My life and entertaining TV shows

 Just a week ago I was all about using CBT, Cognitive Behavioral Therapy to solve some of the problems I face.

I've been able to do a few things to improve my existance...one day I did get up and meditated, and then did Qui Gong Shaolin breathing exercises.

Didn't continue, as each time the alarm went off, I chose to think about the dream I just had, or just plain went back to sleep. So much for good intentions over here.

BUT, I did use my almost expired Apple TV+ free time to watch a couple of enjoyable shows.

The first was Manhunt about the hunt for John Wilkes Booth following the assassination of Lincoln. I'd never paid any attention to Secretary of War, Edwin Seward's involvement before, and he's the lead character in this series. Several reasons this Manhunt was of interest to me.

First my middle name is Booth, after my maternal great grandmother, who was a descendent of the Texas Booths, who came from New England where they were early settlers...no relation as far as I know to the theatrical Booths. But when I had to give my full name, especially after moving to St. Louis, I felt eyes upon me, thinking I was related to John Wilkes. Well, maybe it was in my own head, but as a young girl, I definitely couldn't figure out why my mother saddled me with this middle name!

Second connection to the mini-series, was that Seward had asthma. He didn't have many drugs or the great treatments that I've available to me. My asthma is when I start coughing for no particular reason, and it escalates. But it was his cause of death. That's a bit sobering.

And third is my interest in reconstruction. Manhunt does a great job of presenting Lincoln's ideas vs. Johnson's...and how Seward had to deal with that conflict, since the War Department was overlooking reconstruction. 

THEN, Apple TV also had another series which was recommended to me, about some therapists (yes, cognitive behavioral ones) including Harrison Ford. I'm in the midst of watching it now. It's hilarious. Great spoof on therapy, the humanity and foibles of therapists, and just all around fun (with quite a lot of swearing that didn't bother me a bit.)

Today's quote:

Take a commonplace, clean it and polish it, light it so that it produces the same effect of youth and freshness and originality and spontaneity as it did originally, and you have done a poet's job. The rest is literature. -Jean Cocteau, author and painter (5 Jul 1889-1963)

What I needed to hear today

You Are What You Think

If you use language in one way, it can support you, but if you use it in another way, it can sabotage you.

Daily Om interviewed psychologist and author Eric Maisel. (I've snipped the following from the article posted Sunday, June 30, 2024.)

 For thousands of years, natural philosophers and spiritual leaders have accurately pinpointed our thoughts as a primary source of our suffering. Cognitive-behavioral therapy is a contemporary version of that long tradition. CBT therapists ask you to notice what you are thinking, reject thoughts that aren't serving you, and replace them with thoughts that do serve you.

There are two questions that come up when we ask what will help us meet life's challenges, heal emotional distress, and deal with states of being associated with depression, anxiety, and addiction. The first is, "What's causing it?" The second is, "What helps?" Many kinds of answers have been offered to both questions. One consistent answer to the first question is "how we think," and one consistent answer to the second question is to "take charge of what you think." 

Thinking life is scary naturally leads to anxiety. Thinking that you don't matter can naturally lead to depression and continual thoughts of feeling completely overwhelmed, which can lead to addiction. The thought is tied to your moods and behaviors.

DAILY OM: "If you're smart, sensitive, and creative, I'm guessing that you're also regularly troubled." What do you mean by this?

ERIC: I have identified many of the special sources of pain and difficulty that smart, sensitive, creative people regularly face. The pain from what I've dubbed "the smart gap," the great distance between what you perceive to be your talents and abilities and the intellectual or creative work you feel called to do, ends up putting them in a small corner of a large universe.

DAILY OM: In your course, you suggest that people substitute silly words to stop caustic thought patterns. How and why does this work to alter thought patterns?

ERIC: If you use language in one way, it can support you, but if you use it in another way, it can sabotage you. If you repeatedly say, "I have no chance," that repeated demoralization really does matter. But if you change that to "I have no celery," or "I have no animal crackers," all that does is send you off shopping. Changing our inner language, in serious ways or in silly ways, really does help and really does matter.

DAILY OM: In your course, you write that we are kidnapping neurons and wearing ourselves out when we engage in negative self-talk. What do you mean by this? Eric: Our brain is made up of a large number of neurons, on the order of several billions. That sounds like an enormous number, but we have to remember that it takes millions of neurons, often hundreds of millions of neurons, to have a thought. Thinking means giving neurons over to particular thoughts. If you are using your neurons on thoughts like "I hate life," or "I need to weed my yard," then you have hundreds of millions fewer neurons available to solve your problems, create your symphony, or think pleasurable and soothing thoughts. This is actually simple, straightforward physiology.  The main way we honor the creative process is by getting quiet — that is, silencing all those thoughts that are using neurons — so that all of our neurons are available to bubble up creative ideas. I guess you could call thinking a zero-sum game. If you are worrying about your overgrown weeds, you also can't be composing your Symphony No. 9.   Daily Om goes on to offer an 8 session course, at pay rate determined by student. I may very well look further into this. I'll let you know....