I am struggling with how to view recent difficulties differently. I have had a difficult two months in which I have felt knocked off course, been unable to act on my goals and have been struggling to manage strong negative emotions (and of course I feel that I should have been able to handle this better due to my work here in scholars but I have been struggling). I am finding it hard to write a different story about this in part because I don’t have any confidence that I won’t do the same thing in the future. I can see (intellectually) that by writing a different story I will then be able to create a different future for myself and therefore not repeat the past but I’m unable to get past the thought that “This is just who I am” or “you’ll always mess up like this” or (the most painful and a very common one of mine) “you’ve wasted a chance to be different and it’s too late to change”. I have tried alternative thoughts such as “I can just start again today”; “I have learnt a lot about myself and what really matters to me over these two months”; “maybe this is just part of the process and a necessary part of my journey” but I’m having problems making these stick. I end up feeling despairing about the past and think that this is just a pattern of behaviour that I have come up against again and again in my life and I’ll never be free to create the future I want. I can see all the thoughts that are causing me problems here but don’t feel I am able to deal with them successfully.