Brains!

I love therapy, it was the right choice...

AND the book arrived, and I started working through it immediately. Every single thing I've been saying from the start of my journey inwards is in this book. It's really great to feel like I was already on the right path to begin with. The wonderful thing about this, is it's a work book that really makes you sit down and analyze.

Here is what I underlined, that is directly related to what I have addressed since March 1:

"You can't move an inch toward what you really want when you’re beating up on yourself. You’ve got to stop blaming yourself, screw up your courage, set aside your suspicions that you’re about to do some family bashing and locate the source of your “supposed to” problem” (16).

“…action is absolutely essential for people who don’t know what they want” (20). “By exposing you to real-life experiences and seeing how they feel to you, action will help you do much better thinking than you could ever hope to do sitting still and weighing all the theoretical factors” (20). “But every time you let yourself down by not acting, you can feel your self-steem drop a few degrees” (21). “Because high self-esteem comes after action, not before” (21). “Telling yourself that you’re a good person doesn’t work for long” (21).

“Perhaps the best reason to plan is that following a plan gets you out into the world” (23). “Whichever kind of planning you do, stay aware and adjust your path to your feelings as you go” (24). “…don’t worry if it’s practical or not. Start acting on it” (26).

“I know one simple, surefire way to make your resistance come out into the open: Start moving toward a goal you really want and the resistance will leap out of hiding and start trying to talk you out of moving” (27). “The only reasonable conclusion I can draw is that you sense some kind of danger in your path. Your resistance is trying to protect you from that danger” (28).

“…When you are doing the right work you will feel connected, both to your soul and to the world outside you” (31). “You’ll never be happy just amusing yourself. I advise against choosing a long vacation as your life’s goal” (31). “Without an activity that really matters to you, you’re going to feel empty, even if you’ve set yourself up in Paradise and are living the life of the rich and famous. If you’re not involved in something you truly care about, anyplace can seem like a prison” (31). “If you think it’s selfish to put yourself first like this, think again because when you’re doing work you love it’s a gift to the world as well” (31)! “To do ‘great’ work, you have to be in love. And with work-love, as with people-love, there’s no accounting for chemistry. To live a life that is exciting and fulfilling, you can’t do what’s ‘right,’ you have to do what’s right for you” (32).

“You’ve stepped back from the opportunities that came your way, because you wanted safety” (45). “A lot of people hug the shore and are perfectly comfortable hugging it—but you are not comfortable. You are full of longing and regret. Deep down, you want adventure” (45). “Some kids leap before they look. Some look and then leap. You looked and didn’t leap” (47). “Do you regret the things you did, or the ones you didn’t have the courage to do” (47) “You’re risk-versus-safety problem isn’t real. When you pretend that your choices are total risk versus safety, that’s what I call ‘setup’” (48).

“You own a great treasure that you’re not using, not sharing” (48). “Until you can act on that energy, the rest of your life goes on hold” (48). “To assume that it is radical and requires the sacrifice of our entire lifestyle is to create a fiction that actually helps us stand still” (49).

“Escape dreams are different then real dreams” (50). “We have escape dreams sometimes when we’re on our way to work, or when we hear about the lives of the rich and famous…we don’t take escape dreams very seriously” (50). “Unlike escape dreams, you don’t muse easily about real dreams. As a matter of fact you might have to go digging to find them, because they often hide themselves. Why? Because remembering them can be a very emotional experience” (52). “…Scare the hell out you when you think about them, and usually involve no risk at all” (53).

“Jerry says: ‘Writing takes time! And I’m too tired at night because my job exhausts me. Anyway, my wife has a right to expect us to spend time together’. His wife: ‘Are you kidding? He ‘s so unhappy that I spend the whole evening consoling him. I wish he’d do anything that would make him happy! I’ve got my own stuff to do!’” (53).