Thank you to all who came along, welcome to those who are new to the group and those who have not been for a while!
We had a varied range of conversation. Some discussion was around how events in our childhood influences us in our adulthood. Whether that's from; how we were treated, or the way we were brought up by our parents, or what happened to us during a difficult time that caused us pain or unhappiness. We cannot go back into our past to put these things right, so some of the ideas, regarding how folks have dealt with some of these issues, were very heartening.
We briefly touched on our emotions and the difficulties we experience when coming to terms with them, especially when these emotions relate to what happened to us in the past. Emotions can be very overwhelming at times. It’s not easy to find the compassion for ourselves during these moments. It's worth remembering that our emotions belong to us! They are there to protect us. Our emotions may be influenced by what happens around us but that influence cannot make you feel anything you feel it because you do. However we all agreed that we can feel a lot of compassion for others.
We talked a bit about how anxiety affects our thinking. Finding an activity that will distract us from our anxieties can be quite a challenge. Thank you for some of the idea’s put forward which may help. Try them if you can and we will talk some more about how things went. We also talked about some troublesome thoughts around health anxieties. These thoughts can be hard to shrug off. It may be worth trying to be realistic about such thoughts as they are just thoughts, without the evidence they mean nothing.
This is the little paragraph I found recently that some may find helpful:-
"We may not be able to eliminate all of life's pain and stresses, but we may be able to respond to them in a way that is kinder and more compassionate to ourselves and to those around us".
Looking forward to seeing you all next Monday
Have a good week
Ruth D