Thursday, June 9, 2016

Assessing my negative thoughts




So, after keeping track of my negative thoughts for five days, I've noticed a few things.  I am not proud of these things, but here it is.

  • About one fifth of my negative thoughts are wishing people would be quiet, or at least stop talking to me. 
  • About a quarter are martyr-ish.  I am the only person who:  cleans the toilet, buys pet food, mops, does the accounting, listens, grocery shops, cooks, picks up my socks, and returns phone calls.  
  • I had five negative thoughts about my appearance...pants fit too tightly, hair looking bad, wrinkly old-face-bags under my eyes, when did I get cellulite there?, wow, I can't even do ten push-ups anymore I'm weak.
  • I had myself convinced that a parent whose child sprained his ankle on our camping trip was going to call me in anger or sue me.
  • I also convinced myself that I would get an angry call from a mother whose son I stepped on because I didn't see him while I was sprinting madly to the "safety" while playing man hunt on our camping trip.  I played these imaginary confrontations in my head WAY too many times.
  • Sometimes I have negative thoughts that I dwell on because I want to convince myself of something.  For example, I don't really want to go to workshops at my school during the summer, but if I must I want to get paid.So I was really indignant and put-out about the fact that we teachers aren't being compensated for our time.  I wanted to convince myself that I just shouldn't go.  This is not the case.  I should go because it is valuable training that I need to be a better math teacher.  
  • Random negatives:  nights are boring;  I hate caterpillars, I should have had more than one child, I'm lonely, I miss my son being little, I hope my parents don't die soon, I'm not doing enough to grab life by the b-lls, I'm a crappy friend, I'm a crappy mother, I'm a crappy fisherman.  I know nothing.
  • I sometimes have a hard time seeing the big picture and have negative thoughts that are hard to escape such as, "My son is never going to have fun with us again.  He doesn't even like us anymore" and "Dogs are assholes."

The negative thoughts that are destructive are the ones of self-doubt.  
As for wanting people to be quiet, I should be thankful that people need me.  They won't always be here to ask me questions, ask for my help, show me a funny post, rant to me or tell me a story.  I actually wish my 14 year old would talk to me more.  At least there's car rides.  Car rides are always good for conversations.
A trick I do when I being a martyr-in-my-mind is to imagine that I didn't have a husband.  THEN I actually would be doing everything.  It just seems like I do more than my share because there are other people around who could be doing all the work that I am doing, but they are doing other work that I am not doing.  "If something needs to be addressed, address it or shut up." That is my happy little mantra.

1 comment:

  1. What a great exercise to see what your negative thoughts really are. If we don't understand the source than it will be difficult to curb them before they are just the way that we interact with the world. Great idea, I may have to give it a try.

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