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“failure” success

Posted by pseudoname on February 5, 2006, at 2:34:58

I get stuck with about 90% of the stuff I want to do. I just can't bring myself to do it! This includes everything from brushing my teeth or mailing a package up to calling a sewer repairman. I just feel like I've got a ten-ton weight inside me. The harder I force myself, the heavier the weight gets.

I've psychoanalyzed these things inside out without success (at doing them). I've tried to mindfully accept or tolerate whatever bad feelings these actions might generate, but that's only marginally helpful.

My pdoc said it's OCD: I'm afraid of criticism and I need these actions to be super-super-perfect, which they're guaranteed not to be.

For years, I've said I'm just afraid of success, no matter how small.

Anyway, a couple days ago, I tried pre-emptively labeling an impossible task as a "Failure". I'd had to mail a package for the last 5 days and just couldn't bring myself to take the first step. I could lie there yelling at myself, "YOU HAVE TO DO THIS! JUST DO IT, YOU MORON!" No help.

Then I imagined, before I did it, that it was a failure. I imagined that even if I wrapped it perfectly and mailed it and it arrived in great condition and was well-received, it would still be a failure. And hey! All the tension over it went away. I DID IT, no problem. I even had the spontaneous thought, while doing it, "Eh, it doesn't have to be *perfect*."

Then I tried it on a constant struggle, brushing my teeth. I told myself, "Even if I brush each tooth individually, all the way around it, this will be a failure." Again, the tension and horrible struggle over brushing went away, and I just brushed them and that was that.

Sometimes helpful little "tricks" work a couple times and poop-out quickly. I wonder if this will.


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poster:pseudoname thread:606488
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/psycho/20060131/msgs/606488.html