clunky - hampers me, gets in the way vs. EFFECTIVE

Don't have to figure it out completely
if it's interfering
if it's getting in my way
then I need to stop doing it

Don't worry about deciding whether or not some things are healthy or what not
if I'm finding that it hampers me
then don't indulge in doing it

What can I do to help me thrive?

Increased vitality or increased suffering?
When I see myself at a point where I can make choices, which choices do I make?

I can make choices that enrich my life, help me grow, improve my relationships with myself and others.

Maybe it's okay to wash my hands more often

It's the figuring out whether or not I'm allowed to that creates the frenzied vortex.

Something I talked about trying when I was in Houston the first time: Just go ahead and do it more often and be at peace with doing it.

Versus figuring out whether it's the right answer or not of could I have gotten away with not washing my hands.

Experience sampling - goal for the day? Yes, use tap forms to implement it, talk at phone.

I want to remind myself to do more experience sampling.

I can set doing experience sampling as my goal for the day for one of the days I'm in Houston. Freewrite to carry it out as a concrete goal? Talk at my phone? Yes, using tap forms!!!!

Big picture questions to help with hoarding issues

I have trouble making decisions about what to keep and what to get rid of. So, I was really struck by how helpful it could be to ask myself:

Who are you with the object? Who are you if the object is gone?

Those questions came up in a conversation I had with a residential counselor at the Houston OCD Program, and she said she had more of these big picture questions. Getting her list of questions today has got me feeling quite hopeful. I need all the help I can get to support me in being able to make these decisions in a way that I can feel good about myself. These questions look like they'll keep me pointed in the right direction.

1. In making this decision what are your overall goals?

2. What values are you enforcing by discarding this item?  How would you choose to sustain a sense of responsibility for following your primary values?

3. How are others impacted if you keep this?  What other-focused values are you embracing if you let this item go?

4. Visualize how you would like your living space to look like…does this item fit with your image?

5. If there is a sense of loss or discomfort resulting from discarding this item, how will being mindful help?

6. What might you gain from discarding this item?  

7. Does this item change you as a person?

8. When was the last time you used this?

9. Will you remember this or be able to find it?

10. Is keeping this workable?

surely you would have to agree

still need to take this first draft that I dictated in in a hurry and make it into something more shareable

so it's become this pattern where I have this kind of like choking strangling somebody kind of gesture that I make while I'm thinking about how to important something is and how surely you would have to be anxious about this.

And people find ways of helping me see that No one wouldn't have to agree.

1 time when this happened I was talking to a residential counselor who does art therapy

In the beginning of rivers and tides there's a part where he's building a cone out of slate and it gets bigger as it goes up

and the thing I need to capture in this blog post has to do with this way he has of being with this process.

So I was saying to her but it could be made worse I could make it worse

and she used this example to give me a different way of looking at it

so it's about learning about yourself its learning about how you respond in situations where you feel this way

Make a plan, work a plan

pp. 44-46 of The Perfectionist's Handbook provides some strategies for behavior change:

• Commitment to action
• Identify alternative strategies
• Use cues and reminders
• Use a stepwise process
• Use social supports

With commitment to action, I often have trouble making a plan and working a plan...and especially with sticking to the plan... I've had some better success with this, occasionally, when I write out what I'm doing instead of just holding in my mind the different things I'm trying to do. I'd really like to get something set up for myself that will get me to write things out more and stick to them...