Personal Development for Smart People Forums - View Single Post

indestructible · 01-07-2007, 01:46 AM

I understand where you are coming from, Living2xcess. I have experienced what you are talking about. In my case, I think that the problem was more with how I was reacting to the self-improvement programs, rather than the programs themselves.

One problem was handling setbacks. If I made a mistake, I would want to give up instead of forgiving myself and continuing, or learning from the mistake and changing my strategy. This all-or-nothing attitude about mistakes sometimes led to depression, because I saw the mistake as giant, and myself as hopeless. I did some exercises where I listed mistakes of people who I really admired - and it helped me see that it is fine to make mistakes - and they can be used as tools for learning. I knew this intellectually before of course, but absorbing it took a lot of work.

I also lacked self-acceptance. I believed that the author and the people that could follow the book or program were somehow perfect and I was flawed. Now I realize that probably even the people in books did not have a perfect road and I am fine even if it takes me a bit longer to get to the point that they have reached - or if I reach my own unique point instead of theirs. This took a lot of work, but realizing that I am "fine" even though I am not perfect. I read a book called "Radical Acceptance" by Tara Brach on this last year which was excellent.

I hope that this helps.

01-07-2007, 01:46 AM	#4 (permalink)
indestructible Junior Member Join Date: Dec 2006 Location: Toronto Posts: 20	I understand where you are coming from, Living2xcess. I have experienced what you are talking about. In my case, I think that the problem was more with how I was reacting to the self-improvement programs, rather than the programs themselves. One problem was handling setbacks. If I made a mistake, I would want to give up instead of forgiving myself and continuing, or learning from the mistake and changing my strategy. This all-or-nothing attitude about mistakes sometimes led to depression, because I saw the mistake as giant, and myself as hopeless. I did some exercises where I listed mistakes of people who I really admired - and it helped me see that it is fine to make mistakes - and they can be used as tools for learning. I knew this intellectually before of course, but absorbing it took a lot of work. I also lacked self-acceptance. I believed that the author and the people that could follow the book or program were somehow perfect and I was flawed. Now I realize that probably even the people in books did not have a perfect road and I am fine even if it takes me a bit longer to get to the point that they have reached - or if I reach my own unique point instead of theirs. This took a lot of work, but realizing that I am "fine" even though I am not perfect. I read a book called "Radical Acceptance" by Tara Brach on this last year which was excellent. I hope that this helps.