Hey!

I'm quite busy these days. Which has made me a slow-ass-blogger. This I regret. But I don't regret all the things I have done instead! There was a lovely soup-event at my place on tuesday, and yesterday our lovely friends picked us up and drove us all to Malmö to see the final part of Pirates of the Carribean.

There was a lot of action, plenty of turns and lots of feeling "I have no idea what they are up to know - but they're pirates, so I guess it's part of the film". I felt a bit stupid though, for not following the plot completely. First of all I couldn't remember anything of the second film. I've only seen it once in the movies about a year ago, and I just can't recall what happened. Then during the one we saw yesterday, as I said, there were so many rapid turns in the story, and I just couldn't follow all the time. Then you can feel a bit stupid. Like "I can't follow the plot of a simple action flick, what's wrong with me!". But my cognitive psychology-boosted brain instantly told me "now you thought you were stupid - is that really reasonable? ". And I could put the thought in perspective, and it did not make me sad in the end (as it tried to by telling me I was stupid).

This morning I noticed another automatic thought that was bound for sad-making. I opened the fridge, and saw all the nice vegetables I bought two days ago, and thought - "I was supposed to make lunch-salads of that, and I haven't done it even once yet, now the salad is going to go bad, and I am just hopeless" and this was quickly followed by "and I haven't made my own muesli yet that I have wanted to do since April, I'm hopeless". But two thoughts containing "hopeless" in such a short timeframe set of the cognitive psychology alarm in my head, and I was able to put in a correct perspective, and it did not make me sad.

It's so important to notice your automatic thoughts, you have to focus, and then it is almost enough to just think "now I thought this and that", to put it in perspective and have it move away from you, instead of making you sad. If you subconsciously think (or consciously as a test, try it!) 100 times one day "I am hopeless" or "I am stupid", or "I am ugly", or why not a mix of them. And then see how you feel. We ALL have these automatic thoughts, and when you are sad, you can try to pay attention to them, and it is bound to make you less sad, I swear!

In the beginning of this work it is easy to think "oh, now I had that thought of I'm hopeless - man how stupid am I having these weird thoughts!". Like blaming yourself when you notice sad/bad thoughts, but please, just continue practising, and just again think "now I thought that it was stupid of me to have thoughts of being hopeless - is that REALLY reasonable", and soon, you'll master the skill perfectly! You just have to pay attention to the thoughts, to be able to change the way the make you feel!

Time to go to work soon.
Just finish my yoghurt and perhaps read a bit in the paper.