My amazing new book

This past Saturday I was having a seriously depressed day; I was in a really bad, bad place and my thoughts were running like mad and I was feeling like I would never be better again and my whole life would always be filled with sadness, depression and a manic mind and I was convinced that I would drive away everyone who cared about me because of the depression and crazy mind and that I would be alone for the rest of my life with no happiness ever. Like I said, a very very bad place. It was awful.

By the evening I had decided to make myself go for a walk, just to get out of the house (and it was cooler then in the evening). I didn't feel like I'd be happier but I knew logically that it was a good thing to do. I had also seen the title of a book that CeeCi mentioned finding in her house, and I emailed her to find out if she had read it yet and what she thought. When she emailed back she said hadn't read it but suggested I go buy it because obviously something was telling me to get it. And she also gave me wonderful support and reminded me that the mood would pass, which was good to hear from someone else as I couldn't make myself quite believe it.

So I got out of the house and went for a walk, and I of course took my camera with me because it gives me a purpose and I have such fun looking around at details and beauty and ugly to find things to photograph. I love my camera!

After walking for awhile, I went to a Borders and browsed around downstairs for awhile, and then made it upstairs to the psychology section, where I browsed for forever there (I love browsing and taking my sweet time in bookstores). I didn't find the book I was looking for but I did pick up about four others to look at more closely. And then before I sat down to examine my finds, I did another walk through the shelves and that time I saw a lone copy of the book!

I went through all the books pretty closely and decided on two, and by that time it was dark and the store was close to closing so I bought my books and walked back home and felt sooooooooooooooooo much better, both because of the exercise and being out and also because I was so excited about these books and getting them made me really feel like I was doing something positive and affirmative instead of just sitting back.

So my two books - the one that'll come second is called Self-Esteem (Third Edition): A proven program of cognitive techniques for assessing, improving & maintaining your self-esteem. I liked that it's really interactive as opposed to just being a book. There are exercises throughout the book - lists of things I'll have to think of and write down, etc. I'm excited about it, I really am. And I'll write about that book later when I start reading it.

But oh my gosh do I have to write about the first book! This is the book that CeeCi mentioned on her blog, and if I hadn't have been behind in reading her blog I wouldn't have just read that post on Saturday and seen the name of the book when I had just started realizing things about myself and my current way of thinking. If I'd read that title on any other day I may have possibly taken note of it and thought to myself that I might want to check it out sometime, and I may have even emailed the title to myself. But on Saturday, everything was just aligned to let me know that I needed to get that book - even from having CeeCi telling me to go get it and there being only one copy on the bookshelf (which I wouldn't have found had I not decided to look through all the shelves once more).

So the amazing book - Women Who Think Too Much: How to Break Free of Over-Thinking and Reclaim Your Life. I started reading it on Saturday night in bed and read the whole first chapter in partial amazement at how perfectly this book was talking about exactly my mind and my mental patterns. On Sunday I had to reread the first chapter so I could go through with my pen (I always read these kinds of books with a pen so I can underline stuff) and just get it even more in my head, and I read through about page 75.

I have underlined SO MUCH in this book already. The second paragraph of the first chapter of the book starts,

"Yet, when there is any pause in our daily activities, many of us are flooded with worries, thoughts, and emotions that swirl out of control, sucking our emotions and energy down, down, down. We are suffering from an epidemic of overthinking - getting caught in torrents of negative thoughts and emotions that overwhelm us and interfere with our functioning and well-being."

I knew right then that this book is perfect for me. There is SO MUCH in it already that speaks to me, that encourages me, that supports my realization that this is a serious problem I have, and I'm just starting to get into the plan to start controlling these thoughts.

And I can see that it's actually something that I can get to start working with much mental practice. On the train ride home today the book even had this to say, which also applies to me so well: "Indeed, some people are born with a stronger sense of self than others. But courage and self-confidence are muscles that grow with exercise. Deciding to adjust your focus and choose your own perspective...builds emotional strength so that it comes more easily and naturally the next time around."

Oh my gosh, I could go on and on about this book. In short, the book sets forth a three-step process. First, breaking the grip of the negative swirling thoughts (and it discusses a number of different possibilities for how to do this and gives good examples of each, as well as a quick reference list at the end of the chapter). Second, moving to higher mental thinking ground to really be able to clearly think about the things bothering us. And finally, avoiding future traps that will get us into our negative overthinking cycle. I've only finished reading about the first step so far, but the chapters on the other two steps also have quick reference lists at the end.

I'll stop now. Can you tell how excited I am by this book though? I know it's soooooo not going to be easy to start incorporating these steps into my thinking life, especially when I'm in a depressed mood (because as I learned also from the book, when we're depressed all our sad thoughts are so easily accessible because they're all connected through the nodes in our brains and because I overthink so often, those connections actually become stronger), but I love that it's all laid out and I can start working on it and have a plan. I love that! It gives me hope for the future, even today when I was having another depressed mood I still had some hope and started reading the book instead of thinking (okay I was thinking some but I didn't let myself spiral downward at least).

In other news, this site has some of the most amazing outdoor photographs! I spent so much time tonight admiring so many of them! And I can tell that many of them are created using a new technique that I only first heard of about a month ago, called HDR (and I can't remember off the top of my head what it stands for). When I was visiting Mr. H a couple weeks ago I took a bunch of pictures that I could use to try out this HDR thing, but I haven't yet actually tried to put them together and see what happens. This site makes me now want to get to learning that!

Okay, it's past my bedtime. Last night I slept on the couch so I could sleep in A/C, and my bedroom was SO HOT that I just kept the door closed. James woke me up many times during the night for some cuddling, and even little Emma woke me up a couple times by jumping up on me, and then my sore back woke me up at other times. So I'm really sleepy and my eyes are especially telling me how tired they are! It's cooler tonight so I'll be sleeping in my fabulous bed!

I've put a few of the pictures I took on Saturday night in this post (they aren't anything special but in my sad mood they pleased me and made me happy), but here's something that made me smile when I was walking, the whole truck was decorated this way. (The part that especially made me smile was the "+ Darth Cheney" at the side!) :)