Category Archives: Mental Health

Serenity Prayer

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Some of you may be familiar with the Serenity Prayer:

God grant me the
Serenity to accept the things I cannot change,
Courage to change the things I can, and
Wisdom to know the difference.

Twelve Step Programs

(For more history and the more complete versions: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Serenity_Prayer)

Here I present a variation:

Takes the Serenity Prayer to a new level…

I oftentimes need to remind myself that I am not in control. In Recovery CBT training I learned that I cannot control feelings and sensations but I can control thoughts and impulses.

What that means is that I may feel a certain way and want to react in anger or throw a temper tantrum, or whatever. That is an impulse and I can control that if I wish to.

I can also control what I think of a situation.

Remembering Names

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Something that I have struggled with my whole life is remembering names, especially of people I meet.

This past couple of years I have made an effort to remember names and three things have helped me:

1) One thing that really helped me start remembering names is deciding I have been living a lie – I do not have any more difficulty remembering names than the next person. Believing that about myself caused me to not even try.

2) The second thing that helped me remember names was repetition out loud. I would ask someone their name and repeat the name in our conversation that follows. By saying their name out loud a few times it would stick with me. This method has made a huge difference.

3) This should probably be first but I came to the realization that I was honouring my new friends by remembering their names and that if I cared about them and wanted their friendship, the least I could do was remember their name…

Overall, I was no longer going to have this negative can’t do attitude. I found out I may not be the best at remembering names of people from the past but I am doing a whole lot better than I ever thought I would in the present!

Exceptionality

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I am Another concept relates to being ‘exceptional.’ I always have a big problem with this and it is part of my cognitive behavior. For some reason I think things only happen to me, or or wonder why something happened to me. It is a negative thought process, a type of sabotage as described by Dr. Low of Recovery International.

Why does the bus pass me by and not wait for me to cross the street? The bus driver didn’t ignore my attempt to cross the street and get to the bus stop. He has a schedule to maintain and passengers on board that want to get to their destinations on schedule. He can’t wait for someone like me that is behind schedule and not standing at the bus stop waiting for him to arrive…

This is an example of my thought process.

Expectations

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There is a slogan from Dr. Low of Recovery International that we learn as part of out cognitive behavior training (CBT) that states, “Lower you expectations and your performance will rise.”

The basic idea behind this slogan is that if you set lower goals for yourself or lower what you expect to receive or achieve you will not only achieve those goals and receive what you expect but that your overall performance with be better.

I don’t know how many times I have expected some outcome and it didn’t materialize leading to disappointment and discouragement. It also led to ‘feelings of inadequacy’ or failure. The times I set more realistic goals or lowered my expectations, not only did I get better results, but my self-esteem was raised and the rest of my day went better.

I don’t know why I am ‘plagued’ with this problem or why I have a low self-esteem but remembering to practice this principal helps me on a daily basis. I have not achieved perfection – in fact I still need to try to practice this on a daily basis and still fall prey to this character defect…

Muscle Memory

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Something I learned from being involved in Recovery International and practicing cognitive behavioral training (CBT) is the concept of ‘muscle memory.’

Muscle memory is the idea that ‘Your muscles teach your brain a higher set of values’, something taught by Dr. Low who founded Recovery International and who pioneered CBT.

As a segway, most people probably associate the term ‘recovery’ as referring to recovery from alcoholism. I will elaborate on that concept in other posts as I am also involved in Alcoholics Anonymous.

Back to muscle memory: I am convinced that it is true and have noticed a number of things I have learned through my muscles. Hands on training is what most call it but it definitely applies to playing a musical instrument. That is why music learning in elementary school and high school is so crucial to a child’s learning and caries throughout their life.

In other posts I get into home schooling. I homeschooled my seven children while posted abroad on the mission field, some through to grade 12.

P.S. Dr. Low did not refer to CBT as therapy but rather as training since with training you can learn to help yourself. With therapy you always depend on a therapist to relieve your problem.