Posted by Ev on June 27, 1999 at 12:48:47:
In Reply to: being a healthy 4 posted by jason on June 27, 1999 at 03:40:45:
: how did you become healthy?
: i am on my way again. trying to maintain. but i know i'll do it. you know, self-discipline and all. trying to build my self-esteem...baby steps. how did you do it? just curious. how do you maintain it? i have to say this: before i graduated college, acting change my life...it made me healthy; after grad., i went into my head...dealling which i think were issues from childhood--common among fours. YOU?
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: jason
Hello jason,
I don't consider myself to be a "healthy" 4 but I've got some insights about how to get there. I have made significant progress in that direction and give a lot of the credit to those on this board and the advice they've shared.
The magic formula...as close as I can determine...involves staying focused and engaged in the "present". This entails riding shotgun over one's thoughts and making decisions about which ones to entertain and which ones to disregard. I don't know that it's possible to keep from having certain thoughts in the first place...in fact I doubt seriously that it is...but I do know that you have the power to choose how to respond once they've crossed your mind.
It requires a good deal of will power and maturity...at least at the start...but the effort is certainly within our abilities. I've found that once you've firmly rejected the notion of entertaining certain thoughts those thoughts tend to come up much less frequently that than before. Thank goodness!!! :))
I felt as though I was "cheating" myself of my "true" emotions when I first started. I came to find out that I was just "saving" myself from some major pity parties. Ain't this sense of melancholy great??
Hope this helps. BTW, I regard myself as somewhere between stage 3-5 on Riso's health scale. I seem to fluctuate between the different levels. Maybe this is part of the learning curve manifesting itself or maybe it's because I'm one hell of a "unique kinda guy"!! :))
Ev