I struggle with negative thinking in the morning – my brain seems to feel like it’s the best time to poke at my self-esteem. When I do my thought download, some variation of the following model comes up for me every morning:

C – My client often makes last-minute requests
T – I make myself feel worthless because of her
F – anxiety
A – I focus on how she stresses me out, run the gamut of what crazy thing she’s going to say to me today/ask us for, feel bad that I’m even spending time thinking about this, buffer to avoid thinking about it, and tell myself mean things about myself, go into a downward spiral
R – I lose self-confidence and don’t accomplish my other goals

What happens is that I think about my client, my anxiety spikes, and my immediate reaction is “all the work I do on my self-esteem goes down the toilet because of her” – I know intellectually that she is not the reason – my thoughts are.

I *want* to be powerful for myself and believe in myself, but my brain seems to look for excuses as to why I need to stay in self-doubt, anxiety, etc. This may not be about my client at all – but she is a very dramatic trigger for me. But on weeks when we don’t work with her, I am able to do some great work with my bridge thoughts.

But I’m struggling where to go after I do my model about my thought about her/the situation. I’m rereading the Model Workbook, and can’t seem to jump from the “worthless” thoughts to anything else.

Right now, I need to choose to keep this client. That could change, but today she needs to remain a client. That is my decision.

Thus – I want to focus on creating thoughts that I can use when these self-deprecating thoughts come up that support me being powerful for myself, and feeling worthy no matter what, so I don’t feel like throwing myself off a bridge when I think about her or deal with her.

I have:
I am practicing being powerful for myself
I am worthy no matter what

But those don’t feel like enough…any suggestions on other avenues of thought, thoughts I could try, or resources that might help?

Thanks!