- When Elliot protests that he can’t just do nothing, he is seeing and judging himself from the perspective of a culture that looks with disdain at anything that smacks of inactivity. Under constant self-scrutiny as to whether he is being sufficiently productive, he feels ashamed when he judges himself to have come up short in this regard. But this leaves him at once too drained to work and unable to rest.
- I discuss how two patients came from early childhood to associate their worth and value with their levels of achievement. Under constant pressure from within to “be their best”, they were liable to feel empty and exhausted when, inevitably, they felt they’d failed to live up to this ideal self-image.
This is me.
Have you ever heard of the program Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction ? You might find it helpful and I'll try and find the link for the free online version I saw before. Many cities have classes you can attend too if that's more your style. Found it: http://palousemindfulness.com
I have! My company actually used to provide a lot of resources on that back in the day. This is one of those things that I don't think will improve without support. It's such an ingrained part of me to base who I am off what I'm doing and trying to achieve that trying to change that on my own...not sure. Not very good at saying no because of that, I use the phrase "feather in a cap" probably more often than is healthy. But it's also out of fear that stopping and slowing down will allow the worse mental affects (depression) to creep back in. Distraction via activity.