*whuffles*

The fact that you want to be happy for all the good around you says a lot about the quality of your character. You are a good person, and you are allowed to feel the pain of things that directly affect you.

uber wuffles, hon.

I have been vacillating over whether to comment here. What I've experienced recently has been unprecedented in my life. I don't know if it will help you at all TrishaLynn but it is worth the chance.

My life changed the day (literally) that I said to myself, "What if it doesn't matter how I feel?" At that moment I put my feelings in second place and put my conscious desires in first place.

I had to repeat that statement over the next week or so (and as needed since) but what I've found is that I can do anything whether I feel like it or not because what I feel isn't as important as what I decide to do.

Up to that point I had lived my life giving emotions top priority. Now I have overthrown the belief that my feelings were the only thing that mattered in favor of the belief that getting myself to do stuff is more important.

My feelings are still around but by changing priorities I can work past them instead of getting derailed by them. In fact, the more that I do even when I don't feel like it the easier it is the next time. That is something I've never experienced before, and I've tried it all.

Now the burden of all those unmet expectations is lifting a little more each day and I have the satisfaction of incremental progress (a completely foreign concept in my family). I feel peace and confidence growing and am amazed every time I think about how much better everything is.

I hope this is of some help to you.

@trinity8-director: Thank you for the kind words. I'm currently working on this in my therapy sessions. ^_^

trinity8-director's comment is interesting, too. In Cognitive Behavior Therapy, one learns that Emotions FOLLOW Thoughts, not the other way around as most people experience. Here's an example:

1. I feel bad, therefore there must be a problem.
2. I am experiencing a problem, I don't like it, I tell myself I don't like it, and thus I feel bad.

I am trying to get my head around this, too. Forever I believed that I was physiologically damaged and thus had no control over my emotions. So, if I felt bad it was because I was predisposed to depression and there is nothing I can do. But what if it doesn't matter how I feel? Or, more to it, what if I am CREATING my emotions. And, if so, what if I could change them?

Hmmm....

Forever I believed that I was physiologically damaged and thus had no control over my emotions.

Boy, can I relate. I've spent the better part of four decades trying to figure how to get myself to feel like doing things. I assumed that was how productive people operated but I could never get my emotions to cooperate, at least not for very long.

The problem I found with leading with emotions is that everything had to be perfect before I could proceed. Obviously that rarely happened. So my other tool was crisis generation. That is, I would put things off until I reached the brink of catastrophe and use that emotion to propel me to action over the objections of the feelings that kept me from doing in the first place.

Not a recipe for lasting success, I can promise you.

But feelings are just feelings. They are real and then again they aren't. Real in the sense that you actuall you feel them (sometimes with terrible pain) but they aren't substantive. They are shadows of the mind. Sorry, I'm struggling for the right words here.

When I believed that my emotions were the most important thing then they tended to run wild. When I placed achievement as more important in my belief heirarchy then the brain started to get the message and the emotional girations began to subside.

WHAT HAPPENED TO ALL THE SHOUTING? I WISH I KNEW WHAT IT IS THAT MAKES ME SNEEZE LIKE A MOTHERFUCKER SOME MORNINGS ON THE TRAIN SO I CAN AVOID WHATEVER IT IS I'M ALLERGIC TO! IT CAN'T BE SOMETHING A PERSON IS WEARING BECAUSE IT HAPPENS ON DIFFERENT TRAINS (DIFFERENT PEOPLE, OBVIOUSLY), BUT WHAT THE FUCK CAN IT BE WHEN IT ONLY HAPPENS ONCE A WEEK OR SO? MAKE IT STOP!!!!

FUUUUUUCCCKKK!

I just wanted to join in. lol

FFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUU---

UNREAL EDITOR THREE HAS CRASHED THREE TIMES TODAY, ERASING ABOUT FIVE HOURS OF WORK. I HAVE A QUAD CORE AND FOUR GIGS OF RAM, WHY CAN'T I SAVE A FILE WITHOUT IT CRASHING

ALSO: IT'S BORING HERE.

I just need to run away.

I'm with you, zookeeper.

I HATE FUCKING DISHONEST SONS-OF-BITCHES THIEVES!!! MOTHER0-FUCKER GIVE ME BACK MY FUCKING BLACKBERRY PEARL. WHAT USE DOES A FUCKED UP METH-HEAD HAVE FOR A SOON TO BE DISCONNECTED WORTHLESS PIECE OF PLASTIC WHEN I TOLD YOU I'D GIVE YOU MONEY! A REWARD! FUCK YOU FUCKING FUCKER AND THE FUCKING TRAIN YOU CAME IN ON YOU FUCKTARD!!!!!

WHAT
THE
FUCK
SOLIDWORKS???

I finally had to install Solidworks 2008 (it's a 3-d modeling program), and it's eating up all my graphics processing power with fancy backgrounds and swishy menus.

I DO NOT NEED A COOL-LOOKING PROGRAM! I JUST WANT SOMETHING THAT WORKS AND LOADS THINGS SPEEDILY! YOU ARE A PIECE OF BLOATWARE!