Decent day — good day

When I was thinking of the title for tonight's post, I thought "I've had a good day.  A decent day." The fact that I downgraded it from good to decent struck me. Why do I so often diminish the good, but the bad is always way up there — awful, horrible, terrible? When I exchanged greetings with someone I know around the complex, he said he was "good" and I said I was "not too bad." Am I afraid that I will attract The Bad by giving attention to The Good? It's weird, whatever it is.

Therapy Day today. I still hadn't done my homework, so we talked about all the other crap. Then I learned that while I thought I'd been doing cognitive therapy in the past, I hadn't done it in the orderly manner that Karen does it. 

We were discussing, hell, I don't remember all of it specifically.  We discussed my living in the past and the future. We discussed my meltdowns of last week. Then she asked me if she'd gone over the Cognitive Distortions checklist. No, she hadn't, and I'm glad she thought to do so today. I have a lot of the distorted thinking patterns on her list. For example, All or Nothing thinking, where everything is black or white. When my meltdowns occur, that's the first place I go. Or "Mental filter: you pick out a single negative detail and dwell on it exclusively so that your vision of all reality becomes darkened, like the drop of ink that discolors the entire beaker of water." Might as well put my picture on that one. One bad thing can color the rest of a predominantly good thing for me. 

My current homework is to note these distortions when I think them, label them, then replace them with corrected, undistorted thoughts.

I've been in therapy for over half my life. I was told that much of it was cognitive therapy. But I've never had it targeted this well or been given such specific information and ways to deal with it.

My other homework is to get some balance in my life with the computer. I've let the computer be my escape from reality, my distraction from thinking or living. Now my intention is to use the computer as a tool — for writing, for communicating, for doing work — and to not use it for escapist activities. Nope, no planning any prison breaks on the computer for me! Oh, not that kind of escapist. And if you check out my blog list down on the right, you'll see "zen habits." In my previous post I mentioned the blog author's book, Focus. Well part of that book talks about becoming addicted to the computer and allowing it to control you rather than the other way around. Luckily for me, this book has come to me at the right time to help me with this specific task. Oh, and with the next one.

In order to deal with my forever living in the past and the future rather than the present, my homework is to practice mindfulness and get out of my head. Think outwardly, not inwardly. Yeah, that will be easy. I worked on it while on my short walk. "Oh look, pretty trees. Ow, my feet hurt. Listen to the birds. The sun is in my eyes. Smell the scent of trees and pine needles and dust. My feet still hurt." It was like dragging a toddler along on my walk! Which, in some way, I guess I was. That inner child thing.

And, of course, I need to continue on my trauma homework.

It's a whole lot of work, certainly. I must make it a priority or I'll never do any of it. And at my advanced age, it's high time I stop suffering from my past and fearing my future and simply begin living my life. Because being miserable has lost its glamour somehow.