Making good choices

[doodoodotdot1]

Hi Forumly

Well this is our new home.  MarkLA had said this forum is better than the old one but I'm still confused.  Hopefully I'm doing this right.  

Everyone is saying there goodbye's at the old site so I though it time to start a thread.  I'm just winging it here so I'll post what is currently on my mind.

Making good choices.  As an addict the obvious good choice is not to ingest my drug of choice...which for me is alcohol.  Duh, no kidding right?  But, for me at least, living a happy and serene life means making good choices in ALL areas.  I am amazed that I continue, daily, to do 'things' that are so unhealthy for me.  They can be obvious things and subtle things.  Alcohol being a good example of the obvious (I'm not doing that currently however ).  Its the subtle things that trip me up, keep me sick and eventually lead me back to alcohol.  My coping mechanism for the consequences of daily, insidious bad choices.

Those bad choices for me, the subtle ones, are grounded in my thinking, my actions and my reactions.  Without really realizing it, I allow 'things' and people, that I have zero control over, to completely overtake my psyche.  For example, the stock market.  I literally just put more money in last week...and BAM.  Crash.  I was already feeling down yesterday, but the pending economic downturn made me feel like all was lost.  I had to really take control of my thoughts, realize that I'm in the market for the long term and that more than likely things will come back.  If they don't I guess the global economy will have some pretty big fish to fry.  But at the end of it, I have no control.  My teenage daughters room.  This is a constant point of contention.  I know I will never win.  She's a slob.  But I allow it to upset me.  Not only that, I take it personally.  She doesn't love me, she doesn't respect me.  What?  She's a slob.  Period.  I was googling BS last night...bored, killng time.  Something about meeting people without online dating (no I'm not going to date right now.....just bored) and it was talking about how, in my area, all the 'good' women are taken, and those that aren't?  Well there's a reason.  I allowed this to affect me personally...I'm not taken so I must be damaged goods.  That one actually got me more than the stock market    I allow my mood to be affected by things I have no control over....all the time.  Some of this is normal, for sure, but I take it to a different level.  So today I'm making a conscious choice to stay positive.  To believe in me.  And to practice self love and compassion.

I am wondering if anyone can share how they currently allow things outside of their control to negatively influence their sense of self.  Or, in what ways has sobriety changed how you react, thus how you perceive yourself?  

[Mark_LA]

Well, for the record, I said the new forum has improved functionality, not that it's easier to use

I'm a lot better at the "accept the things I cannot change" part of the deal than I used to be, but haven't yet made much progress on having "the courage to change the things I can."  I think that might mean I could be described more accurately as "apathetic" than truly "serene."  I keep trying, though -- progress, not perfection.

Seems to me that having the self-awareness about your unproductive emotional reactions and their effect on your serenity is a huge step in the right direction.  The ability to step outside those reactions and choose not to let them overtake your psyche, as you put it, seems to be an acquired skill.  Like learning any other skill, it takes practice.  What do you do about it when you feel yourself becoming overwhelmed by the stock market gyrations or your daughter's slobby room?

[msannthropic]

I hope I'm doing this right, just got here and this is the first "thread", or "discussion", or "topic", or whatever the hell they're called here, that I read.

I don't have a ton of time right now, but my mind is racing with this topic!

Yes. YES. I have this too! And I take it one step further...when circumstances or situations are good and positive, I will start trying to "figure out" exactly what's going to go wrong, how the #### is going to hit the fan, and I will sit in my head and map out the entire scenario. To the point where I'm almost creepily oblivious to the outside world around me and living out the "impending doom" in my head. It even effects me physically...pounding heart, knots in my stomach, headache.

I have a better understanding today of just how f'd up I really am than I ever have before. How f'd up I am, ME. Having nothing to do with anyone or anything outside of me. But the funny thing is, despite that (or probably because of it, in part), I'm the happiest I've been in many many years.

I've only recently started to really get a handle on the super obsessive thinking (and the problem just kicked into high gear for me about 6 months ago for some reason). I'll try to give the short version of some things I've found very helpful since I'm short on time right now...Getting very honest with myself about why I'm doing it (the obsessing). I have to just stop myself, sometimes "forcefully", and listen to the thing that's really driving it, rumbling underneath the chaos of the obsession. Sometimes it helps me to be very honest with other people(scary honest is what I refer to it as lol) about what's going on in my head, even when I'm not 100% sure I know exactly myself yet. That really helps, and in fact I'm not sure how I'd know as much about myself If I never did that. Meditation - I started going to a Buddhist temple, but thanks to my location the nearest one is 45 minutes away so I don't go as often as I'd like and mostly meditate at home, sometimes at work lol. I've read a lot of "self help" type stuff... Eckhart Tolle, Thich Nhat Hanh, along those lines.

Gotta run for now, but I'll be anxious to see what else will be posted here. Thanks for starting this topic.

[Deleted]

Welcome back, {{{Ms. Annie}}}.

[bethanne711]

Hi everyone, I finally figured out how to register to this new forum. Sorry to thread drift here but not knowing how to start a new thread yet, I thought I'd risk it. It's very simple. How will we know if we get a message reply ? Will it be like before where I would to to my Outlook mail page and there would be an indication there telling me so ? Hope this finds all well and happy. Beth

[Mark_LA]

Hi Bethanne,

1) On the blue menu at the top of the page on the left hand side, click on "Profile."

2) Click on "Edit Profile" (right side of page)

3) Click on "Notifications"

4) There's a list of what you can be notified of, and how. Click on each one you want to change in order to set your preferences.

This board seems to be set up so that you when you click on "reply," you're just adding a post to a thread, you're not responding to a particular person. Therefore there isn't a way to get a notification of a personal response, only that someone has replied on a thread to which you've posted.

However, if you click on the gear thingy at the right-hand side of a post, one of the options is "Member," and if you mouse over that, one of the choices is "Send Message." It looks like you can private message posters that way. If so, then this is similar to other forums I've visited where private conversations can be kept separate from forum postings (which I prefer, FWIW).

[Mark_LA]

Oh, by "message reply" maybe you meant private message. Follow steps 1-3 above, and one of the choices will to set e-mail notification of private messages.

[Dana]

Whenever I'm upset (angry, sad, frustrated, etc.) about something or someone out "there" - something outside of myself... I've learned that there is something wrong with ME. Things/situations are neutral until I say whether it's good or bad. And I wonder why does everything have to be "good" or "bad" anyway?? Why can't it just be neutral? There may be a lot of chaos and turmoil and discontent in the world, but I don't have to internalize it. It really is a choice how I perceive, judge, allow myself to be affected by circumstances and situations. I've learned a lot from the likes of Byron Katie, Pema Chodron, and don Miguel Ruiz.

And it's not that I don't care about you, or about world hunger, or about my family and all its dysfunction. I can be caring and loving and kind without having to sacrifice my own well-being.

And I can still throw temper tantrums too, but usually only in my mind. There aren't many people I allow to see that side of me. And as time goes on I'm getting better at identifying those upsets as they are beginning to boil and fester, and so I get to calm down a whole lot faster than I used to. I could stew over something for days but I've found that I don't like that very much anymore. It's much more pleasant to be at peace (most of the time).

Anyway, I think with your daughter - you have house rules right? And if a clean room is one of the rules and she breaks it then there will be consequences. And you get to decide the consequences. She either cleans her room (to your satisfaction, or to some compromise) or pays the price. Simple. It doesn't have to be upsetting. I don't have kids, you see, so I'm an expert. heh heh... I don't think I would have been a very good parent anyway. I have a lot of respect for you folks who are trying to raise up a good human being.

xoxo
Dana

[Dana]

And I find it so very interesting that circumstances gets the bleep. What if I spelled it wrong, like circomstances...

[bethanne711]

Hi Dana, it is rather strange that you would get the bleep for an innocent word... We have lots to get used to, huh ? Glad you are doing well and living the life you've always desired. Beth

[Mark_LA]

hmm...

circumlocution?
circumnavigate?
cumulus clouds?
magna #### laude?

[Mark_LA]

*chuckle*

[ron]

Aug 27, 2015 11:57:19 GMT -5 Mark_LA said:

*chuckle*

That is funny.

[Mark_LA]

I'm trying to think of other words to test the system, but am coming up blank.

I know there are larger words containing the "####" letter string, but can't think of any at the moment.

I'm probably just making an "ass" of myself...

Sorry for the thread drift, Dot

[quitat54]

I think we are programed form birth to be judgmental. We judge most of the time, consciously and sometimes unconsciously. My son is a slob, my daughter is not. I am judging. I find that being aware of my emotions is the first big step. Being able to recognize them helps to have more control over the situation. There is a thought/quote that stuck in my head... when we are in emotional state our thinking cannot incorporate any information that does not fit or sustain, the emotion that we are currently experiencing.   For me the trick is (still working on it) not necessarily to change my emotion, but not to let it take over and act on it. Everything is impermanent, so are the emotions. The problem for many of us is that we act on them too often. It does not mean not to feel, but working on being less judgemental certainly helps. Accepting that we cannot control everything (who would want to anyway) helps to detach from the situation emotionally.  Sometimes it is what it is and that is ok.

J