Going to keep this thread now!

Awesome post Freda!! -joanxx

Thank you, sister. I know you feel me! 😀

I often wonder who reads my posts. It's weird not knowing. Not weird "bad", just weird. I often read someone's entry and don't comment. I'm not one to comment unless I feel I have something of value to say in that moment. It's weird to think someone doesn't know that you've "heard" them, though. I'm very philosophical this evening.

Well, after all that very real anger, some equally real gratitude. For me, to live fully is to experience both extremes of despair and joy.

Gratitude Day 7

1) I'm grateful for my CBT session this morning. I feel that the woman I see genuinely sees me as a valid person. I feel like she can appreciate that sometimes my thoughts are irrational and those can be worked on, but some genuinely sheet things have been or are a part of my reality and acknowledges when it's painful or scary because that's how it is, not because of the way I'm seeing it. This is how I feel truly 'heard'.

2) I'm grateful for the ability to express with words. So many people can't put things into words and it causes them great frustration and loneliness. Like they can't describe how they feel, so they can't be understood. I'm grateful to be pretty good at articulating, this means I feel heard. It feels great to feel heard.

3) I'm grateful for the sense of achievement I have gotten from today. I have walked about 4 miles, hoovered my flat and done some laundry. I also got myself to my 9am appointment on time, despite feeling tired. It feels good to achieve.

4) I'm grateful to myself for experiencing and expressing some raw pain today. This might sound strange but it feels healthy and strong for me to experience strong emotional pain. It makes me feel calmer, like I don't fear it as much if I can face it. It is wonderful to feel strong and empowered.

5) I'm grateful for this time I have. There are many negatives to being off work but at least I don't have many other demands on me while I am processing deep emotional pain and trauma. I feels great to have this freedom at this time.

6) I am grateful for my ability to laugh and my sense of humour. I taught the woman a new analogy this morning. I was speaking about what the government are doing with welfare reform and about how it just isn't OK. There's no justifying it, it's cruel and wrong. "You can't polish a t**d, you see, but you can roll it in glitter if you've got some 😉

7) I am grateful at this time to have my body back. What I mean by this, is I have deep seated body issues and it feels very vulnerable to share my body with someone, like I was recently. It is nice to have my body back all to myself.

8) I am grateful for the nutritious food I have eaten today, including a spinach, kiwi, banana and chia seed smoothie. It is great to feel nourished and healthy.

9) I am grateful for the listening ear of my ex husband this evening. He understands me and I enjoy feeling understood. He is a great friend.

10) I am grateful for more balance in my life lately. I am totally up for dealing with the nasty, murky, painful stuff but some days I feel at peace and this balance is revitalising.

I often avoid group discussions. I feel groups bring out the worst in people.

I just got so angry I had a panic attack tonight. I went to a discussion on poetry, in a mixed s*x group, of slightly more women than men. Men dominated the conversation massively. I'd say it was about 80% P***s. Seriously.

2 things pish me off about groups: someone always dominates, if it's mixed s*x men will talk a lot more than women. It's been well-researched and the trend is really strong. I get really angry about it because it spoils it for people. Quiet people often have the most fascinating things to share, people with verbal diarrhoea contribute for the sake of it and their contributions are often of less value. They just like the sound of their own voice.

Of course, not all men are like this. It's just a strong trend. It's to do with patriarchy, apparently. Even if they don't consciously realise it, people tend to socialise men to have higher social status and value. It can be most obviously demonstrated in the "strong man vs. bossy woman" attitude. It's much more socially acceptable for a male to domineer and lead so the same behaviour from a woman tends to get framed and interpreted more negatively. Men have strong leadership skills, women are bossy or b*****s. Fluff that, like!

Again, not tarring everyone with the same brush. It's just a common pattern, not everyone fits the pattern.

I was definitely raised to have less value than a male, I think that's why it boils my wee. It's wrong. Unjust.

I'm really quick to anger at the moment. I feel less insecure about it, less guilty, but it is very stressful on my body.

Agree it's a common scenario but is it possible to interject and say to one of the quiet ones "what's you opinion?" - the loud ones may not appreciate what they're doing and the quiet ones will appreciate the support. It often brings a change to the meeting or room and the loud ones can calm down and the quiet ones get a bit more confident. I appreciate each meeting is different but it's worth a shot? You're using your own stereotypes to judge real or perceived stereotypes. For the record I am not trying to be inflamatory here at all just trying to bring another perspective. Apologies if this adds to your annoyance tonight as it's not meant like that at all just trying to help you get to a solution.

Gratitude Day 8

1) I'm grateful for kindness today. A woman gave me a tip on how to help relieve a headache using a shiatsu point on my hand. It really helped! It is great to receive help.

2) I am grateful that I helped a friend to have a lightbulb moment yesterday. He struggles with crippling anxiety and I saw a pattern with him that I pointed out. He says it really helped him and he feels much better. It is great to be of service.

3) I am grateful for learning wonderful facts. Tonight I learned that poetry can rouse memory in those with dementia or alzeimers. Much like music and song can. What a cool fact - I hope it helps many people. It is great to learn.

4) I am grateful for Avocadoes. They heal my body real good! It is great to be healed.

5) I am grateful for sinus medication. Wow! how painful life would be without that. It is good to find comfort.

6) I am grateful I went out tonight. Even though I got really pished off. It is good to feel community.

7) I am grateful for the NHS. How good is that? Free healing. What's not to like?

8) I am grateful for chairs. They take the weight off my feet. It's good to rest.

9) I'm grateful for toasters. From freezer to crunchy bread in 60 seconds. It is great to eat nice things.

10) I'm grateful for guided meditations. It feels so nice to lie back and have a soothing voice talk to you. It is good to be soothed.

Change - no worries. That's a great suggestion. We did that - tried to draw the quieter ones out, and I raised it by suggesting feminism for the next topic as the women seemed "much quieter than the men tonight". Totally agree, it's managing personalities. I'm quite isolated, socially, at the moment. Think this is why I get more agitated. I need to express myself too and I know a lot of very self-indulgent gob sheets who get in the way of that! hahaha.

It's a good point you make about sometimes if you're looking to prove your theory you can see things in a biased way. This does make me notice it more easily and definitely can make you jump to conclusions and not give someone the benefit of the doubt but it was definitely a legit problem tonight.

Thanks for the input 🙂

Thanks for re-posting - I was worried i'd offended and was constantly refreshing to see if you posted back. I hope you come to a solution going forward. You seem like a fantastic person based on the posts I've read tonight. I hope you get over this addiction and you can come through this rough patch.

Hey, even if I'd taken issue with what you'd said, Change, doesn't mean it wasn't OK to say it.

People's anger often has nothing to do with the person they're angry with. Sometimes, if you punch me in the face, it will be about you, haha - BUT if you make a valid point and someone gets angry, I think it's more to do with them.

See, last night, I could see all of the reasons behind almost all of the people who were oversharing. One man said he didn't get out much and spent most of his time alone. Another said he had anxiety and was badly abused as a child. Those people just need more energy than some. I get that. Thing is, I AM them. I have anxiety, I spend most of my time alone, I have a greater need for energy, too. That's the thing. So many people do. How do we all get our needs met, though? I want to get my needs met just as much as them but I'm aware that by doing what they do, I'll stop someone else getting their needs met, so I don't.

This is a big trigger for me. I think it comes from my Mother being so emotionally demanding when I was a child. It was all about her and so it left a deficiency in me. Her emotions were more important than mine. It stopped me getting my needs met. I often feel like screaming "when will it be MY TURN???" The man who triggers my anger the most, I think reminds me of her. He is very self-indulgent and talks about himself constantly. When he is in the room, it's ALWAYS his turn. He always gets his needs fully met but to the expense of everyone else. It raises this childlike rage in me, where I want to scream "SHUT THE FLUFF UP!!!!" I want to say to him I know so much about you, what do you know about me?

My inner child is standing up and saying "My needs are just as important as yours, so it's my turn now, then it's her turn, over there, because her needs are important, too". I know a woman who I simply cannot be around at all. She has verbal diarrhoea and I feel literally suffocated when she is there. She is a nice enough person but she has no awareness of other people.

Do you know the real, honest-as-honest gets truth? I sometimes wish I was selfish enough to do what those people do. In a way, I'm jealous of their ability to just take what they need. I love my diary because of this. I don't even care if noone reads it, although, it does feel nice if someone does. I need attention. Everyone does. I don't need everyone's attention, just some. That is my truth. I'm crying as I write this but it's a wonderful release. The frustration finding it's way onto the page and out of my body.

I have done a lot of thinking and figuring stuff out today. It's been very positive. It hasn't been over-analysing which can be destructive, I find. It's been gaining insight on many levels.

I realised when I react so strongly to something that isn't really a big deal, it must be triggering very painful memories or associations for me. At the moment, I need to build on feeling MORE powerful, not less. When anything makes me feel more powerless at the moment, it freaks me out. It spells urgent danger as I'm not feeling very powerful already. It's like the petrol gauge going into the red zone. I feel dangerously low and that I can't maintain that state. Hence the fear and anger.

It now makes total sense to me why being around socially unaware people makes me feel so powerless. Particularly people who don't really listen or notice the feelings of others. It takes me back to my childhood and the people I was around then, who I felt completely powerless and insignificant around. The amount of acknowledgement and 'energy' I got then was ridiculously low and made me feel like noone cares, I was insignificant, not good enough, ignored, not wanted, irrelevant and so on. The people I was around last night were just self-indulgent, they didn't think everybody else didn't matter or didn't have any value. These were different people with different values to those of my family. I wasn't really in any danger, it just took me back emotionally to a place where I felt I was. As a child I was never taught that I had power. I was never taught that I was capable and strong. I wasn't treated like I was resilient and just as good as anyone else. Self-absorbed people spell danger to me, instinctively. I feel vulnerable around them, like I won't get my needs met if something happens, because they seem oblivious and unaware. This is why people who talk too much are difficult to be around - because I can't express myself if I need to. However, I'm not a child anymore. I can take my power back as an adult. I can interrupt them if necessary and explain that I need to be able to talk too. That would have been ignored as a child. I was trapped with people who were not only oblivious to me and my emotional needs, but some of them expected me to meet their needs. I can also leave if they are boring me with their endless wittering. I actually knew someone once who would completely ignore if you said you had to go and keep wittering on. They wouldn't stop for breath so I ended up forced to just close the door on them while they were still talking or hang up the phone on them. I never felt guilty or rude for doing this - they left me no choice! It's definitely not enjoyable being in the company of oblivious people as an adult, as a child it was scary.

Gratitude Day 9 - todays gratitude points will be better. Yesterday it was harder to think of positives so they were scraping the barrel a bit. I still did them, though!

1) I am grateful for the sound of my neighbours toddler squealing with excitement and joy when Daddy came home from work. It was very uplifting and made me smile. It is great to be uplifted.

2) I am grateful for friends who are on the same wavelength. I was messaging a friend who was also feeling angry yesterday. When I told her who had made me so angry, she wasn't surprised - it was someone who pishes her off, too. When she told me who pished her off - guess what? Someone I can't be doing with, either. It made me feel understood and validated that it was a genuinely annoying person who got me angry! haha! He makes her angry as well.

3) I am grateful for the Reiki I had this morning. The woman is lovely and kind and totally accepts me and my feelings. It is great to receive kindness and acceptance.

4) I am grateful for the video clips that have made me laugh today. It feels great to laugh.

5) I am grateful for onion rings. Phwoar!!!! Crispy onion rings and ketchup. Dead s**y!

6) I am grateful for my own love and care today. I've treated myself real good. It is good to love yourself.

7) I am grateful I was able to put myself first today and ask occupational health to rearrange my appointment. I was not in the right frame of mind to go to it so I looked after myself like a boss!

8) I am grateful for the laughter I had when my ex told me our rabbit we adopted was licking a wall. She's proper bonkers. It was funny hearing what she was doing!

9) I'm grateful for self-help videos - it's great to have a positive focus.

10) I'm grateful for the people who listen to me. Yesterday night made me focus on people who don't listen and forget about all the people who do. It is great to remember the positive side.

Feel very tired and run down today. Body needs to rest.

Gratitude Day 10

1) I'm grateful to have been inspired to find other ways to encourage more balance in the dominant people I know. Gentler, subtler ways, that will reinforce what they have done right. It feels great to influence minds for the greater good.

2) I'm grateful for hot running water to do my washing up. It is great to have clean things to eat with.

3) I'm grateful for my breath. It keeps me alive. It is great to be alive.

4) I'm grateful for my hands. They hold things for me. It is great to be able to hold things.

5) I'm grateful for a woman I know called Theresa. She is encouraging and empowering me. It is good to be encouraged and empowered.

6) I'm grateful for my patience. May it grow, as I would like to have more. My patience stops me from attacking people when I'm angry. It is good to refrain from attack. Peace is beautiful. Thank you, patience!

7) I'm grateful for organic companies who make it affordable for me to access organic fruit and vegetables. Organic is great. Thank you!

8) I'm grateful for clean water. It is great to have what I need.

9) I'm grateful for outsiders. Outsiders give us a new perspective to help us change things for the greater good. Positive change is wonderful!

10) I'm grateful for the food in my kitchen. It is great to be nourished.

Gratitude Day 11

1) I am extremely grateful for the PIP award letter that landed on my doormat yesterday. At last! I am safe to heal in my own time. It is wonderful to be safe.

2) I am grateful to my Dad for giving me a lift to an appointment many miles away, today. It is great to receive help.

3) I am grateful to be paid up to do a new energy healing course in January. I am looking forward to it. It is great to have exciting things in the future.

4) I am grateful for the time I spent raking fallen leaves in my Dad's back garden this afternoon. I felt at peace. It is wonderful to feel at peace.

5) I am grateful for timing. I am unlikely to be well enough to return to my job as it stands. I was possibly going to have to try anyway, due to welfare reforms. I no longer have to do this thanks to being awarded PIP. I found this out a few days before my occupational health appointment with work. I can be honest about my current state of mental health and negotiate what is best for me, now. It is great when timing means you have all the information you need to make the right decision for you.

6) I am grateful for my period. It is a sign of physical health. It is great to be healthy.

7) I am grateful for shiny hair. This is another sign of physical health. It is great to be healthy.

8) I am grateful for the things that have made me laugh today. It is great to laugh.

9) I am grateful to have been able to become a "tree sister", an initiative asking women to donate £10 per month with an aim of planting 1 million trees each year to combat climate change. We are powerful together, sisters. It is great to harness our power.

10) It is great to have an issue of "Positive News" to read after my Dad having BBC News' doom and gloom on in the background all day. Balance is wonderful.

Gratitude Day 12

1) I'm grateful for my powerful energy today. Dogs were stopping in their tracks and staring at me open mouthed, in the park. It is great to be powerful.

2) I'm grateful for the beautiful loves I got from my canine friends today. It is great to give love and receive love.

3) I'm grateful for the new feelings of purpose and drive I've been feeling. It is great to have purpose.

4) I'm grateful for the delicious meal I had tonight. It was healthy and full of organic veg. It is great to enjoy good food.

5) I'm grateful for the tasty vegan brownie I bought myself from a cafe today. It is great to experience pleasure.

6) I'm grateful for the clean sheets on my bed tonight. Clean sheets night is the best!

7) I'm grateful for the abundance of provisions in my kitchen. I am so lucky to have everything I need.

8) I'm grateful for mushrooms. I don't buy them often, just when I fancy them. Oof! they hit the spot today.

9) I'm grateful for my favourite mug. I just feel happy when I drink out of it.

10) I'm grateful for my travel mug. I will use it to keep warm at the animal rescue tomorrow.

Hi Freda,

I know you keep your gratitude journal mostly for yourself but wanted to say I enjoy reading it and I find it refreshing and helpful too! -joanxx

Aww, thank you Joan x x

Couple of Days off from gratitude journalling. Mostly due to feeling really, really exhausted. Back at it now! Going to start again at day 1 as the gratitude accumulates the longer you do it consistently 😉

Gratitude Day 1

1) I am grateful to hear that these lists give people inspiration. It is great to inspire.

2) I am grateful I was able to take my friends dog for a walk and quite enjoy it. I found it quite stressful last time because she was whining and pulling to go home! All doggy smiles today.

3) I'm grateful that the "Treesisters" campaign has been successful in meeting their first target of 1 million trees planted per year. Healing is coming to our planet! And so, it is.

4) I am grateful for the lovely lunch I had in my favourite cafe today. It felt great to be able to sit and enjoy a meal without much anxiety. It is great to do things I love.

5) I am grateful my friend enjoyed the muffin I bought for her, today. I had one too and it was yummy. It is good to give.

6) I am grateful to my friend for buying a rug from me today. I had bought it in a sale but it didn't really go with my carpet. It is great to receive and reduce waste.

7) I am grateful for the motivation I had to wash up, hoover, clean the loo and do laundry today. It is good to be motivated.

8) Unusual one, here! I am grateful for the big poos I had today! haha. I have a bit of IBS and it felt great to, er, get myself a clean slate.

9) I am grateful for my neighbours as they never cause me any stress. They are quiet and I feel safe around them. It is good to have peace and safety.

10) I am grateful for the 8 extra valium I just found. Wayhey! they are very fun to take. It is great to have fun in responsible doses 😉