Musings On Therapy, Buddhism

This is going to come out fast and furious so I can remember as much as possible of what I just wrote and lost.

Brat, and Emilee would have called you a brat… I call you a B.R.A.T.   Not dismissing the P’s too quickly…the three P’s (Martin Seligman, psychologist, the three P’s…permanence, pervasiveness, personalization, easy to look up) and may not apply to your current situation but look at some other stuff that has influenced how you think and talk to yourself…my dad dying… things in a state of dying or breaking down and decay…and always thinking I would think that way… Some serious always’s that I established over the years in how I talk to myself about my self… and did not think that would change and they sort of permeating a lot if not all of how I thought or behaved.

Buddhist thoughts on suffering… but we cannot just suffer…life is full of suffering…how do we deal with and handle suffering… But suffering must mix with joy and also letting go of emotions…negative emotions…life being more than suffering…how do we maximize the positive emotions…yeah…old song about the affirmative, eliminate the negative…accentuate the positive…I know…lol

Emotions … product of how we think and what we tell ourselves…change what you say internally about some stuff (so much comes from internal tapes that play from what your parents told you) and you can influence your emotional state… this is sort of the essence of cognitive therapy and to some extent behavioral therapy…. Just get in there and stop the automatic tapes…the way we think or behave either at the thinking or the reacting/behaving part and you CAN change yourself if you are not happy with the way you are…you become more conscious of your own behavior… What distinguishes us from all other creatures on this planet…

My sending that vigil piece of writing to the new haven newspaper and they may print it or at least put it in their online publication…the Shoreline Press…not in letter to editor section cause it is about 800 words instead of 300, but either op-ed or another section…I got a call from them… which was exciting.

Not telling you you are arrogant… but you sound like a b.r.a.t.  and no don’t have a smart acronym for what it stands for…I can work on it tho…and don’t take offense…. Means you can be stubborn…mind of your own… smart… Sometimes you outsmart yourself and short circuit a line of thinking that might lead to thinking something different… how ‘bout Born Reactant And Teaser… ahhh…I don’t know…brain too foggy from going to sleep waaaaay late cause I was posting my vigil piece on my website and on BFAC… and wrote one sentence about 9/11 memorial and was too tired to type.

Also…the buddhist stuff… Jack Kornfield…. Jew and buddhist… cool combo… smart guy… very smart… very cool thinker… Established mindfulness meditation…friend of Thich Nat Han (wrote Peace is Every Step)… Ram Dass (wrote Be Here Now back in the 1970’s)…. Dalai Lama… well, the Dalai Lama… Supreme monk of all monks…carrier of knowledge of light and wisdom… etc etc…. well known Buddhist monks… what they have to teach us… what he has to teach us about what is mindfulness….. getting in touch with our true nature… what is our calling… what are we doing here…. Nothing toooooooooooooooooooooooo heavy… I read one of his books twenty years ago… just started…yesterday…on the train to NYC…reading another… Wisdom of the Heart… nahhhhhhhhhh….not light reading… but good for the soul. That was the first one of his that I read. Wisdom of the Soul, I think.

Neal Klein
Life After Emilee, on the loss of my wife to pancreatic cancer. I’m not accepting comments right now but please feel free to get in touch via my Contact page.