Do You Believe, Do You Have Faith....

...In Yourself????

Just going through my hotmail account there. Went on site i signed up for about self conficence, faith in yourself, esteem issues, positive thinking ect. Good few points actually. It got me thinking... Was in work the other day when i was asked to help Tom build a wall for steel to go on ( done a 3 month course in jail, but didn't complete it as moved jails..) Even though i knew what to do i didn't put my opinions forward as felt it wouldn't be right. It was not until Tom said he wasn't a brickie that i piped up. This is mental, cause i thought he was brickie i felt my input would be no good cause he knows way more than me. I even said i didn't know if the cement was ready...of course i fuc**** knew, was just scared to say....WHY WHY WHY WHY????

I've realised i get scared in new situations, feel like running away. Today, my partner has a sports day in work. All her collegue's will be there with their partners and i know ( cause it has been on my mind since she told me) i will feel inferior and out of place. What goes through my head is that they are all better than me with their fancy jobs/cars ect......

Even playing guitar nowadays. Now i'm no Eric Clapton, but i can play a few chords, but everytime i do the fu***** negative voice in my head wakes up, puts the boxing goves on and starts punching all the good thoughts out of me

What is diffrent today is i can't run when i feel scared.... no way, it is not an option. If i do i know i will fail in all aspects of my life. I have done that for most of my life and it got me nowhere. It is get busy living......or get busy ....

That website is called thinkrightnow.com, it is a site i'm going to go on more as i feel if i use it it can only help. Have a good sunday people, Kev
Hey Kev, hope you don't mind me putting my tuppence worth in...may not be helpful but...

Ask yourself whose voices it is in your head telling you you're no good...chances are someone once said the things you hear (maybe explicitly, or maybe they just implied it, and it may have been years and years ago...but something stuck)...we take on these voices and think they're our own, but they're not...we hear the criticism and the compliments bounce off us or we don't believe them.

I've read a lot of your posts and I think you're doing great...tell those voices they're talking crap...cos they are.

Take care
Maddy x
Hi dee4life,

I can relate to that and have fought it all my life. Boy, it's exhausting. I've been frightened of everything and everyone in one way or another. I was never good enough and spent all my life on hyperalert trying to spot when people were beginning to see through the image I was trying to present to them....and I'd work harder and harder to convince them (but really myself) that I was ok.

I'll be the one with the fancy job (international consultant)...although the car's old and banged up cos all my money went on drink and drugs and (just) saving the house from being repossessed.

It's a nightmare, isn't it.

I've been in counselling and read a lot about this stuff since hitting that life enhancing brick wall....and I reckon there's a lot of us out there......similar internal critics punishing us and warning us and criticising us with various degrees of sadism and leading us to try to cope in various ways, including shutting them up and removing them with drink and drugs, sex and rock and roll and being the bestest little boy in school or at work. All we wanted was to be ourselves and be happy, who decided we should be burdened with these beauties? lol

Retire them.

As I say, I've been in counselling for a year and for me it's been not so much a makeover as "bring the bulldozers in and start again, this time use the blueprint GOD gave you, not the one your parents needed you to be".....lol....but working out who I'm really meant to be when that inner critic and his bloody RuleBook isn't shouting it at me all the time is an interesting (and sometimes painful) process.....I keep sitting around like a gormless actor waiting for someone to "direct" me, then "oh!, you mean I get to write the SCRIPT! Jeez, what might THAT look like?".

I know a lot of who I've been all these years IS who I am....the RuleBook and the real me overlap quite a bit, but the great thing is that NOW, when I do a kind thing I FEEL good about it instead of feeling fake (previously some part of me knew it came from a rulebeek, not the REAL me, so it felt faked)....and the great thing is that the me who is emerging from the rubble of that "false Self" is someone I really want to be.

Don't know if that makes sense..... when you go to the sports day remember that many of us are faking it until we can make it.....and some never make it. Coming here and finding as much honesty as we can is a fine step towards becoming the best version of our true selves we possibly can.

Martin



Hi Kev ~
This has been going on for some time now...I remember your posts of a few months back and the issues were the same despite many successes you had recently experienced. Make a mental - or actual - list of all the good things about yourself, forget the negative ones and just concentrate on the positive...I'll get you started:

...you are supportive of others
...you are kind
...you are obviously intelligent
...you care about people
...you are a great friend

And I've never even met you! There's a type of therapy where the goal is to stop the patient from holding themselves to some higher standard and tries to repair flawed thinking patterns...you know...like everyone is somehow more whatever than you are. For example...if you say "I'm a loser because I don't know how to play basketball," then that must be true for every other person who doesn't know how to play basketball - and of course, it isn't. "I'm stupid because I can't draw well," must be true for everyone who doesn't draw well.

Anyway, it's interesting...and maybe if you catch your thinking you can ask yourself...is this true of everyone else...or do I think it only applies to me?

On another note, I have a graduate degree in Applied Linguistics and my husband is a high school graduate who went into the trades - he's a carpenter/contractor. I would put my man up against any so-called professional in every way - work ethic, professionalism, dedication, and intelligence. He constantly works to better himself, just as you do...he has a bit of a history as well, just so you don't think he's some angel =)

Your gal chose you for a reason...she sees all these things in you...look a little harder, Kev...in the mirror I mean.

You rock~MomNMore
--------you're a good partner


-------you're funny


-------you're intelligent


-------Out of any of all this freakin awesome people on this Board your progress has most impressed me, Kev...............I mean that.............you and Amity......seems each and every single day you both work on yourselves........it always hits me when you two post that it's daily you are working on being better people..................absolutely.

Mind ya everyone else is awesome as well, but I just feel proudest of you two for some reason.

"THOUGHT IS THE HIGHEST VIBRATION"
Thank you very much.... Thank you for the kind words, it feels weird reading them. Why can't i take praise? Or criticism for that matter?Thinking of keeping a thought diary, neg and pos daily to see why i think the way i do??

Done something yesteday, 4 new labouers have started in my work, i know all them from my scheme where i grew up. They all use. They were going on about what time we would finish at ect and how the lot of us should just say to the ganger , " we're going at 5" That way he would have no choice but to let us go. Now, i'm stupidly thinking what will people think all the time ect ect, but instantly i said, " i'm no doing it", they just looked at me funny. It felt so good as i never followed the crowd for once. Used to do that in jail when felt a wee bit under pressure, but didn't yest. Got bills to pay n all that. Even though they all might say things to old friends i don't care. I come first, eh? Felt really good.

Posted off letter to college the other week, i am on a waiting list as left it til the last minute(again!) but a least i applied for it. If i get refused i'm going into volunteering even though i'll need to give a disclosour about drugs, assault on record. This working for 5.52 an hour is doing my head in. Worth more than this!! Need to believe!!

You came on your own that's how you'll leave, with hope in your hands and air to breath...................

Have a good weekend. Peace, Love ,Empathy, Kev
5.52an hr. Kev yer worth three times that and fairplay for you to not giving into yer old using mates.Take care mucker.............Davey
Yeah mucker don't let them get ya down!

Kev, saying the word mucker for me well it's a huge thing.

LOL

No flies on you, Kev..............ya done good standing up and speaking your mind!
Kev your a joy. Be honest with yourself. You are one of the finest young men around.XX