Keep doing it until it gets boring, ‘cause it will. Might as well just get it out of the way now.

Pride, selfishness, feeling sorry for yourself and being shy all have one thing in common. Every one of them involve being self focused.

Take the spotlight off yourself and get into your community. Do volunteer work, or whatever, but stop making it be about you. When you get your perspective back, you’ll be better able to deal with reality.

I think you have already answered this question yourself, only you can make the change.
So get of your ass and do something.

Sometimes I find that a good, old-fashioned wallow does the trick. I mean go all out! Throw yourself on the bed and cry your head off. Find a babysitter for that beautiful boy of yours – all day – and just let all those bad feelings rise to the surface. Cry and moan until you can’t anymore. Then, pick yourself up, dust yourself off, and carry on. It’ll be ok, girlie. <3

For me, I had to get myself into a position where I was in control, and didn’t feel helpless. Which meant actually getting up off my backside and doing something to get myself out of the rut. Circumstances don’t change on their own. Not for the better, anyway.

You have to make a pact with yourself, or with a therapist if you have one, to do at least one small thing to move yourself toward your goal—preferably something you can keep as part of a changing lifestyle.

This is sort of the basis of cognitive-behavioral therapy [cbt] and it really can work. It worked for me.

Long ago I gave up sugar in my coffee, and I was feeling very sorry for myself when I did it. [I told myself that my life was no longer sweet so why should my coffee be?]

As you take a couple of baby steps you will begin to feel the first stirrings of control over your problems and as this grows, you will feel more hope because you are taking control. Eventually the steps add up and you will begin to see the changes and then you will feel even better. It can become an upward spiral.

One day at a time. There is no failure, only setbacks. Who’s in control here?

All of the above, plus ‘count your blessings’. You don’t have to be in the least bit religious or spiritual to do that, just look at how many legs/arms/eyes you have, and the fact that you have enough food to put weight on… Have a laugh at all that too! It can get quite hard to really ‘feel sorry for yourself’ when you gain a teensy bit of perspective – baby steps definitely – but a good giggle at your own plight might well help.

Following on from that, if you have a friend or close relative that doesn’t laugh at you for all this stuff, try sharing your ‘counted blessing’ with them, a bit every day. This is something I did years ago as part of a ‘happiness’ course (in the UK). I’m not a dippy hippy, but actually telling someone else that you have some good news, no matter how small, really does reinforce the desire to improve. If all you have done for yourself, say, today, is clean your teeth; tell them, it may make them laugh too. The beginnings of moving away from that ‘self focus’ towards a bit more self assurance will take some silliness. Go for it, but gently, you might surprise yourself… ;o)

@shrubbery Yes, I agree with you and whenever I feel like this I think that I just need to sit it out…However, I don’t know whether I force myself to move out of it too soon and never really get to the bottom of the despair or whether I just move on at the right time…
@snowberry I see your point. However, isn’t this just ignoring the problem?? We are still here after all and I think that when you feel so low it’s the hardest thing to do to actually get out there and do things for others…when you don’t really even feel worthy.
@Arbornaut Thank you but it’s easier said than done…having said that I’m going to do aerobics this afternoon..I will, I will I WILL
@augustlan Thank you sweetie x I might just try and do that..although I feel like I’ve been wallowing a while now :-(
@downtide yes…There is an element of responsibility and control in it. but I feel powerless…I feel like I’m my own worse enemy, constantly sabotaging my own efforts. Why do I do this? ...perhaps because I don’t feel I’m worth it…it’s very cyclical
@anartist ok…one small thing… I might have to give that some thought… thank you xx
@BarnacleBill I feel my my conditioned brain is in control….
@auntydeb I do keep a gratitude journal but thank you for your sharing idea x

I don’t know guys… I look back on my journals and diaries from last year and I just don’t seem to have moved on…gained any ground at all. I’m stuck. Thee;s a tendency to believe that I’m still doing what I’m doing because it works for me somehow but I can’t see how? Do I like being miserable? No. Am i just expecting too much from myself???

Hey Neb, start today…. one day at a time, and the first week will be the hardest…. and exercise and eat healthy. Best way to beat the blues is correct what caused them. Your situation can be changed with work… there are people in the terminal ward that don’t have that luxury. Count your blessings my friend. There are many. Health etc.

@BoBo1946 You are right of course xx Perhaps the practise of gratitude has become so daily and routine that I’ve lost the true essence and feeling of the concept… it can so easily just become words on a page…

Neb, you will be fine girl !

All apparent negative situation has the positive hidden within it….
Actually the order of all things is of this nature.,,
For it is the negative that reveals the positive.

Look for positive within the negatives…
Do not stop seeking until you do find it . and when you do you have found Life for yourself.

All that has to happen is that I have to be humbled by someone in a worse situation than me and sadly that happens a lot so I get that reality check often. I am lucky I have all my limbs, you know? I’m lucky I can walk so this obsession with my weight, please, I don’t know how lucky I am.

First you must fully accept who you are in the present moment.

Second, you must go fully into your current state of being without self repremanding or self rejection.

‘Shift’ happens, and the more you obsess on your weight, beat yourself up, the more you will stay in a place of resistance.

I have found in my experience that the more I attempt to control something, the more it eludes me.

Just let go, and when your focus shifts to other things, the weight will start to take care of itself.

What you resist, persists.

I recently lost about 8–9 lbs. over the course of about 8 weeks without even trying, just got busy, gave it no thought, and all of a sudden I noticed I was feeling lighter. lol

I have the attitude that everything is temporary, weight comes, it goes, my best advice is to simply stop the obsessive ruminating, get busy, and, it will take care of itself. :-)

@Coloma I totally get you and what you’re saying. I think the problem is…I’m not that busy… well I am sometimes… but the busyness that I am is all at home and all in my head (taking care of my son and house and studying). So I could be more busy… sometimes I can be ok during the day and then evening hits me…you see…

I have done aerobics this afternoon and it did make me feel a little better… but you see now I’m contemplating pizza and wine!!! What is wrong with me! Lol… It’s a weekday Lynne..get a grip and stop thinking about comfort food… that tastes so good washed down with a glass of wine, whilst watching your favourite TV…. hmmm…. NO! Stop it Lynne. Get off the computer and go and dry the dishes… or something

The ability to treat the past as the past is amazingly difficult and I think some of it has to do with our perception of time as a linear arrow. That might be accurate for some models, but it leaves us thinking that 5 minutes ago is somehow “closer” than 5 years ago. Everything in the past is just as in the past as everything else in the past.

Breath when you breath. That helps.

@nebule

I hear ya. I had problems with that too when my daughter was small.
It is hard to get out with a small child.

By the time my husband got home from work it was dark, and time for dinner, not easy to go for a run in the dark. lol

Food can become a reward and the trick is to find other, non-food rewards.

I am self employed, and while I am now divorced and my daughter is on her own, I still have times where keeping to a more disciplined routine is hard.

Don’t be too hard on yourself, I just had a 2 day ‘Dexter’ marathon with pizza and beer. lol

@nebule I am very introspective. I have learned through personal experience that being self focused in any way is one of the most unproductive habits there is. As soon as I realize that’s what I’m doing, I make every effort possible to change my attitude to one that is other-focused. Doing this can change your life, and make you want to be healthy and do what it takes to be healthy.

It sounds to me as if most of your issues revolve around your focus. You need to get your focus on others and off yourself. Take whatever spare time you have ( especially that “spare time” when you get so introspective and down on yourself ), and go out to do things for others: help in a soup kitchen, visit shut-ins, visit a retirement home, spend some time as a volunteer for a pre-school… there are a thousand ways to get your focus on others. You’ll be glad you did! : )

I believe most things happen in their own time, in cycles sort of. Well, except work schedules. It has always been that way for me- this week I have no energy so I’m taking my Bcomplex vitamins more regularly and just waiting for this lethargy to pass. I see nothing wrong with pizza and wine- just not the whole pizza or the whole bottle of wine- wine I could easily do. You have to include stuff you like in your diet. Make it a lifetime of just eating smaller portions if that helps. I’m terrible about exercise- terrible.

@nebule Jeez it was Christmas, didn’t we all overeat? Don’t beat yourself up over it. Tonight I fancied a pizza and do you know what I did to cure the craving? I ate a whole one while watching a film. However I also get a bit of exercise when I can and I also start the day off with a bowl of porridge which fills me up and I eat quite a lot of fruit which helps curb my crazy cravings for pizza.

Realize fully the truth expressed in this ancient bit of wisdom:

I complained when I had no shoes until I met a man with no feet.”

Some action I make has to show a result I want.