The Bad and the Beautiful

Ever run into one of those people who are just closed off?  They are just stuck in their ways, and they don't want to even consider change, or take a different approach?

I ran into one of those people yesterday, and it is exceptionally difficult when I meet them in a mental health setting.   I am a product of the mental health system.    I can see some ways that it works very well and I can see some ways that it doesn't work well at all.   After running into to a very closed off person, I can see why the system is slow to change. 

I believe that the focus in mental health services needs to be on the individual receiving services and on what interventions they might need to become successful and meet their goals.   But often I think the focus is on the service provider and their belief system and what they have as goals.  Until the focus changes, I do not think that mental health services will be able to progress.   Customer service matters.  People matter.   People will always be more important than programs.

 I was very angry after hearing this person speak, and I ended up brooding over their words for a long time.   I even began to allow those words to shape my perception of myself and my beliefs.   For awhile, I even allowed myself to think "this has been a crappy day, and everything just sucks."

But then, I remembered my DBT skills.   Well, I should say, I remembered my DBT skills after I sort of let my emotions be in charge for several hours.  But, the point is, that I did at least remember these set of skills and did use them to take a new view of the entire situation.

DBT has made a huge difference in my life.   I no longer allow something like this to ruin my whole day, and then to go on to make my whole life seem like it is full of garbage.   DBT helps me with this in two ways.

First, I am able to get into a space where I can access my rational self and not just my emotional self.   This is called wise mind.    It is an intersection of your logical mind and your emotional mind.   My emotional mind is very powerful, and it has been in charge of my life for a very long time.   It takes a lot of effort on my part to keep it on a leash, so to speak.  In my wise mind frame of thought, I can remember that a lot of good things happened in that same day.   And those good things were also in a mental health setting.     There were far more good things than bad things in that day.

Second, I am able to look at the facts, verses my perception of the facts.   Before learning DBT, I looked at my perceptions of things as truth.   Now I am learning to pause and reflect more on what actually happened.   I look at the spin I put on things.  I just don't always do this right away, and I don't do it perfectly every time.    But, I allow myself to learn.   I don't have to do everything perfect, everyday, all of the time.    I can make mistakes, and I can learn from them.  That's how to grow.

So I guess I can count today as a day of growth.   Because I did allow that grouchy mood to take over for awhile, and I did dump it on a couple of people.   But I reeled it back in.   And that never used to happen.   I used to take my bad days and turn them into bad months.   So, all in all, it is still progress. And it really was a beautiful day.   I just had to focus to be able to see it clearly.

I would like to leave you with a song.  It is one of my favorite songs, by one of my favorite bands.  Here is U2's Beautiful Day:

 

 

 

And now for a message from our life coach cats:

 

Be Cool.

Sometimes you have to cool down, take a breath and check the facts.

 

 

Have an absolutely beautiful day everyone!