes practise but whenever you find yourself dwelling on negative thoughts about, for example, your appearance, stop yourself. Become more aware of your thoughts and stop yourself going into sessions of negative thinking which might then leave you feeling low all day. Also, ask yourself how much of this chatter going on in your mind is self pitying? Try to catch yourself feeling sorry for yourself and then tell yourself to stop being such a baby. This helps me, for sure.

I'll give a wee example of what has happened to me over the past few days. I received an invite to a job interview a few days ago. The letter said that as part of the interview, I would have to prepare a presentation for the interview panel - ie. get up and talk in front of them with a powerpoitn presentation. The thought of it made my stomach turn. The interview is not for a few weeks. I immediately began worrying badly. I kept on going over in my mind how bad this was going to be and yet I would have to worry like this fot the next few weeks until the interview finally comes. I barely slept a wink that first night. Next day, realising I could not go for the next few weeks with so little sleep and so much worry, I forced the thoughts about the interview out of my mind. Whenever they tried to come back in, I forced them straight back out again. It worked, I started to feel much better. I slept much better the next night. I know I could easily allow myself to start thinking about it again to the point where I make myself sick with worry, but I'm not allowing it!!...until now, to type this up..hehe... Anyways, it's a great trick to learn. If you focus on negative things, you will feel down, so change what you think about!! It takes practise and effort, but keep doing it! It does work.

 

[newshyguy]

1

"The longer I live, the more I realize the impact of attitude on life. Attitude to me is more important than facts. It is more important than the past, than education, than money, than circumstances, than failures, than success, than what other people think or say or do. It is more important than appearance, gift, or skill. It will make or break a company...a church...a home. The remarkable thing is we have a choice every day regarding the attitude we will embrace for that day. We cannot change our past...we cannot change the fact that people will act in a certain way. We cannot change the inevitable. The only thing we can do is play on the string we have, and that is our attitude. I am convinced that life is 10 percent what happens to me and 90 percent how I react to it. And so it is with you... we are in charge of our attitudes."

-Charles Swindoll

 

[lily]

Thx to both of you to add to falcon's message. I would love to say I see but I'm not really seeing and lying wouldn't be good. What no one understood though was what I meant about it being very important that you can't focus on other things out of having a strong need not to be unloveable/unvalueable. Here's an example, imagine you were starving, and a person said to only look into other things and forget that you're starving ! That's what you guys are telling me.

 

[Falcon]

No, I'd tell a starving guy to go seek out some food.

Just like I'm telling you to go be more confident and learn to improve your personality.

Now, I might tell the starving guy where to find food (tie this rope to this stick, attach a worm, and dunk it in the river) or even give him food.

I can't give you confidence and personality, but I can tell you one way to begin acquiring it. That's what I've done.

Also, it's not lying, it's positive self-talk. You're not under oath, and most of the stuff you're "lying" about is subjective anyway.

Just TRY it. What do you have to lose? (Your next reply better contain an answer to this question)

 

[pitkreet]

Such a big thing that you can't focus on anything else? That's your choice. You decide what to focus on, it's your mind, your decision, nobody is forcing you to think that way. You can choose to think of other things. It's not going to be a simple case of just flicking a switch and positive thoughts fill your mind, but you have to start trying. It takes effort. I'll say it again, it takes effort.

Analogies are often treacherous areas in which to tread but I would suggest your starving man analogy is not accurate. You have a choice. A more accurate anaology would be a that a starving man insists upon steak and chips when there are other foods he can choose to eat instead, but all he can think about is steak and chips.

 

[lily]

Yeah no one is forcing me to think that way but there are issues in the world that influence you and affect you and you can't help it. Well when s.th's very important to you and when you feel other things can't compensate for it, you can't focus on anything else, for example, if you were living in a house and you have a desk and table but no bed or no roof, even though you have other things, it doesn't compare up to what's important still. You have a choice but emotionally it's torture so it's beyond choice, it's driven by the emotional.

You have a choice to not be affected by things like, examples, you're stupid or ugly or whatever but not really...you don't have a choice as you can't handle it even if you use the decision-making part of your mind. I have put the effort and who wouldn't for the better? but I couldn't do it, I started out trying again and I would always get overpowered. Of course I'm grateful for everything I do have but it isn't enough from experience or what I've learned, and that's why I never would want any children to come into this world to have to live up to high expectations in order to be worthy because we need that as people, we need others.

And you can tell others that they should already be glad they could function properly but that isn't enough for the significant amount of the population to accept you so it makes it not enough still due to that pressure. You can probably tell me you could make a decision to not need others too but try living like that and you wouldn't be able to no matter how hard you try or 'decide' to.

 

[pitkreet]

Jinxed,

I don't have the answers and I don't know about your personal circumstances and history, but I would bluntly ask, if you're not going to try again, what else are you going to do? Nothing?

When I look ahead, do I feel genuinely confident that everything is going to work out just great in my life? Do I see a blissful life with my perfect partner, friends a-plenty, money coming out of my ears, happiness and peace of mind for ever more? Heck, no. I remain unconvinced that things will get much better at all.

But I do know that if I do nothing, things will not improve. Nobody is going to come along, wave a magic wand and make my life good, make me handsome, rich, popular. The onus is on me and me alone. Only I can improve my situation.

The choice is this - do I want to take the easy option of doing nothing (with the attitude of "what's the point, things never work out for me anyway") and see my life, at best, continue as it is, or do I want to take action to try to improve things?

You talk about emotional torture but perhaps you should associate the emotional torture you'll be feeling with your situation if you choose to do nothing. Think about 10 or 20 years ahead, you've made no effort to improve yourself or your situation, you feel as bad, if not worse, than you do now and you've not even tried to help yourself.

You will undoutedly think, "but what if I keep on trying and but keep on failing?". Remind yourself that doing nothing and staying as you feel now is the biggest failure and emotional torture. If you don't keep on trying, you surely can't ever progress. You could argue that you don't really have a choice, you simply have to try. I know that's how I am beginning to feel. Doing nothing and continuing as I am now is too painful to contemplate any more. People are driven by the avoidance of pain. Make the prospect of doing nothing the most painful thing you can think of, more painful than trying but having set-backs.

 

[newshyguy]

1

jinxed,
talking to you about this is like talking to a brick wall,
you just dont get it,
when are you gona get it?? when you do some walking instead of talking

 

[jimb]

if you are really concern about your looks, that can be easily fixed. no, i'm not joking. good looking face does not look good if you are 300 lb person. you can do a lot with your over all looks. you need to hit the gym right now and commit a to diet and be persistent. it's also help your anxiety. you will see result in a few months. and dress your body with current fashion and you will be hot as hell.

 

[Falcon]

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Read the bold, see a recurring theme?

BTW, you didn't answer my question

 

[jt]

bill gates was boring and is the richest guy in the world, what makes boring bad?