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Blessings and Gratitude
My three blessings and the gratitude letter turned out to be closely related. I was asked to babysit my best friends 4 children this weekend while there mother was in an out of the area hospital. The task of watching four children, might seem daunting in itself, but add to that their ages; 6, 3, 2, 9 months. Well, I was confident of a full filled week-end. I planned to have activities that included homework for all (OK mostly for me). Then another good friend of my dashed my dreams by asking, “How many are in diapers?” This was definitely not in my plans, and the answer to the burning question is 3.
3 Blessings and gratitude letter
I tried to come up with global, personal, and specific blessing for each day. There were specific blessing that came up every day. I am always thankful for my family and my sobriety, with out those two things there may not be much else to be thankful for.
The activity of coming up with blessing each day was helpful and a great experience, one that I plan to continue. However, as far as producing positive dreams… I struggled. The past couple weeks have been really tough as I have been working through a loss of a close friend. I dreamt about that almost every night because although I tried to focus on positive thoughts my thoughts deep down won the battle.
Resilience Factor
I really found this book to be enlightening. This is not a book I want to put back on the shelf. This is one of those books I want to share with people. For me I think this book could very well be life changing I am so glad it was on our reading list. It just made so much sense to me. For a long time I have been working on improving the way I respond to life’s challenges or as the book puts it improve my resilience. When I read on page four “Resilient people have found a system- and it is a system- for galvanizing themselves and tackling problems thoughtfully, thoroughly, and energetically. Resilient people, like all of us, feel anxious and have doubts, but they have learned how to stop their anxiety and doubts from overwhelming them. We watch them handle threat with integrity and grace and we wonder: Could I do that? The answer is yes.” Good news for me as I often feel overwhelmed by anxiety and doubt. It would seem this book is just what the doctor (Hurst) ordered. What I like about this book is that it is clearly laid out and gives you a means of measuring where you are at in the present as well as your progress. I am confident that I can use the techniques to increase my abilities of: emotional regulation, impulse control, empathy, optimism, causal analysis, self-efficacy, and reaching out. It may be some time before I master or become proficient at the seven skills of: learning my ABC,s, avoiding my thinking traps (there are many), detecting my iceberg beliefs, challenging my beliefs, putting things in perspective (something I try to do), and lastly the “fast skills” I believe I could use on a daily basis. This book has already become a favorite of mine I am just getting started. I believe that my clients can also benefit from the skills, techniques, and assessment tools in this book. The concept that we can not change our history but we can work to change our beliefs and therefore how we face adversities. “Our emotions and behaviors are triggered not by events themselves but how we interpret those events.” Pg 68 Rings true to me as well as this statement on Pg 67 “ Very simply, in most situations, our beliefs cause our feeling and behaviors.” I have just started the work of identifying my ABCs already am learning that many of my beliefs could use some challenging. The good news is that change is possible and I am committed to doing it.
Blessings & Gratitude Letter
Blessings 2/16/08
I started being mindful of my blessings quite awhile ago. Because I spend more time on dark things, my blessings tend to be pretty close to the bone; things like - thanks for that breath, thanks for the roof over my head, thanks that today wasn’t the day I had to move into my van.
Response to The Resilience Factor
I am more than what I think
The Resilience Factor promises to help readers learn the ABCs of increasing resiliency by teaching seven skills that are grouped together into two subcategories, the "know theyself skills" (p. 66) and the "change skills" (ibid). There are three "know thyself skills," the ABCs of resiliency, Avoiding Thinking Traps, and Detecting Icebergs. There are four "change skills," Challenging Beliefs, Putting it in Perspective, Calming and Focusing, and Real-time Resilience (p. 146).
