I slept in today, until about 6:30 am. And true to yesterday’s intention, I did not let the dogs sleep with me since the interruption throughout the night deterioates my sleep, which ultimately impacts my ability to cognitively perform throughout the work day.
Today I spent about 45 minutes editing videos, and posting on social media. I’m motivated to do this since it’s part and parcel of my journey of working with my high degree of acceptance – sensitive to criticism, fear of feedback — and social media is ONE way of me overcoming what David Burns M.D. (author of “Feeling Good”) calls “approval addiction.” From the outside, some folks may not understand the uptick in social media posts and potentially judge me (pre dialectical behavior therapy, I myself was both very judgemental and unaware of those judgement thoughts) for some of my stories. That’s okay, I’m learning. I’m hoping to expose myself more and more, slowly overtime, to criticism and help densensitize myself and improve my ability to withstand perceived rejection AND modify those cognitive interpretations.
Wise Mind, Opposite Action, DEARMAN
An all too unfamiliar situation: a birthday event of a friend that you heard about but not sure quite sure you are invited. That’s a situation I’m currently in and historically, I wouldn’t have thought much about it, invalidated myself, and not broached the topic with the other person (sometimes, not raising the topic is what my wise mind would suggest).
So here’s the situation:
- Mutual friends talking about birthday event for person X, asking you if you are attending birthday event
- Person X and you are in a group chat with others and there’s discussion revolving around going to person X’s home on Saturday
- You are unsure whether or not you are invited
A thought I had was: “Oh my god, you aren’t invited. Don’t bring it up.” At the same time, I don’t know if that’s true. And if it is true, it would be disappointing AND (after validating myself), would not be a hit of who I am as a person. I wanted to reduce my potential feelings for shame. And for this reason, I decided to reach out to this friend over Instagram, tried to reduce mind reading (by telling them where I am at in my thinking process), and then extend the ask using DEARMAN:
Reflections on showing sincere excitement on my face
When I’ve collected feedback from people, they often tell
