Lifehouse - Storm

This was played at IOP last night, It is a very powerful song.

[if you don't like something change it; if you can't change it, change the way you think about it]

Life has been interesting. I just finished week 3 of IOP. It’s been life changing, I’m so glad I’m there, I wish other people would understand how much this is helping me and just support the things I am doing. I’m finally learning to be happy again, I’m finally realizing what issues are causing my problems. I finally understand new things about myself and others.

EMDR has been the best part; it really gets into your core issues. And apparently my core issues aren’t what I thought they were. But being aware of what they are now allows me to make changes in my life so that those stresses are affecting my life as little as possible. But by doing this I think its causes problems because some don’t understand. Which is fine, I’m happy and learning to lessen stress in my life.

School is supposed to start in 2 weeks; I haven’t decided what I’m doing for sure. I’m trying to do as much online as possible since I am working full time and doing IOP full time. My DMV court hearing is next week; I’m nervous but have a positive outlook about it. Then I have my Pre Trial hearing the week after. All I can do is hope for good things and positive thinking.

[if you don't like something change it; if you can't change it, change the way you think about it]

Week 1: (July 26-30) What an exhausting week, but it was a great learning experience. I am in IOP for the next 7 weeks. Group Monday – Wednesday 6-9pm, One-on-One Wednesdays 9-10:15pm and Family Group 7-9pm on Thursdays. Add work on top of that and it’s a very long and tiring week. But I’m glad I am finally doing it. Soon I will be adding EMDR on Fridays, and then my week will be officially full. EMDR sounds so interesting I am very excited and nervous to start it. (www.emdr.com):

1. What is EMDR?
Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR) is a psychotherapy treatment that was originally designed to alleviate the distress associated with traumatic memories (Shapiro, 1989a, 1989b). Shapiro’s (2001) Adaptive Information Processing model posits that EMDR facilitates the accessing and processing of traumatic memories to bring these to an adaptive resolution. After successful treatment with EMDR, affective distress is relieved, negative beliefs are reformulated, and physiological arousal is reduced. During EMDR the client attends to emotionally disturbing material in brief sequential doses while simultaneously focusing on an external stimulus. Therapist directed lateral eye movements are the most commonly used external stimulus but a variety of other stimuli including hand-tapping and audio stimulation are often used (Shapiro, 1991). Shapiro (1995) hypothesizes that EMDR facilitates the accessing of the traumatic memory network, so that information processing is enhanced, with new associations forged between the traumatic memory and more adaptive memories or information. These new associations are thought to result in complete information processing, new learning, elimination of emotional distress, and development of cognitive insights. EMDR uses a three pronged protocol: (1) the past events that have laid the groundwork for dysfunction are processed, forging new associative links with adaptive information; (2) the current circumstances that elicit distress are targeted, and internal and external triggers are desensitized; (3) imaginal templates of future events are incorporated, to assist the client in acquiring the skills needed for adaptive functioning.

I moved back home on Saturday. It’s a good thing, I need to save up money and buy a new car since mine got totaled a little over a month ago in a car accident, my back is still hurting from it but hopefully Dr. Brady will get it to stop hurting.

Hopefully this week will be even better than last week; Change is a very interesting thing.

[Don't wait until everything is just right. It will never be perfect. There will always be challenges, obstacles and less than perfect conditions. So what. Get started now. With each step you take, you will grow stronger and stronger, more and more skilled, more and more self-confident and more and more successful.]