Reinventing Myself

[lindeelou]

Does anyone ever want to just erase their past, dump bad habits,
bury hurt feelings, stop feeling guilty, be a better friend, sister, daughter, lover, and basically reinvent themselves as a new and improved person? i'm not talking about one or two flaws or traits, i'm talking about a whole new you.
Sometimes i am happy with the person I am, all the hurt and joy both that I have absorbed over all these years, but at other times, I am tired of myself. I grow tired of the same old voice in my head that plays the same old tape.
The predictable reactions to people and events...I want to surprise myself with something...it's hard to explain. I'm bored with me. If I was my friend, I'd quit hanging out with me...
I wonder if this is uncommon for a person to feel this way? Perhaps a typical life transition or something?
If so, what steps might a person take on this journey to reinventing themselves? (short of psychotherapy)
Make a list?
Life is short, and i want to find that zest and vitality I used to have.
(nothing medical is wrong with me)

[Iksander]

I have rewritten my response to this post about 3 times now and each answer I have come up with is pointless. Each one may have changed me for life, but, every single choice I make in my life seems to change me....for life.

I will relate a summarised story of me, that may help in your own search.

Note: I am saying 'changed my life' in the sense that I changed ME and my life simply reflected that.

It started when I CHOSE to drop out of highschool (half way through senior year) and got my GED. That summer I moved to Las Vegas, Nevada and did the 'normal' thing there for a little bit. I then CHOSE completely out of the blue to go work on a metaphysical commune/ranch out in Kentucky (lasted about 5 months) which changed me SO dramatically I couldn't begin to describe it.

After that I moved back to my home town (Santa Fe, NM) where I proceeded to change my life, literally, month by month. I was working as a martial arts instructor full time and heavily active as a spiritual channeler (an odd blend of interests, I know). I then, after visiting spiritual friends in Missouri (which also changed my life) I CHOSE to go backpacking through India for 2 months which really changed my life.


That is a very sloppy summary, but, looking at it - the theme seems to be, anything different than what I am used to in my environment seems to cause a catharsis in the conception of myself.

The 'change' stays with me, but, I am more noticing now by returning to home the old me tends to 'slide' back into place instead of solidifying. So in tandem with your post it seems my desire right now is to really embody all of those character traits that I developed, NOW in my 'home' or 'normal' environment!!!

This is really long... I dunno if this helps you at all.

A mentor once told me - when you begin feeling stagnant about your life, it is time to travel. Not just down to Yosemite park (wonderful place though!) but to somewhere absolutely amazing, some place that will absorb you and give you a new environment to interface with (you have a symbiotic relationship with your environment, and your conception of yourself).

[Freelancer]

Originally Posted by lindeelou

Does anyone ever want to just erase their past, dump bad habits,
bury hurt feelings, stop feeling guilty, be a better friend, sister, daughter, lover, and basically reinvent themselves as a new and improved person? i'm not talking about one or two flaws or traits, i'm talking about a whole new you.
Sometimes i am happy with the person I am, all the hurt and joy both that I have absorbed over all these years, but at other times, I am tired of myself. I grow tired of the same old voice in my head that plays the same old tape.
The predictable reactions to people and events...I want to surprise myself with something...it's hard to explain. I'm bored with me. If I was my friend, I'd quit hanging out with me...
I wonder if this is uncommon for a person to feel this way? Perhaps a typical life transition or something?
If so, what steps might a person take on this journey to reinventing themselves? (short of psychotherapy)
Make a list?
Life is short, and i want to find that zest and vitality I used to have.
(nothing medical is wrong with me)

About 3-4 months ago my own quest in becoming a better person accelerated to a incredible speed. At this time I started reading PD but most importantly thinking about it and what is true for my life.

Now I realize that everybody and everything is constantly changing, this makes me unique in the current moment but never the same. To me reading has always been my preferred way of taking in information. This is not the same for everybody, some can learn it best through listening or talking about it. Perhaps sketching something is your preferred way of doing it.

Use your preferred way of learning to test new beliefs, see if they work for you. All you have to do is take a step back from yourself and imagine yourself as though you already have those beliefs. Than its simply a matter of deciding whether the new belief is benificial to YOU or not and changing your old belief system into a new belief system.

To me what I used was;
- Reading about PD
- Thinking about PD
- Looking at my life with a different viewpoint than before
- Imagining what a change would look and feel like
- If it feels and looks good than proceed if not discard it.
- Change my old beliefs by changing the choices I made in every day life.

The last step is really hard to explain, its mostly something I discovered how to do during my first view steps and this is a ongoing process that will probably continue untill I die (and perhaps beyond even that).

Note that it should be a constant moving forward, don't get stuck just reading (listening/talking/writing/drawing) about it also start thinking about it. And eventually start implementing the changes and changing your life forever.

As I said before this is the way I am changing myself, I don't know if its the most effecient or effective way but for now it seems to work for ME. You have to find your own way as well, just keep focusing on your goal;
Becoming a better person.

[Xieta]

I wrote this before knowing about this website, before even knowing about PD at all, so it may not help you because there's nothing new, but that's what got me started: Not as cute...: Arts and Crafts
I've been suffering from an Eating Disorder for months now, but I only started fighting (and quite successfully, I might add) then.

[Crowghost]

I have revamped my life a few times.
The last time I threw away all my old scripts about how to do things that result in change, and I forged my own way to doing it.
I would have to think for a while to really summarize what I did.

In the meantime, I just started doing a lot of the things I abandoned long ago just to try them out and also I combined them somewhat and came up with some things that weren't on my list to do. It kind of happened naturally really and I am happy I found them.

The main thing was one that I would have never thought I'd be doing because it looked to hard. Bu I am slowly pursuing it. And it is my favorite thing really

[uberinquisitive]

Originally Posted by Iksander

A mentor once told me - when you begin feeling stagnant about your life, it is time to travel. Not just down to Yosemite park (wonderful place though!) but to somewhere absolutely amazing, some place that will absorb you and give you a new environment to interface with (you have a symbiotic relationship with your environment, and your conception of yourself).

I absolutely, totally agree with this. If you are stagnant, and you want an electric jolt, change your physical environment. I've lived in Japan and Korea, and I was pushed out of my comfort zone.

As for the negative scripts in your head - I honestly can't think of anything better than EFT. Three months ago, my boyfriend killed himself. I used EFT to pull myself out of the crushing grief and guilt. I've tried traditional psychotherapy and cognitive therapy in the past - nothing works as fast as EFT.

[AidanMatthews216]

Originally Posted by lindeelou

Does anyone ever want to just erase their past, dump bad habits,
bury hurt feelings, stop feeling guilty, be a better friend, sister, daughter, lover, and basically reinvent themselves as a new and improved person? i'm not talking about one or two flaws or traits, i'm talking about a whole new you.
Sometimes i am happy with the person I am, all the hurt and joy both that I have absorbed over all these years, but at other times, I am tired of myself. I grow tired of the same old voice in my head that plays the same old tape.
The predictable reactions to people and events...I want to surprise myself with something...it's hard to explain. I'm bored with me. If I was my friend, I'd quit hanging out with me...
I wonder if this is uncommon for a person to feel this way? Perhaps a typical life transition or something?
If so, what steps might a person take on this journey to reinventing themselves? (short of psychotherapy)
Make a list?
Life is short, and i want to find that zest and vitality I used to have.
(nothing medical is wrong with me)

What you describe is exactly how I feel half the time.

[Nelson]

If I was my friend, I'd quit hanging out with me...

1. you may have self esteem issues. If you actually just consider yourself an unworthy person in general/hate yourself then I'd reccomend you find books that teach you to heighten self esteem or see a psychiatrist/psychlogist

2. There is another possibility if you don't hate yourself - this possibility is a lot harder to deal with. This is going to sound a little blunt but I hope you can forgive me: If your life sucks, stop sucking so much. Your attitude and actions determine the quality of your life. I'm not saying this to be mean, but a couple years ago I felt similar to how you say you are feeling and was very depressed. I felt this way because, I, as a person, sucked. I was lazy, got bad grades, had basically no useful skills, hated my family, was very antisocial and was afraid to try anything new.

I took a look in the mirror one day and realized that I sucked. When you suck who's responsibility is it to change? It's yours.

I decided then and there to change everything that sucked in my life. I changed my attitude toward my family and the world around me, I released my fears, I started to make friends, I developed skills that could potentially help my career, I worked hard enough to get good grades and I got a job.

Basically, what I'm saying is: If you don't hate yourself, then you hate your life. If you hate either of these it's your responsibility to change the situation. Not only is it your responsibility, but nobody can do it for you.

hope this helps.