Come To Your Senses – more

Ideas from Dr. Block’s book Come To Your Senses:

He talks about the “depressor” that we all have in our heads. This is the voice that takes normal thoughts and catastrophizes them.

Quote from page 26: “What are you to do, for example, when you think, “I will never get this right,” “I’m lazy,” “I’m not good enough,” “I don’t have enough self-control” or “I’m not clever enough” ? These appear to be negative thoughts that you should avoid. On the contrary, they are wonderful, natural thoughts. The problem arises when the depressor steps in and creates a body-mind that is full of misery. Let’s look at an example. The thought “my husband forgot our anniversary” leads to a story line like “he doesn’t appreciate me; why did he forget? what did I do? Am I lovable? Mother said no one would ever love me. I have been jilted before ……”

What a great description of how our mind (ego) takes an event that is not emotionally charged and
then runs wild with it and leads us down the road to emotional upset.

The exercises in the book teach us to identify this wayward “voice”, label it as the “depressor”, and thus take away its power.

Great stuff!