12-02-2019, 08:04 PM
ME: I feel better now, but after careful analysis of how I’m feeling lately, I do notice that there is still an undertone of stress. UMS has been helping me to deal with the deeper roots of my fear. However, I’ve been stuck in my head, and not dealing with the my immediate sources of stress. I.E. the immediate things I need to be doing to push the goals of the program forward. In this case getting the house clean and pushing the refi forward. Part of this stress is the part of me that wants to execute fighting the part of me that is in the habit of procrastinating, and avoiding looking directly at things that cause stress. That is to say that I often get a fear/stress reaction when I know I need to take a close look at a situation that’s likely to cause me a problem. The simple reason for that is that I am afraid that if I look at it, it might have to face the fact that it has gotten so bad that I will be unable to solve it, and also face the fact that my neglecting it is the reason why it has gotten so bad that I can’t solve it. So what we have here is fear of responsibility and fear of failure leading me to be in denial about the problem. I don’t do it because I’m afraid I won’t be able to, and I’m afraid that I’ll blame myself and others will blame me when it becomes clear that the problem has become too bad to solve.
That is of course completely irrational and dysfunctional thinking, and it creates a self fulfilling prophecy. The longer I let something go, the worse it gets, and the greater the chances are that I really can’t solve it. I have let a whole lot of things turn into massive disasters this way. I knew that they were becoming problems and getting worse for a long time before they blew up to the point that I could no longer ignore them. The consequences have been bad, in my financial life and other aspects. The lie I covered that with was that if I ignored the problem, it would go away.
The truth I should have been telling myself all along is this. If there’s a problem or something that needs to be done, it’s going to stay a problem, or continue needing to be done until I solve it or do it. Not only that, but if I ignore a potential problem, it becomes a real problem, and then it gets worse every day I ignore it. If I ignore it long enough, it will become a crisis and can do major damage to my life.
The truth is, the sooner I deal with something, the less likely it is to get out of hand, and if it doesn’t, then self blame or being blamed by others never becomes an issue. If it turns out that whatever it is blows up anyway, then I won’t blame myself so much because I did everything I could to stop it from happening instead of just letting it.
I think that I’ve done a lot to deal with the underlying fears that caused me to develop those patterns in the first place, so it shouldn’t take much to replace them with better ones.
My short term goal will be to develop the following habits of thinking and acting.
- I need to become aware of that uncomfortable feeling I get when I want to avoid thinking about and dealing with something. It’s a sure sign that that is exactly what I need to be taking care of.
- Check the things that tend to indicate that there’s a potential problem. IE, check the bank balance daily, my credit weekly. Check the mail daily and open everything.
- Keep a list of things that need to be taken care of ASAP. Look at it daily so I can’t lose track of anything.
This should alleviate some of the stress.
That is of course completely irrational and dysfunctional thinking, and it creates a self fulfilling prophecy. The longer I let something go, the worse it gets, and the greater the chances are that I really can’t solve it. I have let a whole lot of things turn into massive disasters this way. I knew that they were becoming problems and getting worse for a long time before they blew up to the point that I could no longer ignore them. The consequences have been bad, in my financial life and other aspects. The lie I covered that with was that if I ignored the problem, it would go away.
The truth I should have been telling myself all along is this. If there’s a problem or something that needs to be done, it’s going to stay a problem, or continue needing to be done until I solve it or do it. Not only that, but if I ignore a potential problem, it becomes a real problem, and then it gets worse every day I ignore it. If I ignore it long enough, it will become a crisis and can do major damage to my life.
The truth is, the sooner I deal with something, the less likely it is to get out of hand, and if it doesn’t, then self blame or being blamed by others never becomes an issue. If it turns out that whatever it is blows up anyway, then I won’t blame myself so much because I did everything I could to stop it from happening instead of just letting it.
I think that I’ve done a lot to deal with the underlying fears that caused me to develop those patterns in the first place, so it shouldn’t take much to replace them with better ones.
My short term goal will be to develop the following habits of thinking and acting.
- I need to become aware of that uncomfortable feeling I get when I want to avoid thinking about and dealing with something. It’s a sure sign that that is exactly what I need to be taking care of.
- Check the things that tend to indicate that there’s a potential problem. IE, check the bank balance daily, my credit weekly. Check the mail daily and open everything.
- Keep a list of things that need to be taken care of ASAP. Look at it daily so I can’t lose track of anything.
This should alleviate some of the stress.
