How I Used to Be Part II

Maybe you recognize something of yourself in this list of my previous poor behaviors:
• Frequently angry
• Deeply frustrated
• Defensive about criticism
• Distant and perplexed
• Quick to despair
• Preoccupied by bleak thoughts
• Often driven to destructive behaviors
• Blameful of others and irresponsible
• Absorbed by normally useless distractions

How I Now Behave

I very rarely get angry these days. Anger comes from having rules and expectations that get broken by other people or other things. I no longer have a great list of rules and expectations for other people or other things and so without that cause the symptom of anger simply cannot occur. On the rare occasions that it does occur it is usually about old rules that almost never get triggered. When anger happens I am now so shocked by it that I stop and think about my reaction and about what rule I have that has been broken. When I know the cause I can often discard the rule or reframe it so that the same cause no longer angers me.

I still feel frustration but now in an entirely good way. I feel frustration as I push at the limits of my personal capabilities of what I can do and how I can solve problems. I no longer feel frustration about myself in terms of my persona. Because I understand how emotional reactions are caused by desires that go unfulfilled and because I understand that most frustration comes from attempting to do what is not yet currently possible, I can more readily accept frustration and see it for the warning sign that it is. I can then discard the emotional distractions and get on with resolving the particular issue of impossibility that lies at the heart of things.

I have become totally accepting of criticism. I know that most criticism simply reflects the speaker’s opinion and that it often says more about that person than it does me. It’s less of question of who’s right and who’s wrong but about accepting differences of opinion. If I get hurt by a criticism then I now know it is because a truth has been said that I denied to myself. It hurts because I feel disappointed. I now accept the feedback and my reaction and use it to resolve differences between how I perceive myself and how I actually behave in reality.

I must admit that I still get absorbed by problems almost to the point of catatonia but these days I focus on the technical aspects of resolving a problem whereas before I was absorbed by the emotional symptoms and my responses to them. I no longer feel perplexed because I have resolved the fundamental questions about emotional reactions. Freed of reacting to emotions I can apply myself to solving problems better than ever before.

I no longer despair because I no longer set impossible desires for myself and I readily accept my limitations and work with what I can do rather than wishing and hoping for something else. Through managing my desires sagely I make my life much easier to deal with and much easier to progress with. Consequently bleak thoughts about myself and the resultant destructive behaviors have vanished because I changed the root cause of them. Only if I fail to manage my desires, or else external people or factors impose impossible to fulfill desires upon me, do I start to get cranky again. Taking great care over personal desires and especially expectations is right at the heart of feeling well-balanced and free of immobilization. Likewise, I must also take great care over the dependencies and expectations that others have or wish to impose upon me.

I no longer blame anyone for my situation. Other people might have created trouble for me in the past but I take responsibility for making the rest of my life work well – no one else can do that for me.

I rarely indulge in the distractions that I used to turn to in the face of the personal inadequacy that I often experienced. By focusing on managing desires and clearly identifying the points of impossibility in making progress and dealing with them succinctly, the feelings of inadequacy have vanished and so too has the need for distractions. After a lifetime of living that way I’m still getting used to that little miracle. I can now use the promise of little rewards as true motivators, whereas before it was always reward (actually distraction) first before taking action (which I didn’t take because I felt it impossible and so I felt bad for cheating on myself and for failing to make progress!).

I turned these things around simply by getting clear on the root cause of my problems. I didn’t require any long and hard change. I always had good character – everyone does – but repeatedly attempting to do the impossible, with no let up and no knowledge of how to resolve fundamental problems, corrupts all of us and drives all of us to varying levels of madness.

Now my focus is very short term and I accept who I am, where I am and what I have. Hence I have become resourceful in applying those things to make the daily progress that eventually builds great things. I progress from solid and dependable foundations. Previously I always focused on great expectations, on what I was not and what I didn’t have and on what I couldn’t reach. As a result I continually felt perplexed and I remained immobilized by impossibility.

Now I have robust knowledge and methods for fulfilling desires. This gives me a higher level of competence in solving any problem than I ever had before and the consequence is increasingly unshakable confidence in myself. Freed from responding to a continuous series of negative emotional symptoms I have returned to feeling playful and cheerful. I now whistle whilst walking down the street, I stand upright and I smile for no reason other than enjoying the moment.

After so many years of dealing with internal mental struggle and almost continuous negative emotion I finally turned things around. This blog is all about offering the same gift to you so write to me, tell me what you think, if this is all helping you, whether you want further clarification or just to say “Good Job! Keep it up!” I want to hear from you!

How I Used to Be Part I