Frustrated

[gfyourself]

I'm constantly frustrated. Spoke with my therapist this week and I'm able to articulate the fact that I'm addicted to always being just a little agitated (where it would be more profitable for me to be neutral, or (gasp) positive!
In order to deal with this agitation - I eat just to medicate so that I feel neutral or at least the agitation vanishes for awhile.
This is not good.
Also at the dentist a few weeks ago they remarked that (not the exact words) that I seem to clench my teeth alot. Which is true.

[Herself]

Did your therapist have any advice?

[gfyourself]

I don't recall from our discussion the other day but its a topic we've discussed several times in the past.
Some advice I recall
- you don't have to chase down every thought that comes through your head, they are just thoughts, you can just recognize them and let them pass (this take practice of course)
- the use of meditation, and also recognizing how I am feeling at that actual second (being present)
- the idea that I'm not going to be able to think myself out of this, that I have to feel my way out of this (eg. act more on feelings than thoughts).

[ghughes1980]

Advice others have given me:
Meditation/relaxation
exercise


what I have found effective:
reading(It gets your brain working on imagining a world/scenario different than your life/problems etc)
Finding an activity to do in the room your in that uses your hand eye co-ordination (Folding laundry, doing dishes etc, doesn't need to be house work but you can think of something I bet.)
Grab your ipod or what ever is handy and listen to a Podcast (Paul's is great but there are tons of them on tons of topics.) Gets your brain thinking about the topic being discussed rather than the non-sense in your head Recently I've been going through Totally Laime and Totally Married, Elizabeth and Andy are funny people and hell you might learn something along the way.
Play a video game just remember to moderate your time and don't get frustrated if you're doing badly. This is supposed to be fun, not work.
Put on some music and really concentrate on singing along, remembering all the lyrics will get your brain working away from your negative junk.

Anyway that's what "usually" works for me. If anyone has other tips, post them.

[gfyourself]

Writing down what you are grateful for (maybe a few a day, but you can repeat from day to day)
Take five mins to write down what you've made progress on (from a book about work, but I think it could apply to personal life as well)