Video: Good Thoughts, Bad Thoughts

ANOTHER WONDERFUL remindr. Thanks, Therese. I think I've discussed here before the important work I did with my own therapist post stroke learning to differentiate between accountability and blame. My critical inner self was working overtime and pulling me ever deeper into thesnake pit to the point where my depression assessmenys at my psychiatrist's appointments were measuring off the scale. Those of us with low self steem born of constant finger pointing during our childhoods have a difficult time understanding hese subtlties, and, at least in my own case, that lack was making my life even more difficult than it needed to be a I stuggled to adjust to my new reality. Martha finally reached me by pointing out that she was sure I knew others who, like myself, had made some unhealthy lifestyle choices like overeationg, smoking and not getting enough exercise who had NOT had strokes, which, of course was/is true Therefore, according to the work we did, it was important, evenCRITICAL, for me to understand that the "Blame Game" served no good purposebut was rather a holdover from my role as family "scapegoat" in the big picture of the alcoholic family. Her lesson was that blame implies intent whereas accountability does not. Since I had not set out to give myself a stroke, blame, then became moot. Accountability, conversely, is a more positive cousin of blame. I am accountable for those choices that contributed to my stroke rather than to blame for the stroke itself which is WHY I know others who have lived similar lifestyles without ending up with hemiparesis or the brain damage that is now a daily part of my struggle. Looking at it that way frees me to make healthier present choices rather than dwell in the past and shake a mental finger in my own face. which, at BEST, is counterproductive; same philosophy as condemnation versus conviction. Coming t understand that there were certain genetic predispositions that also played a role (i.e. a family history of diabetes) that my primary care doc had more or less ignored allowed me to find a way out of the web of blame that was only making matters worse in terms of my recovery(both physical and emotional) It was unbelievably freeing to be able to tell my critical inner self to go thake a jump in the lake! Little "tricks" like the one you shared today are essential for those of us who deal with depression as a constant in our llives. I hope othes who suffer from this kind of faulty thinking can embrace this lesson sooner than I did and thereby avoid at least SOME time curled up next to the reptiles that await us when we give in to childhood conditioning that has become a part of our individual comfort zones.

Therese

Thank you for discussing condemnation and conviction. At the moment my subconscious seems to be in condemning mode. When I sleep I have dreams where I am working and my depression is being ignored. There is an uncaring boss whose every word is condemnation and in dream land, the real "me" doesn't have much power to make the dream lucid and I end up trapped in that true nightmare.

I am still digesting the video and will have to watch it another time or two as I am sure that there is more in me related to this subject than I picked up on the first time.

Richard

Thanks so much for this Therese. Conviction/Condemnation is new for me, I had never heard those terms used to signify good/bad thoughts. :)
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