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Originally Posted by loveit24/7  BD, you dirty, dirty man!  |
Quote:
Originally Posted by bucky Loveit, that is the understatement of the century.:  |
Flattery will get y'all nowhere.
I will 2nd LP's clarification above...we all feel various ways about various things, and generally we can't control how we feel about them. However, what we
can control is what we do with those feelings. We can look for a different perspective that sheds a positive, reasonable, pragmatic, or at least a mature perspective on something that is causing feelings we don't like or don't want to have. (And there's actually a name for this psychological process...it's called "cognitive restructuring". I've used it to deal or come to grips with many difficult things in my life.) The best starting point for me is to simply ask myself "Does this really matter that much? Where does it fit in the big picture? Is there something positive about this that I can find?"
For instance, I grew up with a schizophrenic parent. My teenage years were a particularly hard time of my life. I've been able to release all my anger from those years by looking at how the experience shaped my personality...enduring those teenage years made me very emotionally strong, made me able to generally control my own retaliation instincts, and prepared me to deal with many difficult people that I would meet later on. It taught me to avoid truly unnecessary conflicts with others by choosing my battles and shrugging off the small, unimportant stuff. It equipped me to calmly but steadfastly stand my ground when that is the right choice to make. Us human beings learn from challenges, and not all those challenges are pleasant.
BD
