Hey Brooke! With July’s work, I’m finding it difficult to find any past experience that I can dredge up a bad feeling about. This is good news – and I attribute that to my newfound belief that life has happened as it should have TO me. I honestly don’t have strong negative feelings about stuff done TO me. But I have 3 instances where I did things TO someone else throughout my life – that have a strong emotion around them. The basic message I’ve taken from these instances are “Do not do this again” – and that seems locked in. The logical/practical message is locked in. However, I still feel some negative emotion around these actions. I’d like to run some models by you, if that’s okay.

C: My Behavior
T: I should not have done that. I am bad for doing that.
F: Anxiety, sadness
A: Mull over thought/feelings
R: Feel bad about doing that. Don’t repeat situation.

Intentional Model:

C: My Behavior
T: I’m just thinking the thought “I’m bad for doing that” – and that’s okay. I’m not “bad”. What I did then was not what I would do now.
F: Less anxiety.
A: Dwell on it less, but still feel anxiety when thought of situation arises

This model also feels true:

C: My Behavior
T: I need to keep feeling bad about this situation – so I make sure I don’t do it again
F: Anxiety
A: Don’t repeat situation
R: Feel anxiety/bad about situation – and I don’t do it again

So I’m getting the correct results (Not repeating my behavior), but I think my brain is connecting the REASON I’m not doing this again is BECAUSE of the anxiety attached to the memories of these past situations. How do you get the brain to understand that if you release the negative feelings – you can still commit to not doing something? That “feeling bad” is not required to keep from doing something you know not to do?

Thoughts?