I am working on a thought experiment to get me over the hump and into my new life. There are three people whose philosophies or abilities I believe would greatly enhance my life. I hold these people in my mind and imagine them helping change my thought patterns from ones of anxiety, shame, failing and rejection into ones of acceptance, confidence, and belonging.
It has been second nature for me for some time to expect to fail, to expect to be rejected, to expect to be short on needed resources. I can actually change those "normal" thought patterns. Wayne Dyer, who is one of my three, writes that intention is a real substance that exists in the universe and that we can tap into it and when we do, when we set our intentions and begin via thought to make them real then we connect to that existing "intention".
I have held these beliefs for some time and have been working towards actuallizing them. It has been slower and more difficult than I expected. When I read threads here by others who have grown up with N parents and I see strugles which parallel my own I am greatly relieved. Some part of the shaming tells me still that I don't deserve to have a good life, to be accepted, to have friends, a good job, a social life and on and on. A big part of me still believes that and that is THE barrier still standing between me and "life".
I believe that these three people can help me move past this present darkness. One of the three is a woman named Agnes Sanford who died in the 70s I think. She was born in China to presbyterian missionaries and married and episcopal priest. When she was a young mother, still in China, a visiting priest noticed that she was suffering from depression. He asked her permission to pray for her healing and when he received it, he prayed successfully and relieved her of her depression. That was the beginning of her amzing life of healing. She found it easiest to heal children because they could believe with her more readily. She used visualization techniques, the technique that is used by many people in many different arenas. Norman Vincent Peale uses visualization.
I have tried for some time but my ability to visualize life the way I long it to be is somewhat limited. So I am going to put all my determination behind creating that image and sustaining it.
I come here because it is here that I feel connected, connected the way we should have all felt with familiy and friends - the connection that I lost at the end of my 20s, the loss which I finally understand was due in great part to my anger and resentment that grew out of the dark shadow shaming and scapegoating.
I am more comfortable in the shadows of shame and scapegoating and that is tradgic. I choose to move into the comfort of being loved and included and encouraged and energized and capable of using my mind to create great ideas and follow through on these ideas and bring them to fruition.
I have to overcome that big block. I must believe that I deserve someting better.
The best book and changing thoughts and thereby changing reality is Jeffery M. Schwartz's "The Mind the Brain". He lays out the thought process for overcoming OCD. He has had great success with patients. If OCD patients can do it so can I.
