Making light of - Was Re: Blushing

[Guest guest]

" I've/we've been conditioned to believe that our mental outputs

thoughts/feelings/emotional reactions are controllable. They are important

enough that my mind created them. I SHOULD take them seriously. If I don't like

them, I should be able to simply stop thinking them, stop feeling them, stop

creating them. "

Quoting a segment of your post Barbara because it is exactly what I am doing

right now!!! I am a teacher, I've mentioned that before and that is usually the

source of my anxiety and feelings of failure. I can go along feeling very

confident and competent at my job and then something, usually the behavior of a

child comes along and it seems within a moment, all the good feelings are gone.

So, I am struggling with one of those episodes right now. There is a student

that is very erratic in her behavior. She can be very sullen and then she can be

overly enthusiastic, to the point of it causing behavior problems too. My mind

hands me lots of thoughts about " To be successful you must find a way to control

this child " , " if you were tough enough she would act better " , " you shouldn't let

a child make you feel so anxious " . I get very anxious before working with her

and then beat myself up for having the anxiety. This causes the anxiety to

snowball and kind of throw me into what my husband and I like to call " a spell "

where I carry this over to every aspect of life and don't eat or sleep well. I

have had trouble meeting with my therapist lately because he is 45 minutes away

and I have had so many after school activities. I have been feeling so much

better until this week that I tend to think I have everything " figured out " .

Then when this hits I feel like I don't know how to practice any of the ACT

theories that I thought I understood so well. I am sorry to be rambling but I am

trying to give a clear picture but as I find to be true with all of your posts

you all probably get exactly what I am saying. I am just asking for suggestions

of what ACT " tools " you all think would be helpful. My toolbox has been on the

shelf since I was feeling so good and I think my tools have gotten rusty. It is

so tempting to go the path of what can I do to make it go away because when it

was gone away, things were going so well. How do I get past that?? I know I've

asked a jillion questions. Any ideas would be so appreciated because you all are

awesome!!!

> > I didn’t mean to suggest ‘i could just make fun of it’ †" I do

generally feel awkward, embarrassed, self-conscious or anxious, and when I say

‘Sorry about the sweaty hands’ I’m not cracking jokes or making fun of it

†" I’m just being open and genuine (and genuinely apologising for the other

person’s almost-certain discomfort, when they find their hand enveloped in a

coat of hot, sweaty skin). I acknowledge it and make room for it, and I don’t

allow it to distract me from social interaction.

>