Month: May 2013

Posted in Weekly Blog

Midway through Living Life To The Full course

Posted on by A life worth living

Today at the group we talked about our new Facebook page and ideas for it. Group members requested having a music tab on the page to put inspirational music on that means something to them. A group member brought in lovely inspiring photo/poems in for the group.

We did the “I’m not good enough” section from the fourth part of the Living Life To The Full course. It taught us how we have all learned to have certain thoughts about ourself. We did a list of all the nasty things people have said about us, then all the good things people have said about us. It was much easier initially to put the nasty things up rather than the good things. Over time the “good things” page was much more full than the nasty things!

An example of one excercise was;

DON’T THINK THIS -“I can’t do it”, “I’m ugly”, “I’m boring”, “people don’t like me”, “I’m no good inside”

THINK THIS – “I can do it because i did”, “I’m not ugly, I’m normal like everyone else”, “i’m interesting”, “lots of people like me”, “i’m just like everyone else, with good and bad habits”

Thanks again to June (Action On Depression) for her inspiring work!

Posted in Weekly Blog

Biggest group yet!

Posted on by A life worth living

Today we had our biggest group yet! Once again, amazing support for one another.

It was great to have June back to do the next part of the Living Life To The Full course. Today the subject was “why does everything always go wrong. It was basically about dealing with bad thoughts and how to beat them. It was quite sad that a lot of people’s default thinking positions are automatically set to self-criticism. We looked at our unhelpful thinking styles and challenged them. The programme was;
1 Label it
2 Leave it
3 Stand up to it
4 Give yourself a break
5 Look at it differently

There was a great quote to help with people’s self-criticism of one’s self;
“I never thought i was a bully….until i listened to how i speak to myself. I think i owe myself an apology”

We look forward to June coming back next week to do the next part of the Living Life To The Full course.

Posted in Weekly Blog

First week of L.L.T.T.F. Course

Posted on by A life worth living

We had another big turnout for the group today which was great. People were commentating on how good it is being able to talk about things rather than holding things and struggling with certain thoughts.

Today it was great to welcome June Dickson (from Action On Depression) delivering the first part of the “Living Life To The Full” course. We looked at “I can’t be bothered doing anything” workbook.
Part of the exercise was filling in a diary page from the workbook evaluating what activities give us pleasure, achievement and closeness. By looking at these activities we can see what gives us energy. We then looked at what we have stopped enjoying doing while having a low mood. By setting little steps to achieve things it was felt that you could build yourself up as opposed to wanting things right away.

Everyone seemed to get a lot out of this exercise and we look forward to seeing June again next week for part II!

Posted in Weekly Blog

Supportive Group Discussion

Posted on by A life worth living

Today we had a very good group with a new person coming along for the first time. We had Lesley Galbraith from the Scottish Recovery Consortium as a guest.

We had a couple of fun exercises looking at what interests and inspires people. We looked at what people’s favourite film was and the nicest gift they had received. It was very interesting doing this as it showed where people’s passions lye and what they cherish. Most people’s greatest gift is having loved ones around as opposed to material gifts.

The group explained to Lesley what the group was all about and the ideas on what they would like to do if they could secure funding.