Thought Download Reflections Part 2

Firstly I apologise for my spelling in my last AAC, when I said “I know a lot of they is pressie in putting on myself” I meant to say “I know of the pressure I’m putting on myself”. I wasn’t sure if that was obvious.

You said: So what if you miss something or make a mistake and then feel angry?
My response to that is: A lot of my actions and thoughts are because I’m so scared of someone telling me off, telling me I’ve done wrong or that coming from myself. That anger and annoyance I feel towards myself is really scary. I’d say more scary and unsettling than it coming from someone else.

I wish I knew where this all came from, where this right or wrong thinking came from. This fear of making a mistake and holding it against myself.
I think sometimes the latter stems from my judging myself in comparison to others. To me, others don’t make mistakes, even though that’s not true, I just don’t see them make mistakes or how they process it. Or what I think is a mistake, isn’t to them.
I also think there is fear that I’ll use it against myself by not then trying again or getting more fearful of my own reaction and emotions.

You also said: Try this idea on: what do you think about creating space for yourself to make a mistake or missing something by expecting that it is going to happen, and making a plan for when it does? What would be the worst that could happen if mistake making or forgetting something was what you actually planned for?
I apologise as I’ve had a lot of brain fog recently so want to make sense of this. So next time I start a task I need to plan for what I’ll do if I make a mistake or forget something and just allow myself it to happen and then put the plan in to action?
So almost like the hard day protocol, have a mistake protocol?
So it could almost be as simple as “oh I forgot that piece of info, that was silly of me wasn’t it. That’s ok, you know for next time. Let’s move on now”
Or should it be something else?

 

 

Answer:

 

What if it doesn’t matter at all where this all comes from (even though it’s natural to be curious)? Working on a thought pattern that causes pain doesn’t require an understanding of what caused the pain to grow in the first place. What it requires is a decision to do something different today and tomorrow and the day after that. You can decide that, regarless of why you’re scared of making a mistake, you’re not going to let that fear dominate your work life and your out-of-work life too. What it requires to do this is making a decision on purpose and on repeat until it becomes your preferred way of thinking.

Secondly, I love the idea of creating a mistake protocol – that’s EXACTLY what we mean when we say that! But let’s create space to go through the regular things you go through when you make a mistake, i.e., “I’ll probably get really angry at myself, and I’ll probably make it mean all kinds of things. And here’s how I’ll take care of myself when that happens: …” Just like in the Hard Day Protocol.

I also encourage you to get curious about how creating room for yourself to make a mistake might be okay, or even important. Come back with what you discover and become curious about.