Dump Your Emotional
Garbage Can
Robert Holden, author of "Happiness Now!" has said, "What you focus on most often becomes familiar, and what is familiar feels real to you." Often, we try to prove our personal worth by the degree of suffering we endure, but Holden indicates that until you develop a healthy, conscious, creative and unconditional relationship to happiness, you will always experience unhappiness and illness. You can learn to want and trust happiness because happiness challenges us to make peace with ourselves. The decision to be happy or sad rests with you.
Instructions
1. Say the following each morning for seven consecutive days: "Oh, God, help me to believe the truth about myself, no matter how beautiful it is. Amen."
Sit quietly and listen for inner guidance.
Note your thoughts in a journal for later reflection.
2. Test the validity of a negative core belief using a worksheet suggested by Dennis Greenberger and Christine A. Padesky, authors of "Mind Over Mood." Write the negative core belief at the top of an 8.5-x-11-inch sheet of paper. Under the statement, write evidence or experiences that suggest the core belief is not 100 percent true all the time. During the first week, try to find one piece of evidence each day. For the following week, try to find two or three bits of evidence every day. After several weeks, there should be 20 to 25 items listed on the worksheet. Review the items and draw an overall conclusion about whether the original negative core belief actually describes your real-life experience. Examples of negative core beliefs include: I am not lovable, I must please everyone to be liked, or I am inadequate unless I do everything perfectly.
3. Remove havoc from relationships by allowing emotions to dissipate. Janet G. Woititz and Alan Garner, authors of "Life-Skills for Adult Children," suggest an effective format for venting emotions in a relationship.
Discuss one problem at a time.
Focus on the present rather than lumping a number of past events together in an imaginary gunnysack that is dumped on the other person.
State the issue in specific terms of what was said, where and when.
Express your feelings this way: "When...(what the other person did)...then (what you felt)."
Allow the other person to express himself fully without interruption.
Find a middle ground between what you and the other person can live with while moving forward.
Tags: core belief, negative core, other person, negative core belief, Dump Your, Dump Your Emotional