The past I week I have started to give more attention to something called practice from the breathing exercise and progressive muscle relaxation. Also, doing the stretching exercise recommended by my wife in the morning is helpful. Now I need to practise something harder, the thought process.
Yesterday was the second session and I learn several things including the thought process. Before talking about the thought process, it was obvious that I still care very much on how I am doing with the practice. For example, I am very cautious on whether I am doing the progressive muscle relaxation correctly. I need to step back and remember what is the objective doing that, which is to differentiate between when we are tense and when we are in relaxed mode. So there is no need to pay so much attention on whether we do the tense part correctly. The benefit of being able to differentiate is to build the memory and to become more aware when we are stressed. That means we can modify the exercise itself into something that we are tense when being anxious or stressed. By looking at the difference, we can remember that when we start to slip into the tense state, we can try to go back to the relaxed state.
One thing to note is that the breathing exercise and the progressive muscle relaxation does not necessarily prevent us into being in the anxious situation. The breathing exercise may help to alleviate. For muscle relaxation, it was the memory that helps instead of doing those exercise when we are having the anxiety.
This indicates the importance of tackling the thought process itself. It is now to also start practising what I know about rational emotive behaviour therapy. There are five parts to it. First is A, activating event - we need to recognize what triggers us to behave in certain way. Which is the third part, C, the consequence. One of the two main keys are the second part, which is B, identifying the belief system, what kind of irrational belief we have that cause the consequence in terms of unhalthy behaviour? The second main key is the D, dispute. How do we challenge our irrational belief. By challenging and finding the rational belief, we can have a healthy behaviour as the consequence which imply for E, an effective change.
An example of the activating event is when I write and look at the to-do-list I have. The consequence would be I start to having blank moments and confused on which part to do first and worrying if others will be upset if I could not complete it as soon as possible.
So what is my belief system in this case?
There are three pressures that I have instead of just one pressure which is to complete the task itself. I made it triple by adding two more pressures. First is the pressure of whether I will be doing it well or in a perfect manner that I wish. Second is the pressure of the future of what will happen if I could not complete it.
The belief that I may have is that I have to do everything perfectly but I realize there is no enough time. Also, I may believe that if I am not doing it extremely well or at least above average, then I am not good or I am failure. If something is not complete on time, then people will be very upset and I cannot stand people being upset to me.
In this situation, I need to dispute the irrational beliefs that I have by asking questions.
What happens if I don’t do it perfectly? And then? So?
What would be the worst case if I am only an average and not extraordinary? Would I become jobless because of that? What is the worst scenario? What happens if I pick the wrong sequence? Isn’t stuck in the indecision and anxiety issue that I have is already the worst scenario that anything other than that is a better situation?
I also need to ask questions on my behaviour in handling the situation by condemning myself and being anxious. Are those behaviors helpful? Are they leading me anywhere? Is there an alternative to solve the problem.
I need to practise to focus on the rational problem solving process than my emotion. I need to encourage myself and to remind myself that I can stand the frustration, I can stand the disappointment of looking at things that are not imperfect or after making a mistake. Then own them up and think and do the solutions that can address the problem. Even if I cannot solve the problem, then I can ask whether I can live with that. Whether there is true adverse consequence of having that problem. Just like I can live in a world with pollution. It is a problem but it is not rational if I say that I could not live in it.
An important point to make is that my thought process is also a habit, not just the way I breathe or my tense muscle. That means it requires a lot of practice. So would I commit to practise? Would I give up if I could not do it. This is very important, because frankly, it is difficult for me to ask question.
Even if I imagine giving advice on someone facing the same problem that I have, I have little things to challenge the thoughts. For example, in the case of choosing which one to do first, I only have the advice to just choose and do it, nothing else. I do not ask what is the consequence even if choosing the wrong things. Or whether is it helpful if we keep asking which one to do first while time is limited.
So I need to practise. Like today when I am stuck in front of TV, there is no need to condemn myself. But analyze the process. The activating event is that I am passing the TV and the consequence is that I am stuck looking at the TV. So ask what is the possible belief, what makes me want to watch it? What is my belief? Am I saying that my distraction level is very sensitive? Can I stand more distraction than that? Am I running from something? Which one do I really want, to watch or to do something else.
The answers may not be there, but that is not the point. The main point is to practise the healthy thoughts process.
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