Mastery

[W.I.F.T.S.]

I can't remember which book I read it in, but it talked about building confidence by 'mastering' skills. It's very true actually. I've spent most of my 31 years not really doing very much because I didn't have the faith in myself that I could be as good as I had the potential to be, so, rather than fail, I did nothing and sat at home watching tv. It's only since I've started trying to think of my development in terms of progress rather than perfection that I've got into doing more things. I'm currently learning how to record music on an evening course, teaching myself Photoshop for image manipulation, practicing music with friends and working on my qualifications as a football coach.

Many people say that the secret to overcoming a nervous breakdown is learning how to say 'no', to not take on too much, but I think it's the complete opposite: I think the secret is learning to say 'yes'. I've spent years declining to do things because I've been scared and living in a very small comfort zone. Now, whenever an opportunity arises, I try to tell myself to say 'yes' before I have chance to worry about it. Who are your heroes? I admire Richard Branson, he seems very happy and I'm sure that he's a 'yes' person rather than a 'no' person. Seriously, the more that you do (within limits), the more confident you become.

A slightly different point, but I thought I'd fit it in here rather than creating another topic. I'm trying to get my head around Claire Weekes concept of 'floating'. I guess that most normal people do it everyday. I think that one of my problems is that I've been very anchored, mired and dragged down by anxiety and depression. I've had a long period of severe depersonalisation and I've kept telling myself that the world around me is all real....spinning on from that, I've started thinking about the world a lot more than most normal people do and I've found myself feeling panicky because of the 'reality' that there is thousands of feet of earth beneath my feet and all around me; I've found it so confusing that we're actually on our sides on the world and I have the irrational fear of falling down the world; it makes me feel anxious that the earth might drop out of it's orbit into nothingness; I worry about space, what's out there and the magnitude of the other planets......I suppose it's very much like when you've got a hard maths problem, the headache that you get from thinking about it for too long.

I do find it very hard to accept life: I'm always questioning the human body, time, reality....classic existential angst. Sometimes I get a glimmer of feeling more normal, of relaxing and accepting. At one point I couldn't see life in the same way that everyone else does...I just kept picturing looking down on myself on the earth and it made me want to throw up.

I'm now learning a bit more how to be in the here and now...I'm learning to accept that the earth has been here for 30 million years or whatever without too much going wrong to it.....I'm learning to accept that the average life expectancy is around 70 and that I'd be pretty unlucky to die before then: it would be most unlikely that I'll have a heart attack at 31 (although I'd hate to tempt fate!!)....I'm learning that nearly everyone experiences depressing thoughts, it's just that most people can rationslise them better than I can right now.

Life is pretty tough. It can seem like a game that you're thrown into and , when you're depressed, one that you don't want to play.

I believe that the principle of NLP is that if one person is capable of doing something then, since we're all basically the same, with the right conditioning, we're all capable of doing it. There's no physical or predetermined reason why I should be anxious or depressed, nothing really bad has happened to me. If other people are capable of being happy, then I'm capable of being happy....I'm determined to do it, I won't settle for just passing time.

By the way, I read something today about Dorothy Rowe, who claims that we decide in childhood to imprison ourselves in depression

[seeker]

interesting! I end up thinking myself up my own backside like that, too, about why we are here, meaning of life insanity of being alive etc etc. Even worse, as a teacher, many kids ask me about it, too!! I find that if I am happy, content and have things to do, then I am not so bad - I find that if I start having mad thoughts like that, then it is usually an indicator that something else is worrying me - usually to do with a change of routine or something. However, I also try and MAKE myself do lots of things, and ignore the anxiety as much as I can. This makes me feel better about myself and so on. However, lately I have been crippled with depression, but am MUCH better now - there is a book by Richard Mabey abouit the healing power of nature, and he describes depression as a form of 'hibernation/playing dead' that humans do, as so other animals. He thinks it is the body and mind's way of dealing with things by forcing you to slow down. I think I agree with him! Anyway, hope you feel better and you are not alone - it always makes me feel better when I read about other people having mad thoughts!

[W.I.F.T.S.]

Hi Seeker, I've posted on the 'hibernation theory' of depression myself before: about it being an involuntary way of our body trying to conserve energy. It does actually make a lot of sense. I think that the supposed way out of it is to be active and to try and raise our energy levels and metabolic rate...although maybe sometimes we just need to rest. I'm reading at the moment that Claire Weekes suggests going to bed for something like a week!!

Ships in harbour are safe..but that's not what ships were built for.

[bobsy]

Hi Si

Just want to say well done on doing lots more on getting out and about and saying yes and not thinking about it.

Also hope you are enjoying your courses - especially the football one.

Take Care

Bobsy

[W.I.F.T.S.]

I actually think that what would make me happy would be to feel comfortable seeing different parts of the world a lot: skiing in the alps in february; easter break in spain; ibiza and bahamas during the summer; sri lanka in autumn; new york during winter; scotland for new year...

I know that it's a bit of a pipe dream because it would be far too expensive, I'd never have all that time off and I've hardly left Northwich in ages, but it really would be great to feel that I had the freedom to do that and I felt that the world was open to me. At the moment, I feel quite deprived and depressed when other people talk about travelling because I'm agoraphobic and it seems impossible to me. Infact, even before I had my breakdown, the thought of world travel brought me out in a cold sweat....one of the reasons why I've always been depressed, I guess.

Today I didn't drive far, but I felt like I could comfortably (and quite enjoyably) drive to somewhere like Stockport. We have a byepass near us that I've avoided for quite a while because whenever I go on it I imagine myself vertical rather than horizontal, driving up the sheer face of the earth and the thought of falling backwards causes me to feel panicky. I generally have trouble imagining myself being "on the flat", which is how I used to think and how I suspect that most people think. I now picture myself on the earth and it makes things so much more difficult for me. For a long time i thought that I needed to try and block it out to get better, but I guess that the answer is to accept it.

When I used to work in tv, I often drove from my home to Warrington from North Wales to London; even from London to Amsterdam. I was probably as free and as independent as I have ever felt. I wasn't especially happy though because I was in a messed up relationship; I didn't feel valued at work (maybe all in my head) and I didn't feel like I had much of a support network- again, maybe a lot of it was in my head, but friends became distant, my family didn't seem very supportive....I was living with a woman at the time who was 16 years my senior, who cheated on my a lot and very often sent me back home to Cheshire and I was doing drugs, so I suppose it wasn't all that healthy.

Hopefully, I am now starting to empower myself. I've got a new job at a high school, where I would expect them to be grateful for my knowledge because they only have quite a basic understanding of the equipment; I've got a good set of friends around me; I've been given the opportunity to rent a council flat and get out from living with my gran and my dad, which does nothing for my self-confidence (as with the school job, I'm afraid that I'll feel scared and out of my depth, which will make me feel more anxious and depressed); I'm CHOOSING not to have a girlfriend; I'm doing some personal and professional development as a football coach, which can only be good for me.

I suppose the ingredient that is really missing is genuine confidence. If I was confident I would be happier and more relaxed. I've probably got it into my head that my dad and my gran in particluar expect me to mess everything up and that puts me in a position of wanting to try really hard to prove them wrong or messing things up subconsciously, so that I can get the "I told you so's" out of the way. God, I wish that I could just get on with things.....what have they done with their lives that's so brilliant that gives them the right to judge me? My dad's an alcoholic waster and my gran has palmed off her best friend of probably fifty years because she can't be bothered dealing with her anymore! They're just so critical of me: "Volunteering? What do you want to do that for?" Erm, because I've made loads of friends, it's good for my self-esteem, it's good for my cv, it's better than watching tv all day and it's helping me to have confidence in my own decision-making!! Their attitude really does upset me (and I am very sensitive), but I'm living here because I haven't quite yet got over a nervous breakdown and I'd like to feel protected.

My dad